Climate change: 11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering'
05 November 2019
Climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected, signatories say.
Snopes
A single eruption from a volcano puts 10,000 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all of human activity has throughout history.
False
Ian Plimer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Business career[edit]
Plimer is the former non-executive director of CBH Resources Limited from 1998 to 2010, former non-executive director of Angel Mining plc from 2003 to 2005, former director of Kimberley Metals Limited from 2008 to 2009, former director of KBL Mining Limited from 2008 to 2009 and former director of Ormil Energy Limited from 2010 to 2011.[3][16]
He is currently the non-executive deputy chairman of KEFI Minerals since 2006,[17] independent non-executive director of Ivanhoe Australia Limited since 2007,[18] chairman of TNT Mines Limited since 2010,[11][19] non-executive director of Niuminco Group Limited (formerly DSF International Holdings Limited) since 2011,[20][21] and non-executive director of Silver City Minerals Limited since 2011.[3][16][22][23][24]
According to a columnist in The Age, Plimer earned over $400,000 (AUD) from several of these companies, and he has mining shares and options worth hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars.[26] Plimer has stated that his business interests do not affect the independence of his beliefs.[22] He has also warned that the proposed Australian carbon-trading scheme could decimate the Australian mining industry.[6][27]
Volcanoes and CO2
Plimer has said that volcanic eruptions release more carbon dioxide (CO2) than human activity; in particular that submarine volcanoes emit large amounts of CO2 and that the influence of the gases from these volcanoes on the Earth's climate is under-represented in climate models.[33][34][35] The United States Geological Survey has calculated that human emissions of CO2 are about 130 times larger than volcanic emissions, including submarine emissions.[36][37][38] The Uni
Climatologists consider him a skeptic on climate change who misrepresents their data.
Specific rebuttal from 2014
Response to Global Warming Denialist E-mail - Volcanoes and Global Cooling
Someone recently asked me to fact check an e-mail for them, so I've decided to post that response here. The e-mail was supposedly quoting Ian Plimer, a geologist and professor at the University of Melbourne, and a noted climate change denialist. For anyone interested, I've posted that e-mail in its entirety below the fold.
The lead-in to the body of the article was, "Where Does the Carbon Dioxide Really Come From?" After a bit of ranting about Priuses, CFL bulbs, and the like, it got to its main point - that volcanoes supposedly spew out far more carbon dioxide than any human contributions. It even made the claim:
...when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.
Just a bit later, the e-mail claimed that the Earth has been cooling for the last century:
It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.
So, in response to the person who asked me to fact check this e-mail, I responded in three parts, as detailed below.
Correct Attribution/Credentials?
On the first level of fact-checking, I didn't find the actual source of this quote from Plimer. All I could find were reprints of this e-mail. So, I'm not sure if he actually wrote it (and given the tone, I would hope not), but it does appear consistent with claims of his I've found elsewhere. As far as his background, that's simply copied-and-pasted from Wikipedia, so it's probably correct.
Volcanic Emissions vs. Human Emissions:
Plimer is way off base here. I found many, many different sites dealing with this. Here are two of the better ones:
- USGS - Volcanic Gases and Climate Change Overview
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
- Discovery News - Humans Dwarf Volcanoes for CO2 Emissions
http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/ volcanoes-co2-people- emissions-climate-110627.htm
That first link contains these two tables, so that you can compare annual volcanic CO2 emissions to human emissions. It also contained the emissions for a couple notable eruptions, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Pinatubo. Annual human caused CO2 emissions are on the order of 134 times higher than total annual volcanic emissions (which includes submarine volcanos), and about 700 times higher than what was released by the one-time event of Mt. Pinatubo erupting.
| Yearly CO2 emitters | Billion metric tons per year (Gt/y) |
| Global volcanic emissions (highest preferred estimate) | 0.26 |
| Anthropogenic CO2 in 2010 (projected) | 35 |
| Light-duty vehicles (cars/trucks) | 3 |
| Approximately 24 1000-megawatt coal-fired power stations * | 0.22 |
| Argentina | 0.2 |
| Pakistan | 0.18 |
| Saudi Arabia | 0.44 |
| CO2 emission events | |
| Mount St. Helens, 18 May 1980 | 0.01 Gt |
| Mount Pinatubo, 15 June 1991 | 0.05 Gt |
| Number of Pinatubo-equivalent eruptions equal to annual anthropogenic CO2 | 700 |
| Number of Mount St. Helens-equivalent eruptions equal to annual anthropogenic CO2 | 3500 |
Global Cooling?
I've seen similar claims of global cooling a few times before, but usually on shorter time scales. It almost always comes down to cherry-picking data. Here's an article dealing with a similar claim made by David Rose last year, and another article dealing with longer term trends.
- Skeptical Science - Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1668
- Bad Astronomy - The Earth Is Warming Faster Now Than It Has in 11,000 Years
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/13/ global_warming_new_study_ shows_warming_is_faster_than_ it_has_been_in_11.html
Below is a good graph from the first article. It clearly shows a long term warming trend over the past several decades. But it's not a perfectly smooth line, and there are outliers both above and below the general trend. So, if you cherry-pick, as they show in the animation, and choose an appropriate (or rather, inappropriate) time period, you can say there's been cooling over that short term period, and then naively extrapolate that short term cooling to saying that it's a long term cooling trend. But when you look at the larger data set over several decades, it's clear which way the trend is going.
The second article dealt with longer term trends, addressing the e-mail's specific claim of cooling over the last century. Below is a graph from that article, showing the temperature anomaly for the past 11,000 years. I clearly shows that the rate of change right now is much higher than it's been than at any other point in that period, and a clear warming trend for the past century.
So, this e-mail contained nothing but the bogus claims I've come to expect from the climate change denialists. I really don't understand this mindset. Problems don't disappear just because you ignore them. Burying your head in the sand won't make global warming go away. We've already had to face some consequences of a changing climate, and rather quickly, we're going to have to start dealing with the more profound effects. Why not own up to it and start working on solutions now?
On Mon, Nov 11, 2019 at 5:35 PM Dr. Wally Quinlan <drwallyq@hotmail.com> wrote:
Boy will Al Gore be disappointed -
Interesting and scientific...See the credentials, and then face the smoggy facts below!Ian Rutherford Plimer is an Australian geologist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies.He has published 130 scientific papers, six books and edited the Encyclopedia of Geology. Sounds pretty learned/credible, don't you think?These are his extensive credentials:
Born 12 February 1946 Residence Australia Nationality Australian Fields Earth Science, Geology,
Mining EngineeringInstitutions The University of New England,
The University of Newcastle,
The University of Melbourne,
University of AdelaideAlma mater University of New South Wales,
Macquarie UniversityThesis The pipe deposits of tungsten-
molybdenum-bismuth in eastern
Australia(1976)Notable awards Eureka Prize (1995, 2002),
Centenary Medal(2003),
Clarke Medal (2004)
Where Does Carbon Dioxide Really Come From?
Professor Ian Plimer's book in a brief summary:
PLIMER: "Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland. Since its first spewing of volcanic ash, it has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.
Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - it's that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life.
I know....it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kids "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cent light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs.....well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days!
The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes, FOUR DAYS - by that volcano in Iceland has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud at any one time - EVERY DAY.
I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.
Yes, folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over One year - think about it.
Of course, I shouldn't spoil this 'touchy-feely tree-hugging' moment and mention the effect of natural solar and cosmic activity, and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keeps happening despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.
And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud, but the fact of the matter is that the wildfire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.
Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you, on the basis of the BOGUS 'human-caused' climate-change scenario.
Hey, isn't it interesting how they don't mention 'Global Warming' anymore, but just 'Climate Change?
It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming advocates got caught with their pants down.
And, just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme - that whopping new tax - imposed on you by your government, that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer.
It won't stop any volcanoes from erupting, that's for sure.
But, hey, .....go give the world a hug and have a nice day!
Posts
2 comments:
thought: if all of the forwards were one person, who does RWD think the majority are listening to? What news sources does RWD think the majority got their information about Jeffery Epstien from? "The View"? Rush Limbuaghs radio show?
---Mandalay Bay Hotel in 2017 fixated guy.
I realize that reading several RWD posts in a row has probably damaged my brain, but it looks like this is a "Yes, climate change is real and man-made" explanation wrapped around a "volcanoes are worse than coal, hyuk hyuk" email, right?
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