EPA endangerment finding endangers USA by Dennis T. Avery

Trump must reverse EPA’s climate change “Endangerment Finding”

Nine years ago, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency issued an “Endangerment Finding.” It claimed that methane leaks from natural gas production and pipelines, and manmade carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, cause dangerous global warming that poses an imminent danger to the health and wellbeing of Americans. However, the Finding was based on computerized climate models that couldn’t even successfully hind-cast the weather we’d had over the past century – much less forecast Earth’s climate 100 years into the future. In fact, Earth’s climate has changed frequently, often abruptly.

EPA essentially asserted that the 80% of our energy that comes from coal, oil and natural gas caused all our planet’s recent warming and any more warming is a long-term threat. Obama’s team thus bet in 2009 that Earth’s warming from 1976–98 would continue. But it didn’t. Never mind all those recent NOAA and NASA claims that 2016 was our “hottest year” ever. Satellites are our most honest indicator, and they say our planet’s temperature has risen an insignificant 0.02 degrees C (0.04 degrees F) since 1998.

That 20-year non-warming clearly shows that the models are worthless for prediction. But the Federal Appeals Court in Washington nevertheless recently cited methane emissions to block regulatory approval for a new natural gas pipeline. The ruling will encourage radical greens to keep thinking they can regulate gas and oil production and transport into oblivion. Alarmists across the country are already citing the new precedent in other cases, in effect demanding re-hearings on Trump’s entire energy plan.

If the courts decree that pipelines cause dangerous methane emissions, the U.S. will be forced to generate electricity increasingly via the infamous whimsies of wind and sunshine. But the models’ prediction of dangerously rising temperatures have proven wrong. The disparity between the models’ predictions and the thermometer readings is growing wider by the day. We should not base regulations on them.

In science, if your theory doesn’t take account of all the relevant data, you need a new theory.

Meanwhile, thousands of new coal-fired power plants are being built around the world – even in Europe. (Many Third World power plants are being built with Chinese financing.) The CO₂ from this new coal-fired power will dwarf whatever emissions the judges hope to prevent in America.

The President now risks losing the economic growth and millions of new jobs that abundant, affordable energy could and should create. Without new pipelines, our “miraculous” fracked gas will be trapped in the semideserts and mountains where the gas is found.

What danger can today’s EPA find in earth’s current 20-year non-warming? What ice-melt will that trigger? What sea level rise? World food production has just set a new record, in large part because higher CO₂ levels in the atmosphere act like fertilizer for crop plants (as well as for forests and grasslands).

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court should strongly encourage a Trump Endangerment reversal. Gorsuch stated in a 2016 opinion that the so-called Chevron Precedent is “difficult to square with the Constitution.” Chevron says courts should defer to federal judges on laws that are ambiguous. He believes it shifts too much power from Congress to unelected bureaucrats.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will need to build a strong case for the reversal, however, because the Supreme Court still does not have a reliable 5–4 conservative majority. Pruitt’s current approach of setting up competing red-teams vs. blue teams must help convince Justice Kennedy that the world today looks much different from when the EPA rubberstamped the IPCC and its failed climate models.

The science was not settled in 2009; and, fortunately, the weight of evidence has since shifted importantly toward the skeptics. It starts with the still-continuing 20-year non-warming. The best “answer” the alarmists can find is that “extra” CO₂ heat is hiding in the deep ocean depths. But cold water is heavier than warm water, so the warm water would have warmed the depths on its way down. NASA’s newer and more-accurate data comes from ARGO floats that periodically dive to sample water temperatures 2100 feet below the surface. They find no hidden heat.

Moreover, Earth has been warming, erratically but persistently, since 1715. How much of this warming was due to natural cycles, and how much was man-made? Of any manmade portion, how much was due to CO2, and how much to expanding Urban Heat Islands and cutting down forests? Climate realists say CO₂ added barely one degree C; alarmists claim it will increase temperatures by up to 12 degrees C!

How did hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria destroy so much property with only 0.02 degrees C of warming? Britain’s wooden-ship logbooks from 1700 to 1850 confirm that there were twice as many major landfalling Caribbean hurricanes per decade during the cold Little Ice Age as during the far warmer years from 1950 to 2000. Nor has the post-1998 weather produced more frequent or intensive storms, longer droughts, or any of the other climate impacts that Obama’s EPA insisted would happen.

The simple truth is that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has given the world a climate scare every 25 to 30 years since we got thermometers around 1850 (even though the PDO wasn’t even recognized until 1996). In 1845, the ships of Sir John Franklin’s Arctic expedition were crushed by ice. Just 64 years later, in 1909, Roald Amundsen sailed through a relatively warm, ice-free Northwest Passage. In the 1970s, we were warned urgently of a new Ice Age. And then came the “overheated” Al Gore years, 1976–1998.

The huge Pacific Ocean’s 60-year oscillation raises ocean temperatures – and thus the world’s – by 1 to 2 degrees C (1.8 to 3.6 degrees F) for about 30 years, then shifts back again for another 30 years. Every time it shifted in the past, alarmists extended the latest reading in a straight line for five or 20 years and screamed: “ Global Disaster!”  This time, the alarmists claim the non-warming isn’t real!

Today, there’s no doubt the models have predicted more than twice as much warming as we’ve observed. Given the high number of official thermometers that are located in urban areas and near airport tarmac, the models may be overpredicting by three-fold!

Another major new scientific finding also goes against the alarmists. Last year CERN (the multi-billion-dollar Institute for European Nuclear Research) told CERN Courier subscribers that all the climate models must be re-done. CERN reported that its CLOUD experiment had used its huge particle accelerator and a giant cloud chamber to demonstrate that the sun and cosmic rays are the real “mystery factors” in earth’s climate. The research supports the contention that CO₂is only a bit player.

CERN says the sun was weak during the Little Ice Age (indeed, during all the “little ice ages”). This allowed far more cosmic rays to hit our atmosphere. Those extra hits shattered millions more molecules into zillions of tiny “cloud seeds.” Each cloud seed carried an electric charge that attracted other molecules to form clumps – and gave us up to ten times as many low clouds. Earth cooled for centuries under overcast skies, as if under a giant awning. Then the sun became more active, there were fewer cosmic rays, the skies got sunnier, and Earth warmed – for centuries.

History says the Modern Warming is likely to last at least another two centuries. The Medieval Warming (350 years long) was the shortest past warming we can find. But first, CERN says, we will have to go through a 60-year Solar Sunspot Minimum that will drop Earth’s temperatures even lower than today for the next 60 years. The Minimums are another recently-recognized cycle: up to 200 years long.

How will a century of non-warming possibly endanger Americans? Trump should be eager to take on Obama’s outdated and ill-informed Endangerment Finding.

Dennis Avery is a former U.S. State Department senior analyst and co-author with astrophysicist Fred Singer of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

My note:  The claim that CO2 has caused significant warming has not been proven empirically and rests on greatly exaggerating its effects as an infrared-active gas by violating energy conservation and the physics of thermal radiation to create phantom photon streams, minimizing the many effects of water vapor, and ignoring the temperature gradient induced by gravity.  The reason the computer climate models are so wrong is mostly because so much bad physics was input into them.  The failures to input cloud cover changes and sunspot cycles just adds to the the many problems in the computer models.

Now it’s a war on pipelines by Paul Driessen

Efforts to block and sabotage pipelines hurt jobs, economic growth, middle class, human safety 

The radical environmentalist war on fossil fuels has opened a new front: a war on pipelines.

For years, activist zealots claimed the world was rapidly depleting its oil and natural gas supplies. The fracking revolution (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) obliterated that argument, by sending US oil and gas production to new heights. Indeed, it was record gas supplies and plummeting gas prices, combined with the Obama EPA war on coal, that closed down so many coal-fired power plants.

So the battle increasingly shifted to the far more emotional claim that continued reliance on fossil fuels (which provide over 80% of the US and global energy that powers modern civilization and living standards) will cause dangerous manmade global warming and climate change. This gave birth to the climate and renewable energy consortium and the “keep it in the ground” movement. No evidence to the contrary will budge them from their hysteria-laden talking points on looming climate cataclysms.

The journal Nature Geoscience recently published a careful study that found there has been far less planetary warming since 1998 than alarmist scientists and computer models had predicted. Because the models are based on the assumption that carbon dioxide drives climate change, they “run too hot,” resulting in predictions that deviate from actual temperature measurements more and more every year.

But instead of admitting they were wrong, the usual strident suspects in the climate crisis industry doubled down and attacked the study and any news outlet that called attention to it. Britain’s BBC denounced the inconvenient study and displayed not a whit of apology over its climate chaos claims.

Climate campaigners jumped all over Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, insisting without an iota of evidence that manmade greenhouse gases had created or at least intensified them. They’re making the equally absurd claim that shutting down US and Canadian pipelines will somehow reduce atmospheric CO2 levels and prevent climate change and extreme weather – even though China already has 2,363 coal-fired power plants and is adding 1,171 more; India has 589 and is adding another 446; Indonesia and Vietnam are adding 140 to their fleet; and even Germany is burning more coal every year.

Pipelines carry conventional, fracking and oil sands petroleum to markets: natural gas to homes and power plants, oil to refineries, oil and gas to petrochemical plants – and crude oil, refined products and liquefied natural gas to export terminals that send the energy to Europe and Asia. If they can’t prevent companies from producing oil and gas, hydrocarbon haters want to prevent them from shipping it.

“Obviously the best means of transporting oil is none,” said an activist involved in campaigns against the Keystone XL Pipeline. But if there is going to be increased production, “I would rather it go by train.”

Some pipeline protesters somehow think rail or truck transport means the oil will be used domestically, whereas pipelined crude will more likely go to coastal refineries and be shipped overseas. Others claim pipelines are less safe than truck or railroad tanker cars. They cite a 2013 International Energy Agency report that said railroad transport is six times more likely to have an accident than pipelines are – but pipelines spill three times as much oil per-billion-barrel-miles of fuel transported.

However, the study is seriously outdated. It analyzed data from 2004 to 2012 – before the surge in US oil production … and before a monumental increase in rail transportation was necessitated by protests and Obama Administration decisions blocking construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. 

In 2014, the USA set a new record for railroad tanker spills: 141 – versus an average of 24 during the years covered by the IEA report. Rail accidents in Colorado, Virginia, West Virginia and other states resulted in significant oil spills, evacuations and even serious explosions, but fortunately no deaths. However, a 2013 disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec burned 47 people to death and left many others seriously injured. The danger of moving oil on rails and highways through populated areas is clearly high.

Better track maintenance, stronger tanker cars, improved train scheduling and other safety practices would reduce rail accidents and spills. However, US State Department studies concluded that the Keystone pipeline would likely result in fewer than 520 barrels of crude being spilled annually, compared to 32,000 barrels in three rail spills that it evaluated. The same holds true for other modern pipelines.

New pipelines are built with state-of-the-art pipe and other components, to the latest design, manufacturing and construction specifications. Warning systems, automatic shutoff valves, 24/7/365 monitoring and other safeguards further minimize the risk of spills. New lines often replace older pipes that carry greater risks of corrosion and rupturing as they age. New lines can often be routed to avoid population centers and sensitive water and wildlife areas. Because they are underground, once they are installed and grasses are planted, pipelines are invisible except for occasional pumping stations, valves and other small facilities.

Environmentalists tend to focus on potential volumes of oil spilled when a major pipeline rupture occurs, and on impacts to waterways and wildlife. While these are important considerations, human safety should always be of paramount concern. Lac-Mégantic underscores that priority.

Light crude oils from North Dakota’s Bakken Field and other shale plays contain more dissolved gases and thus are more flammable than heavier crudes. That makes explosions more likely. On highways and along rail lines through rural or urban communities, the results would be devastating. The sheer volume of oil to be shipped further underscores these dangers.

The 1,172-mile-long Dakota Access Pipe Line alone carries some 470,000 barrels of oil every day. Hauling that quantity overland would require 700 rail tanker cars per day (256,000 per year) or 2,000 semi-trailer tanker trucks per day on our highways (730,000 per year)! All would go through populated areas along parts of their route. Multiply that times the Keystone and other pipelines in planning or under construction, and the rail/truck “alternative” is mind-boggling in its scale and risks.

A new technology transforms heavy crude oil into pill-sized pellets – self-sealing balls of bitumen that can then be moved in coal rail cars or transported in trucks with less risk of spills. That may eventually reduce the need for new pipelines; but the innovative idea is currently only in the testing stage.

Moreover, we cannot ship natural gas by tanker truck or rail car. Pipelines are essential for that – unless the gas is chilled and liquefied, adding major cost and safety considerations. That’s one more reason 2.5 million miles of liquid petroleum, gas transmission and gas distribution lines already crisscross the USA.

Even more important, some activists are now going far beyond mere rhetoric and protests – and engaging in sabotage of pipeline construction equipment and even pipeline safety valves. These intolerable acts should be met with police action, major fines and lengthy jail terms. Free speech and peaceful protests are a constitutional right. Eco-terrorism and threats to public safety cannot be tolerated.

These radical activists would never give up their reliance on – and addiction to – computers, smart phones, synthetic fiber shoes and clothing, affordable heating and air conditioning, cars, skis, kayaks, wind turbines and solar panels, and all the other blessings that petroleum brings. They should not expect the rest of us to give them up, either. Especially based on the flimsy arguments they present.

For all these reasons, it is hard to understand the increasing opposition of some states and communities to new pipelines: from Minnesota to New York and even Virginia and West Virginia.

It is even harder to understand or tolerate the actions of these tax-exempt anti-pipeline organizations – and equally callous and devious tax-exempt outfits that fund the radical groups: from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to the Sea Change Foundation and its secretive Russian donors, and even to railroad tycoon Warren Buffett’s NoVo Foundation. If they can block pipelines, they will next block rail and truck transport.

If an increasingly divided, partisan, dysfunctional Congress cannot address these problems, let us hope the Trump Administration and some state governors and legislators will do so.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and other books on the environment.

Note added by Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.:  Warren Buffet may not be among those trying next to block the transport of oil and gas by railroad cars.  Now that he is buying a large share of Pilot Flying J, he may not even oppose its movement by truck.

Thermal Radiation Basics and Their Violation by the Settled Science of the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis

The Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis rests upon a false thermal radiation foundation.  It is riddled with further errors, which I have written many papers about.  This foundational thermal radiation error needs more examination.

Basically this error assumes that the Earth’s surface and the infrared-active gases in the atmosphere, commonly called the greenhouse gases, act like black body radiators and absorbers with respect to longwave infrared radiation.  This infrared longwave radiation is the important thermal radiation at temperatures in the range of those of the Earth’s surface and the infrared-active gases in the atmosphere.  It further assumes that the thermal radiation emitted by these bodies is the same as it would be if that body is surrounded by vacuum at a temperature of absolute zero, or 0 Kelvin.

My discussion in this paper will be centered on this last assertion by the catastrophists that thermal radiation emitted by a body at temperature T is at a rate per unit area of P = σT⁴, which is called the Stefan-Boltzmann Law of Thermal Radiation, even when that body is surrounded by, or itself surrounds a body, which is not at 0 K.  This wrongheaded belief is one widely held by physicists as well as by climate scientists.  I will show that the application of this idea of radiative emission by black bodies violates the most fundamental property of a black body radiator.

I am going to address this issue by means of the most fundamental characteristic of the thermal properties of black body radiators, namely that the energy density e or the energy per unit volume of the electromagnetic field inside the black body cavity is given by Stefan’s Law:

e = aT⁴ ,

where a is Stefan’s constant and

a = 7.57 x 10^-16 J/m³K⁴

where J is the unit of energy Joules, m is the unit of meters, and K is the unit of the absolute Kelvin temperature for which 273.15 K = 0.00⁰C.  A 1 K temperature change is a 1⁰C temperature change.  I showed the derivation of this energy density for a black body cavity in an earlier paper, The Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis and Thermal Radiation – A Critical Review.  I am interested in the energy density because it is easier to correctly tie to the Conservation of Energy and to a rational appreciation of the properties of a black body radiator.  This will allow me to prove that the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis is based upon a false introduction into the Earth climate system of massive amounts of radiation energy which do not really exist.

Why does a surface, which does not really have the characteristics of the model used to derive the properties attributed to a black body cavity, nonetheless emit thermal radiation as a black body cavity with a tiny peephole in the wall of the cavity would?  When one peers into that tiny peephole in the wall of the black body cavity, one sees an interior whose electromagnetic field has a constant energy density e = aT⁴ as noted above.  Consequently, a more realistic and common kind of surface exhibiting the thermal radiation characteristics of a black body radiator will do so only if it has an electromagetic field energy density infinitesimally close to the surface which is equal to e = aT⁴.  When e = aT⁴ at a surface, P = σT⁴ for that surface if the surface is emitting radiation to an environment at T=0 K.  Solving for e in terms of P we find that e = (a/σ)P.

Let us now consider a black body behaving sphere of radius R_H with a temperature T_H which is surrounded by vacuum at 0 K.

The immediate space against the sphere’s surface has a boundary condition in which the energy density e = a T_H⁴.  The power output per unit area of the sphere surface is P = σ T_H⁴   in accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann Law of Thermal Radiation and σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.  The power at a distance r, measured from the center of the sphere and greater than R_H, will be given by

P_r = (4πR_H²/ 4πr²) σ T_H⁴ = (R_H²/r²) σ T_H⁴

This means that the energy density at this distance r on a sphere centered on the center of our thermal radiation emitting sphere surface will be

e_r = (a/σ) P_r = (a/σ) (R_H²/r²) σ T_H⁴ = (R_H²/r²) a T_H⁴

Now let us add a second black body surface spherical shell concentric with our first sphere having a radius R_C and with vacuum between the inner sphere and the outer spherical shell.  Outside this larger radius spherical shell is nothing but vacuum whose distant temperature is 0 K.  Let the temperature of this spherical shell be T_C.

In the case the T_H = T_C, the entire volume between the sphere and the outer spherical shell will have the energy density of a black body cavity, namely e = a T⁴, with T = T_H = T_C.  Logically, if T_c is less than T_H, the total energy E between these two spherical boundaries must be lower than that contained volume times aT_H⁴ or

E_H = (4/3)π (R_c³ – R_H³) aT_H⁴.

But the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis claims that the inner sphere still emits thermal radiation as though the spherical shell were not present and the spherical shell emits it as though the inner sphere was at temperature zero.  They claim that the energies emitted cancel each other in part, yet the vessels of the energy are photons with non-zero energies and they do not actually come in the form of positive energy photons and negative energy photons.  There are only positive energy photons.  We will follow their belief now and examine the consequences.  I am going to color this section with their viewpoint and its consequences in red so the reader will readily recognize that I do not believe this to be correct theory.  I am working out the consequences of an incorrect theory here.

According to their viewpoint, the outer spherical shell emits a power per unit area toward the inner sphere of

P_C (r = R_C) = σ T_C⁴

The inner sphere emits a power per unit area toward the outer sphere of

P_H (r = R_H) = σ T_H⁴

The power per unit area incident upon the inner sphere from the outer spherical shell is

P_C (r = R_H) = (R_C²/R_H²) σT_C⁴.

The power per unit area incident upon the outer spherical shell from the inner spherical shell is

P_H (r = R_C) = (R_H²/R_C²) σT_H⁴ .

If each of these surfaces emits thermal radiation as though they were in vacuum and surrounded only by an environment in the distance at T = 0 K, then the energy density corresponding to these respective powers approaching each surface arbitrarily closely is

e_H = (a/σ) [P_H (r = R_H) + P_C (r = R_H)] =  a T_H⁴ + (R_C²/R_H²) aT_C⁴

and

e_C = (a/σ) [P_C (r = R_C) + P_H (r = R_C)] =  a T_C⁴ + (R_H²/R_C²) aT_H⁴.

In the limit that T_C approaches T_H and R_C approaches R_H, the energy density just inside the outer spherical shell and that just outside the inner sphere both approach 2aT⁴, or twice that of a black body cavity at a temperature of T.  Clearly, they must instead approach an energy density of aT⁴.  Therefore, it is impossible for two such nested thermal radiation emitters to continue each to emit thermal radiation as though they were each only surrounded by a distant radiation sink at T = 0 K.  The actual radiation that each emits is highly influenced by the fact that the other black body emitter is nearby.  Photons do not have positive and negative energies as I noted above.  Photons that would violate the Conservation of Energy are simply not generated in the first place.

In reality, photons are a manifestation of an electromagnetic field.  Thermal radiation is emitted from a material or a molecule due to dipole vibrations and the vibration effect of higher order poles, though the higher order poles have much shorter electromagnetic ranges than do the dipoles in vibration.  The acceleration and deceleration of charges in dipoles is the primary source of the electromagnetic field that generates photons.  An energy density e_H = a T_H⁴ in the vacuum immediately outside the surface of the inner sphere and an energy density of e_C = a T_C⁴ immediately inside the surface of the outer spherical shell cause a gradient in the electromagnetic field (the energy density of an electromagnetic field in vacuum is proportional to the magnitude of the electric field squared) from the inner sphere surface to the surface of the outer spherical shell.  The total energy gradient between the two surfaces is given by 

ΔE = 4πR_H²e_H - 4πR_C²e_C

and

4πR_H² P_H = (σ/a) ΔE, where P_H is the power emitted per unit area from the inner sphere surface, so

P_H = σT_H⁴ – (R_C²/R_H²) σT_C⁴

And

4πR_H²P_H = 4πR_C²P_C

Where P_C is the power per unit area incident upon the inner wall of the spherical shell at the lower temperature, so

P_C = (R_H²/R_C²) σT_H⁴ – σT_C⁴ 

It is the energy gradient that is fundamental here and it determines the flow of energy and hence the incidence of photons upon the outer spherical shell.  Because the energy gradient is much affected by nearby objects with temperatures well above absolute zero, most objects in our life experience are not emitting photons as they would if they were isolated in vacuum with a distant photon sink at T=0 K.  They are much more parsimonious in emitting photons because their surfaces radiate to other bodies with not too dissimilar temperatures commonly and the electromagnetic field gradients or the energy density gradients between them are modest.

Despite this, the power transferred from one body to another is the same as though one imagines them isolated from one another and throwing out photons as though they were in vacuum with a photon sink at T = 0K.  That simple-minded approach to many calculations of temperatures works and this convinces most scientists that photons are so flung about without discrimination to energy density gradients and electric fields.  As we have seen though, that viewpoint leads to incorrect energy and therefore to incorrect electromagnetic field conclusions.  It also leads to serious problems when the imagined large fluxes of photons are imagined to be absorbed by such things as infrared-active gases, the so-called greenhouse gases.

Let us examine the Earth energy budget currently propagated by NASA on one of their websites:

We see that the back radiation claimed to be incident and absorbed by the Earth’s surface is 100% of 340 W/m².  What is the temperature of a black body sphere that would emit this power of energy?

P = 340 W/m² = σ T⁴ = (5.6697 x 10^-8 W/m²K⁴) T⁴,

so T = 278.3K.

The effective temperature of the atmospheric outer spherical shell is then 278.3K.

This temperature in the U.S. Standard Atmosphere Table of 1976 is at an altitude of about 1500 m or 1.500 km.  The radius of the Earth is about 6,371 km.  So

R_C²/R_H² = (6371 + 1.5)²/(6371)² = 1.00047,

so this ratio for the Earth and the atmosphere is for all intents and purposes 1.

If one applies these values in the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming version of black body thermal radiation to the calculation of the energy density at the surface of the Earth, one has T_H = 288 K and

T_C / T_H = 0.9663, so

e_H = (a/σ) [P_H (r = R_H) + P_C (r = R_H)] =  a T_H⁴ + (R_C²/R_H²) aT_C⁴ 

e_H = a T_H⁴ + (1.00047) a (0.9663)⁴ T_H⁴

e_H = 1.8723 a T_H⁴

This energy density at the surface of the Earth, by the false settled science of the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis, is 1.87 times the energy density in a black body cavity with a temperature of T_H.  This is a fundamental violation of black body cavity physics.  It is also a violation of the Conservation of Energy.

It is this exaggeration by 87% of the energy that a black body atmosphere can produce at the surface of the Earth through an imagined back radiation that allows the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis to ignore the role of the temperature gradient in the atmosphere.  See my paper mgh, Not Just Greenhouse Gases, Provides a Warm Earth.

Of course there is a further major error in their assumptions.  There is no black body absorber or emitter in the atmosphere.  There are only infrared-active molecules such as water vapor and carbon dioxide that absorb and emit radiation at wavelengths corresponding to only a fraction of the range of a black body absorber and emitter.  According to the following NASA diagram,

the atmosphere only absorbs 29% of the thermal radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, not the 100% that a black body absorber would absorb.  Treating the atmosphere as a black body radiator and absorber is another way the hypothesis inflates the radiation energy incident upon the surface of the Earth.  I discussed major problems with the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis on this issue in Climate Change Settled Science: The Atmosphere Absorbs 90% or 29% of Surface Radiation.  The proponents of that hypothesis do not worry about such inconsistencies.

The Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Hypothesis is based on wrong physics inconsistently applied.  It is most deplorable that so many scientists actually believe this nonsense.  It is beyond belief that this massively wrong hypothesis, which has been around so long and upon which so much scientific funding has been directed, has not been laughed out of the universe by rational and intelligent scientists.  Apparently, intelligence and rationality have been wanting, while a religious sort of fervor and faith in this hypothesis has taken over.  Unfortunately, many scientists are susceptible to the bandwagon effect and will not argue against any crackpot theory believed in by those who control funding for their R&D work.

Horrifically, this extremely wrongheaded hypothesis has been accepted by many as good theory and is used to justify the destruction of whole industries, with the loss of many jobs and much capital investment.  It is used to justify imposing much higher energy costs on everyone, which most hurts the poor.  The higher energy costs imposed on other industries also cause the loss of jobs and a decrease in the rate of growth of our economy.  This erroneous hypothesis justifies subsidies and mandates for the use of energy on the grid which is highly unreliable and which matches peak needs for electricity very poorly.

Errors have consequences.  Denying reality has consequences.  Those consequences are very harmful for mankind.  They are also very harmful to the reputation of science.

The segment in this color was changed on 30 October 2017 to properly take into account the spherical geometries.  It was initially written properly for two parallel planes.