Carbon Dioxide and Climate Warming Are Not a Problem – Watts Up With That?

By Andy May and Marcel Crok

We were powered by Marty Rowland and American Journal of Economics and Sociology (AJES) by writing a literature review paper supporting the position of skeptics (aka “deniers”) about dangerous man-made climate change. Our paper has been thoroughly reviewed and presents what we believe to be the most convincing arguments. Unfortunately, the paper is paywalled, but the submitted version, containing all the changes suggested by the peer-reviewers, can be downloaded here.

When drafting the article, we called the paper “Yes, but”. That means, yes, most scientists think CO is man-made₂ causes climate change and may be dangerous, but what about…? Other articles in this special climate issue from AJES deal with other viewpoints on human-made climate change and its potential dangers.

The featured image for this post, also shown below, is part of image 2 of the paper. It shows the index of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) compared to the HadCRUT4 detrended global average surface temperature record, the similarity is obvious. The AMO is the North Atlantic sea surface temperature record, detrended. AMO has been traced back to 1567AD ^{and clear natural oscillations. The facts that can be seen in HadCRUT4 show that at least some of the recent climate change is natural. These and other problems with the IPCC AR6 conclusions are discussed in the paper.}

It is the case that human emissions of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) control the climate as claimed in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) or that climate change is very dangerous. See excerpts from the IPCC AR6 Working Group II (WGII) below.

“Climate change caused by humans … has caused adverse impacts and losses and damages related to nature and humans, beyond natural climate variability. … The increase in extreme weather and climate has caused some irreversible impacts because natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt (high confidence).”

How to show that the speech is weak? There are many options. The AR6 WGI and WGII ​​reports define climate change as global warming since 1750 or 1850. The period before that date is generally referred to as the “pre-industrial period.” ^{The Little Ice Age, a phrase rarely used in AR6, extended from about 1300 to 1850. It was a very cold and miserable time for humanity, with a lot of extreme weather also recorded in historical records from all over the Northern Hemisphere. It was also a time of frequent famine and cold. We show that the current climate is better than it was, not worse.}

None the less, the IPCC claims that extreme weather is worse today than in the past. However, observations do not support this. Some extreme weather events, such as areas of land in drought conditions, ^{has decreased, not increased. Globally the occurrence of hurricanes shows no significant trend.}

Observations show no increased damage or danger to humans today due to extreme weather or global warming. ^{Climate change mitigation, according to AR6, means limiting the use of fossil fuels, although fossil fuels are still abundant and cheap. Since the current climate is probably better than the pre-industrial climate and we are not seeing an increase in extreme weather or climate deaths, we conclude that we can plan to adapt to future changes. Until the dangers are identified, there is no need to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.}

Gray, ST, Graumlich, LJ, Betancourt, JL, & Pederson, GT (2004). A tree-ring based reconstruction of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation since 1567 AD Geophys. Res. Lieut., 31. doi: 10.1029/2004GL019932

May, A., & Crok, M. (2024, May 29). Carbon dioxide and a warm climate are not the problem. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1-15. doi:10.1111/ajes.12579

Additional references can be downloaded here.

1. (Gray, Graumlich, Betancourt, & Pederson, 2004) ↑

2. (IPCC, 2022, p. 9) ↑

3. The observations used to characterize the pre-industrial period are taken from 1850-1900, as these are the earliest global measurements available. (IPCC, 2021, page 5, footnote 9) ↑

4. (IPCC, 2021, page 295, footnote c) ↑

5. (Lomborg, 2020) ↑

6. (Lomborg, 2020) and (IPCC, 2013, p. 216) ↑

7. (Crok & May, The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC, An Analysis of AR6, 2023, pp. 140-161) and (Scafetta N. , 2024) ↑

8. (IPCC, 2022b, pp. v, 6-13) and (Scafetta N., 2024) ↑

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