by Judith Curry
Last month at the University College London, atmospheric scientist Prof. Murry Salby, gave a presentation on man-made CO2 and its (lack of) impact on global climate.
The complete presentation is available on youtube [link].
Pierre Gosselin provides a summary of the talk [here]. Excerpts:
He begins by reminding that climate is a subject of “limited understanding” and that it one of “limited observation” He tells the audience that carbon in the atmosphere cannot be regulated and is NOT a pollutant. On why CO2 science got to where it is today, he cites Mark Twain: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
In his introduction he explains how CO2 will be a pollutant to our ecosystem only when the day arrives that water vapour becomes a pollutant – i.e. never in our geological lifetime. He says that energy sources that circumvent CO2 emissions are neither greener nor cleaner – just different.
Later he shows that although humans have emitted twice as much CO2 into the atmosphere over the last decade compared to a decade earlier, growth in atmospheric CO2 concentration did not change at all. He states: “The premise of the IPCC that increased atmospheric CO2 results from fossil fuels emissions is impossible.”
Salby says this is “hardly a surprise”. During the presentation Salby presents the scientific reasoning why CO2 is not the harmful gas it is claimed to be.
He concludes that 360 trillion dollars for climate protection will result in literally no benefit at all for citizens of the planet.
JC reflections
I watched most of the video on my way to the airport. I thought I would put this out there for discussion, although I don’t have time to write a detailed commentary. Here a few comments.
This is a very well crafted and clearly presented talk. However, Salby talks exceedingly slow (but this may have contributed to the ease of understanding the talk). He makes a number of very interesting points. He closes with some skeptic-pleasing comments on CO2 emissions policies. He clearly has a different perspective on the carbon budget than does the IPCC.
The talk is well worth listening to.
Filed under: Greenhouse effect