Original article (in Croatian) was published on 15/7/2024; Author: Anja Vladisavljević
Ian Plimer’s false claims that human activities do not affect the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide are spreading on Facebook.
The speech of Australian geologist Ian Plimer, who is known to the local public as a climate sceptic and the author of scientifically unfounded claims, is spreading on Facebook. Namely, he incorrectly claims that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), which is the cause of global warming, is not affected by human activities.
The video of the speech is subtitled and lasts about two minutes. It was created during the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Sydney in October 2022.
“I have no opinion. I have provable facts. These facts are confirmed and these facts are repeated. Fact #1 – No one has ever shown that human emissions of carbon dioxide are driving global warming. It was never shown. And if it could be shown, then you would have to show that 97% of emissions, which are natural, do not cause global warming. The game is over. We are dealing with fraud. It has been a scientific fraud since day one.
We hear the propaganda that an increase in the gas of life, a trace gas in the atmosphere, will bring disaster and that we will have rapid global warming. Sorry folks, we’ve known from chemistry for 200 years that it’s the exact inverse. I’m sure some of you tried this last night at dinner with champagne or beer and forgot to drink it and it got hot and kept bubbling and bubbling and bubbling and bubbling.
And that is the inverse solubility of carbon dioxide (CO2). We have known this for 200 years. We can see it from the ice cores. When we drill into the ice, we have chemical fingerprints that tell us what the temperature was, and we also have small pieces of trapped air. And we can show that when we had natural warming, some 650 to 6,000 years later, we had an increase in carbon dioxide. It is not the carbon dioxide that drives the temperature. It’s a zigzag in reverse. Another scam”, states the translation of Plimer’s speech.
Faktograf previously dealt with Plimer’s similar speech, which was held in November 2015, and concluded that it contained incorrect and unfounded claims.
Even a small increase in CO2 in the atmosphere disturbs the balance
Pointing out that 97 percent of carbon dioxide emissions are “natural”, Plimer tries to relativize the impact of its increase through “unnatural” means, i.e. human action.
Although anthropogenic emissions (those created by human activity) of carbon dioxide are indeed only a small part of annual emissions, they play a disproportionately strong role in driving global warming, writes Science Feedback, a web portal that deals with verifying claims in the field of science.
As the web portal explains, this may seem counterintuitive, but it becomes more clear when you consider the carbon (C) cycle in nature. The carbon cycle is a process in which plants convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds that feed plants and animals, and carbon is returned to the biosphere in inorganic form through the processes of respiration and decomposition. The problem is that since the beginning of the industrial era, human emissions have increased the input of CO2 into the atmosphere, while the removal of CO2 by natural processes has not increased to the same extent. The result of this imbalance is an increase in the stock of atmospheric CO2, which leads to global warming.
Faktograf has written several times about how carbon dioxide (CO2) warms the atmosphere (1, 2, 3, 4). The atmosphere is a mixture of gases that surrounds the Earth and participates in its rotation. Its basic ingredients are nitrogen (78.08 percent), oxygen (20.95 percent), argon (0.93 percent), varying amounts of water vapor (up to 4 percent), carbon dioxide (0.03 percent), and in insignificant amounts of hydrogen, helium, ozone, methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide, krypton and xenon. Carbon dioxide and methane are among the leading greenhouse gases that trap heat on Earth and cause climate change.
Although the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is not high, scientists emphasize that attention should be focused on its quantity, not its share. Before the industrial era, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million (ppm). By 2021, it has increased to 414 ppm, mainly due to human activity. Also, when talking about the impact of CO2 on the atmosphere, its behavior in combination with other gases should be taken into account.
As explained by Climate Scientists (an initiative of Croatian scientists that advocates for the communication of accurate and scientifically based information on climate change), in an interdependent combination with other potent greenhouse gases, among which water vapor is the most abundant, CO2 very successfully retains heat radiation on Earth, maintaining the surface temperature at a level that is suitable for life. A slight rise in temperature due to an increase in CO2 concentration causes an imbalance, i.e. increased evaporation of water from the ocean, which then further contributes to the rise in temperature.
“The problem arises due to a very small increase in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, which triggers numerous loops, which together cause an increase in the total energy of the atmosphere, and thus a disruption of the entire climate system”, write Climate Scientists.
As for the claim about natural CO2 emissions, it is refuted by the Intergovernmental Body of the United Nations (UN), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Natural causes of climate change that affect global temperature over a short timeframe (years to decades) have not significantly affected global temperatures since the pre-industrial era. A large volcanic eruption is an example of natural variability, which can cool global temperatures for several years, but does not change temperatures over much longer timeframes”, the IPCC writes.
Many greenhouse gases are naturally present in the atmosphere, but human activity contributes to their accumulation. Burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising global temperatures. They occur, for example, by using oil derivatives to drive cars or coal, gas or biomass to heat buildings. Land clearing and deforestation also increase CO2, because trees absorb carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis.
Additionally, the majority of the world’s scientific community (over 99 percent) agrees with the statement that the climate crisis is the result of human activity, that is, the fossil industry. A study published in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters in 2021 showed that in the peer-reviewed scientific literature (published from 2012 onwards), there is a consensus that climate change is caused by humans.
Global warming is not propaganda
The IPCC emphasizes that with every increase in global warming, extreme heat and precipitation become more frequent and intense.
“Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, caused by human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming from 1850 to 1900. This has already caused significant changes in the climate, including more extreme weather events, which have caused great damage to people and nature”, explains the UN website.
The impact of climate change is very tangible around the world, which is increasingly affected by droughts, forest fires and extreme rains. It is also present in Europe – in different forms and in different regions. The European Environment Agency reports that land and sea temperatures are rising, precipitation patterns are changing (making wet areas in Europe wetter, especially in winter, and dry areas drier, especially in summer), sea ice extent, glacier volume and snow cover are decreasing, and the sea level is growing. Also, climate-related extremes such as heat waves, heavy precipitation and droughts are becoming more frequent and severe in many European regions.
The UN also warns that if global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, there will be more heat waves, longer hot seasons and shorter cold seasons. At 2 degrees global warming, extreme heat would exceed critical tolerance thresholds more often with devastating effects on agriculture and human health.
Taking all this into account, as well as the fact that the author of the above-mentioned statements is a frequent source of disinformation about climate change (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), we rate this content as incorrect. The scientific community has proven that anthropogenic activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, is the main source of today’s atmospheric increase in CO2.
