professor
© UnknownMIT Professor Richard Linzen
Billions of people around the world face starvation if Net Zero policies ban the production of nitrogen fertiliser derived from fossil fuels. This is the stark warning from two top American scientists who say that eliminating fossil fuel-derived nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides "will result in about half the world's population not having enough food to eat". They add that eliminating Net Zero fertiliser will create "worldwide starvation".

In a wide-ranging paper titled 'Challenging 'Net Zero' with Science', Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen of Princeton and MIT respectively, along with geologist Gregory Wrightstone, state that Net Zero - the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - to be "scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people".

The battle over nitrogen fertiliser is being hard fought by green activists who argue for massive reductions in its use and more organic methods to be mandated. This can extend to fanaticism, as marked by the Guardian's George Monbiot who argues for an end to dependence on farming. The ground for less choice and food is also being prepared in academia. Recently, three barking academics operating through the University of Leeds suggested World War II rationing could be an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Also harking back to the days of spam and when spivs controlled parts of the supply chain was the actress Joanna Lumley, who has suggested a return to a points distribution system and a form of wartime rationing.

Back on Planet Reality, the authors publish the graph below showing a "remarkable" increase in crop yields after the widespread use of nitrogen fertiliser began around 1950.
Crop chart
The authors make a general point that any present or future Government actions that omit analysis of the disastrous consequences of reducing fossil fuels and CO2 to Net Zero for low income people, people worldwide, future generations and the United States, "is fatally flawed science and appalling government policy".

Happer and Lindzen state that they are career physicists who have specialised in radiation physics and dynamic heat transfer for decades. These are said to be integral to atmospheric climate science. In their opinion, all Net Zero regulations are scientifically invalid. In summary they state the science is based on fabricated data that omit figures that contradict their conclusions, for example, on extreme weather. In addition, climate models "do not work", while IPCC findings are "government opinions, not science". Furthermore the "extraordinary" social benefits of CO2 and fossil fuels are omitted, and any science that demonstrates there is no catastrophic risk of global warming is ignored.

Numerous examples are supplied. The authors quote Professor Steven Koonin, a former Under-Secretary of Science for President Obama, as noting in his recent book Unsettled, that, "observations extending back over a century indicate that most types of extreme weather events don't show any significant change". Koonin is said to show "multiple egregious examples" of both fabricating data and omitting contradictory data on extreme weather in the U.S. Government Fourth Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) of 2017. The report claims that there were marked changes in temperature extremes across the U.S. The number of high temperature records set in the past two decades "far exceeds" the number of low temperature records, it claims.
Records chart
John Christy is a professor of atmospheric science and the Alabama State Climatologist. He complied the graph below showing the percentage of US weather stations that exceeded 100°F at nearly 1,000 stations across the country.
Chart
Koonin summaries the evidence on extreme temperatures by noting: "The annual number of high temperature records set shows no significant trend over the past century, nor over the past 40 years". Happer and Lindzen observe a downward trend in high temperatures over nearly 100 years, while CO2 emissions have risen, and "respectfully suggest" that every agency analysing heat waves and high temperatures "has the scientific obligation to apply the scientific method to contradictory facts and avoid fabricating facts".

Koonin notes that the CSSR graph with its alarming heading is a "textbook example of fabricating data". The CSSR chart does not provide temperature data but the "unusual ratio" of record highs to lows. It is "shockingly misleading", he says. These things matter, concludes Koonin. The false notion of more frequent U.S. high temperatures is likely to "pollute" subsequent reports. It should also matter to those who proclaim the "unimpeachable authority of assessment reports", including the media, which give voice to such misleading conclusions.

The authors are distinctly unimpressed with the work of the United Nations IPCC. They note the process of compiling reports is governed by two rules - all Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs) are approved line by line by member governments, and these SPMs override any inconsistent conclusions scientists write for IPCC reports.

Late last year, Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary for Global Communications at the United Nations, told a World Economic Forum 'disinformation' seminar that "we own the science" around climate change. We think the world should know it, she continued, so we partnered with Google to ensure only UN results appear at the top. Happer and Lindzen quote the late Nobel physics laureate Richard Feynman who said:
"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles. The legitimacy of scientific content is determined by the scientific method. None of the IPCC SPMs, models, scenarios and other findings asserting that dangerous climate warming is caused by CO2, greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel is valid science; they are merely the opinions of IPCC governments."