Earth’s Anthropogenic Doomsday Mechanism
On 20 March 2023, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Cycle Report (AR6), consisting of (a) a Physical Science Basis Report, (b) an Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Report, and (c) a Mitigation of Climate Change Report, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. If this sounds like academic word salad, you are not alone.
The 2023 report was primarily based upon the October 2018 IPCC Physical Science Basis Report entitled, ‘Global Warming of 1.5 degrees C,’ as part of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), describing what we as a species would need to do, to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees C ( or 2.7 degrees F), annually. Conveniently, the assessment mirrors what was defined as a goal of the celebrated Paris Climate Agreement (PCA) — a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted on 12 December 2015. President Obama became an original signatory of the PCA and accepted it by executive order in September 2016.
The reader should note that the PCA was the Agreement from which President Trump removed the United States during his first term. It is also worth noting that President Biden rejoined the PCA on his first day in office as part of his agenda to undo most of President Trump’s agenda.
The 2018 IPCC Report was chaired by Dr. Hoesung Lee, whose education primarily consisted of an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. in economics from Rutgers University in New Jersey, as well as being an endowed professor at Korea University Graduate School of Energy and Environment, Seoul, Korea. The immediate question is whether Dr. Lee can scientifically conclude the IPCC’s warning of impending doom from climate change. Economics is considered a ‘soft’ science in that real science usually requires that a result be replicated repeatedly using a defined set of initial conditions. However, economics is not dependable as a science because the initial conditions do not necessarily guarantee the same result when tested.
Dr. Lee’s credentials, as they relate to the IPCC report, conclude that:
“Limiting Global Warming to 1.5 degrees C would avoid many climate change impacts, such as greater sea level rise, coral reef loss, and Arctic Ocean ice loss.”
The IPCC doomsday scenario specifically limits the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C to achieve global carbon emissions of net zero by 2050 (suggested in the PCA). But then gets rather loosey-goosey about the specific elements (# of feet of rise in sea level, % of coral reef loss, or % of Arctic Ocean ice loss) — quantities that would allegedly result in doomsday.
Dr. Lee’s credentials include numerous memberships in various environmental associations and institutes, directorships of corporations, associations, and institutes, and even chair and co-chair positions at ecological associations. This does not suggest that Dr. Lee’s expertise cannot lead to a correct finding in the IPCC assessment report.
The report asserted that member countries of the United Nations would be required to reduce their anthropogenic (human-caused) carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to net zero by approximately 2050 (just 32 years away). Although the year of reckoning is 2050, the alarming conclusion of the report is that collectively, as Earthlings, we would all be required to start dropping our human carbon footprint — “well before 2030.” The basis for the prediction was that for us (as a species) to be on the path to reduce carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 (just 12 years away), we would need to begin immediately. We’ve already lost a few years, which suggests we only have seven years to reach half the goal.
The lead mitigation author of the IPCC Report, Dr. Drew Shindell, PhD, verified these dire consequences. The report is an impressive collection of graphs and tables that are indecipherable to most people. However, Dr. Shindell and his colleagues felt it was sufficiently important to release it to the U.N. so that it would have a scientific basis to garner cooperation among the U.N. members.
The IPCC recommendations include deep, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and dramatically cutting other greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases. These vague parameters are allegedly researched by “thousands of experts worldwide [who] volunteer to author IPCC assessment reports.” Are these thousands of experts, dedicated scientists willing to work without compensation, or are they deemed experts by the report they submit? Is this another form of assembling an impressive c.v.?
Shindell’s methodology is similar to that of a Chinese company that reverse-engineers a product from a U.S. design. The method employs introductory physics and climate science, allowing scientists to calculate how much CO2 can continue to be emitted before global warming (climate change’s original name) exceeds 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) per year. Dr. Shindell and his colleagues worked backward from this basic premise to predict the timelines to remain under the annual limit.
This reporter is not a physicist, but it doesn’t take a physicist to understand that the Earth's population increases yearly. It is also logical to a layperson that anthropogenic CO2 emissions continue to rise along with the population. In its simplified form, there will eventually be a point when CO2 emissions overtake the oxygen (O2) emissions from our trees overnight.
The problem with the prognostications of the IPCC report is that it is based upon a small sampling of historical data to arrive at their doomsday prediction. Working backward from 2018, it estimates emissions based on assumptions and then uses those assumptions to predict a linear projection into the future to calculate our extinction. This is akin to accurately predicting the weather — years in advance.
This reporter remains cynical.
