A company that admits Science is Doomed – Watts Up With That?

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

By three votes to two, the Supreme Court of England (before the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords) ruled last week in a 100-page judgment that Surrey County Council, in granting planning permission to UK Oil and Gas plc for oil production in Horse. Hill, Surrey, did not request or consider in the assessment of the estimate CO₂ emissions from third parties burning the 3.3 million barrels of oil that the Horse Hill field could produce over its lifetime.

The company said it would now “work with Surrey County Council as quickly as possible to rectify the situation, either through an amendment to the environmental impact assessment” in the original zoning application or “through a new retrospective application”.

Horse Hill drill site, 3 miles from Gatwick Airport, Surrey, AI simulation

Here, in full, are the “facts” as stated in the Supreme Court ruling:

“Anyone who is interested in the future of our planet now knows about the impact on the climate of burning fossil fuels – especially oil, coal and gas. When fossil fuels are burned, they release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – so called because they act like greenhouse in the earth’s atmosphere, trapping the sun’s heat and causing global surface temperatures to rise.According to the United Nations Environment Program (“UNEP”) Production Gap Report 2023, p 3, nearly 90% of global carbon dioxide emissions come from burning fossil fuels.

“The purpose of extracting fossil fuels is to make hydrocarbons available for combustion. Therefore it can be said with certainty that, if oil has been extracted from the ground, the carbon contained in it will sooner or later be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and will contribute to global warming .This is true even if only the net increase in greenhouse gas emissions is considered. Leaving oil in the ground does not lead to a corresponding increase in production elsewhere: see the 2019 Production Gap Report, p 50, based on a study using supply elasticities and demand from the economic literature, that every barrel of oil that is not developed in a region will result in 0.2 to 0.6 barrels that are not consumed globally in the long run.

“All that is required is to identify from published sources the appropriate conversion factor – that is the amount of carbon dioxide estimated during the combustion of each ton of oil produced. The total amount of estimated oil that will be produced is then multiplied by this conversion factor (3.22) to calculate the total combustion emissions … for each ton of oil produced Multiplying the total estimated output of the proposed project of 3.3 million tons of oil … by this factor gives an estimated 10.6 million tons of CO.₂ emissions over the life of the project.

“It is instructive to compare the amount of these emissions with the greenhouse gas emissions directly at the well site during the life of the project, … (which) is 140,958 tons of CO.₂. As well as providing this figure, the developer calculated the proportion that this figure would represent of the UK’s total carbon budget. Based on this calculation, the environmental statement describes the effect of the proposed development on the climate as ‘negligible’. If combustion emissions were included in the assessment, the greenhouse gas emissions figures associated with the project would be almost two orders of magnitude larger and could not be dismissed as ‘negligible’ in that way.

So, in total, only one page out of 100 in the judgment is only for facts. The reason, as usual, is that the company behind the project does not dare to contradict The Science. However, they tamely accept the Party Line. As a direct result of the failure to get to grips either with the physics or even with the economics of global warming, they are very expensive lost cases.

The consequences of the punishment, when 141,000 tons of CO₂ emitted at the drilling site during its lifetime is negligible, 10.6 million tons of CO₂ which will be emitted by third parties burning the oil produced on the site cannot be underestimated. The only basis for this ridiculous proposition, at the hinge of all judgments, is 10.6 million tons of CO.₂ which is 75 times 141,000 tons.

The “verdict” does not attempt to calculate the global warming amount of 10.74 million tons of CO.₂ shine by the Horse Hill project over the age will cause. So let’s do what no one else has done in this case (least of all the judges) – math.

As always, we will use mainstream, midrange data and methods. In doing so, we do not have to endorse the data or the methods. We welcome them ad argumentum – that is, for argument’s sake. This approach minimizes the scope to divert the discussion from the main point to be shown: 10.74 million tons of CO₂the amount of direct and indirect project emissions, is indeed not neglected in the reasonable definition.

We start with 10,740,000 tons of CO₂ emitted directly or indirectly by the project. But this value should be reduced right at the outset because, as the judgment says, if the oil in Horse Hill is not extracted some 40% of the unextracted oil will be extracted somewhere else. Savings by not continuing the project, the remaining 60%, is 6,444,000 tons.

The mass of the atmosphere is about 5.1 x 10¹⁵ tons (NASA 2022), and CO now₂ the concentration as measured in Mauna Loa is 427 parts per million. Therefore, the total mass of CO₂ in air is 5.1 x 10¹⁵ x 427 / 10⁶ = 2.178 trillion tons or so.

Thus, the reduction in CO₂ the concentration by not proceeding with the Horse Hill project is 6,444,000 x 427 / 2.178 trillion, or about 0.00126 ppmv. You can see where this is going.

Radiative pressure from changes in CO₂ concentration is 5 ln (C / C₀). Therefore, the abated pressure is 5 ln ((2,178 trillion – 6,444,000) / 2,178 trillion), or 0.0000148 W m^-2.

To convert Watts per square meter to abated heating, multiply by the transient 1.68 K 21^St-century warming by CO doubling₂ (Nijsse 2020) and divided by 3.93 W m^-2 double-CO₂ force to answer: 0.00000632 K, or less than one-150,000^Th from the degree.

But before allowing for the fact that the decadal rate of global warming in the third of the century since the IPCC (1990) has been half of what was then (and still is) predicted. So make that less than one-300,000^Th degree, or only one-third of one percent of 1/1000^Th a degree that will be abated even if the UK actually achieves net zero emissions by 2050 (which it won’t).

One redeeming feature: the court did not ban the project. It only requires Surrey County Council to take account of third party emissions of oil produced during the life of the project. All UK Oil and Gas has to do is submit this article to the Council and the Council can amend and confirm their decision to let the project go ahead.

Even if it fails, another route is available. A few years ago, the British “Supreme Court” was not wise enough to hold a publicized climate change propaganda event in Court 1, where – of course – only the Line Party was presented, and in the most tendentious and childish terms. .

The Supreme Court – which is now considered a joke – therefore, prejudged the climate question by showing a frank prejudice to the official narrative. Therefore, administrative law is prohibited from publishing any decision on questions involving climate change.

For English law recognizes only two principles of natural justice: first, both sides of the question – such as the climate question – must be heard fairly (audiatur et altera pars), and secondly, no judicial authority creates its own cause by expressing a general opinion about it except as part of the judgment in a particular case that can judge the cause (Nemo sit iudex in causa sua).

So, it is open to UK Oil and Gas to file a direct application to the European Court of Human Rights on Article 6 (“the right to a fair trial”):

“In the determination of civil rights and obligations … everyone has the right to a fair and public trial within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. …”

The company should immediately appeal to the Court of Human Rights on the grounds that in the climate question, the UK High Court is not an “independent and impartial court” and therefore, has no standing to overturn the findings of the lower courts. in favor of the company.

Appeals can be helpful in pointing out the following prejudices in the High Court of inadequate and lack of presentation of facts –

1. “Anyone who is interested in the future of our planet is now aware of the impact on the climate of burning fossil fuels.”

This is rank prejudice. It assumes without evidence that the impacts of burning coal, oil and gas have been or may be harmful. So far, this is proving to be very useful. Co₂ fertilization has increased the total biomass of all trees and other green plants on Earth by 15-30% in recent decades; cereal-crop yield per hectare has tripled in 60 years, partly thanks to more CO₂ in the air, since CO₂ is plant food; plants are now more resistant to drought conditions, because they reduce the number of stomata on the undersides of leaves through CO.₂ has inhaled and exhaled water; as a result, worldwide famine is at a record low; and these indirect benefits are as nothing when compared with the direct benefits given to the world by static and locomotive power produced by coal, oil and gas – benefits all ignored in judgment.

• Use of the term “fossil fuel”. This is propaganda jargon straight out of the climate-extremist playbook. There is no place in the court that is deemed unfair by an “independent and impartial” court.

Lodging the current appeal will protect the company’s position. The appeal can be dropped if (or, rather, when) Surrey County Council includes the above simple calculations in the assessment of the company’s zoning application and confirms that the drilling can proceed. Hopefully, just for once, a company will find the courage to fight the Blob.

• “… greenhouse gases – so called because they act like greenhouses in the earth’s atmosphere, …”.

No, they don’t act like greenhouses. When the CO molecule₂ in the air met with photons of light in its absorption band, it emits heat immediately, as if a small radiator had been turned on. This is done by quantum oscillations in the CO bending vibrational mode₂. This has nothing to do with the greenhouse method. “Greenhouse gas” is another propaganda term adopted without question and without qualification by prejudiced courts.

• “… trap the heat of the sun”.

No, radiatively active gases cannot withstand the Sun’s heat. They do not act like blankets. They act like radiators.

• “… causing global surface temperatures to rise.”

Here, as elsewhere, the judgment fails to ask the questions that a truly independent and impartial tribunal would ask: namely, by how much anthropogenic increase in CO₂ concentrations increase global temperature? The Supreme Court did not even bother to ask the question: it may be the main evidence that its decision is based on a prejudice that is not known because it is deep. The West cannot endure long in wanton stupidity on this scale.

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