“Net Zero by 2050”-Activists Stumped by New Evidence Showing No Link Between CO2 & Temperature Over Last 2.7 million Years

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The climate science world (the “settled science” division) is in shock following the discovery in ancient ice cores that levels of carbon dioxide remained stable as the world plunged into an ice age around 2.7 million years ago.

Levels of CO2 at around 250 parts per million (ppm) were said to be lower than often assumed with just a small 20 ppm variation recorded for the 2.7-million-year period. during which there were multiple glaciation periods

In addition, no changes in methane levels were seen in the entire period.

Massive decreases in temperature with occasional interglacial temperature increases appear to have occurred with very minor changes in ‘greenhouse’ gas concentrations, ppms. This revelation has caused near panic in activist circles.

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Activists had assumed CO2 was around 400 ppm about 2.7 million years ago, a convenient mark that has been used to explain the subsequent glaciation and a CO2 decrease to 250 ppm due to decreased flora.

Due to the recently published paper, based on ice-core data, this explanation has become more problematic. The paper notes natural climate variation has occurred with the temperature changes.

The title of the paper, produced by 17 America-based scientists, was enough to set alarm bells ringing in the ‘settled science” community: ‘Broadly stable atmospheric CO2 and CH4 levels over the past three million years’

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COMMENTARY BY THE NET-ZERO AFICIONADOS

A related paper examining ocean heat content derived from the ice core record was also published.

Study lead author Julia Marks-Peterson noted: “We were a bit surprised. If correct, the findings may suggest that even small changes in greenhouse gas levels could trigger major shifts in climate.”

Carrie Lear, Professor of Past Climates and Earth System Changes at Cardiff University, claimed that the papers “don’t rewrite the role of CO2, they underline how sensitive the climate system is… that is why today’s rapid CO2 rise is so alarming”. She totally ignores any natural variations.

She says, even if CO2 movements are minimal, probably within the margin of measurement error, these small CO2 changes are still responsible for large variations in temperature.

Therefore, the laws of climate science are ‘settled’, i.e., if the CO2 ppm is rising, falling or generally stable, it is almost wholly responsible for large movements in global temperature.

Under this rather shaky assumption, humans must stop burning hydrocarbons and return to a neo-Malthusian pre-industrial age.

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Quoted in New Scientist magazine, Tim Naish, Professor of Earth Science at Victoria University in New Zealand, said it was “way too early to thrown the baby out with the bathwater”.

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The recent research paper was published in Nature.

It gives a snapshot from ancient Antarctica ‘blue’ ice drilled in the Allan Hills area.

It looks back further in time past the usual 800,000-year ice core records.

The key finding is that over the last 2.7 million years, when sea levels decreased up to 120 meter, during glaciation periods, and 1 to 2 km of ice covered much of the Northern Hemisphere, the level of the so-called ‘greenhouse’ gases remained remarkably stable.

For the first time, the work has pushed the direct gas measurements back into the late Pliocene era.

Over the last 2.7 million years moving into the Pleistocene, global temperatures showed a long-term cooling trend of several degree C. This cooling trend was periodically interrupted by large temperature oscillations.

Temperatures between glaciation periods, such as during the current Holocene, increase by 5 C and more.

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Critics seeking to downplay ice core evidence often suggest it is too imprecise to provide a wholly accurate record of gas levels and temperature.

However, it is accurate enough to give a broad cyclical insight. Ice cores remain the source of some of the best data we have on the past climate. It is undoubtedly more accurate than most proxy evidence from millions of years ago.

But whatever the evidence used, it is hard to detect any obvious and continuous link between CO2 and temperature across the entire geological record going back 600 million years to the start of abundant life on Earth, when CO2 ppms were much higher than at present..

Certainly, none to justify the political notion that humans control the world climate thermostat by burning hydrocarbons.

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In fact, the evidence is so slim that Les Hatton, Emeritus Professor in Computer Science at Kingston University, was recently able to determine from ice core records that 100-year rises of 1.1 C in the current interglacial, (meaning warm period between glaciation periods), which started about 20,000 years ago, have occurred in one in six centuries (20,000/6 = 33.3 such events), without any burning of fossil fuels.

Going back 150,000 years, the frequency varied from one in six to one in twenty centuries.

These findings suggest, during the past 2000 years, the minor warming of the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period and the Present Warm period are entirely natural.

These warm periods were separated by the cold Dark Age Period and cold Little Ice Age Period.

The low point of the LIA was about 1700, well before the widespread use of fossil fuel starting in 1900.

Also note, the RWP was warmer than the MWP, which was warmer than the PWP

All these periods have nothing to do with burning fossil fuels.

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The temp drop, from about 1120 to 1610, led to less humidity, less rain, less fauna and flora, less crop per acre, less or negative population growth.

This led to less CO2 from fauna growth and more CO2 absorption by colder oceans.

The CO2 drop, started about 1370, about 250 years later than temp drop, and continued to 1840, and totaled about 25 ppm 

Did similar changes occur during the RWP and MWP?

See below image

CO2 IS AN ABSOLUTELY VITAL FOR GROWING FLORA AND FAUNA; NET ZERO IS A SUICIDE PACT

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/co2-is-an-absolutely-vital-gas-ingredient-for-growing-flora-and

By Willem Post

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The IPCC, etc., has endowed CO2 gas as having magical global warming power, based on its own “science”
The IPCC, etc., claims, CO2 acts as Climate Control Knob, that eventually will cause runaway Climate Change, if we continue using fossil fuels.
The IPCC, etc., denies the Little Ice Age, uses fraudulent computer temperature projections.

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Governments proclaimed: Go Wind and Solar, Go ENERGIEWENDE, go Net zero by 2050, etc., and provided oodles of subsidies, and rules and regulations, and mandates, and prohibitions to make it happen.
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Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to:

1) increase command/control by governments, and

2) enable the moneyed elites to become more powerful and richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people, already for at least 50 years, extremely biased CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, NBC ABC, CBS come to mind.

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CO2, just 0.042% in the atmosphere, is a weak absorber of a small fraction of the absorbable, low-energy IR photons.
CO2 has near-zero influence on world surface temperatures.

CO2 is a life-giving molecule. Greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is an essential ingredient for:

1) increased green flora, which increases fauna all over the world, including desert areas, and

2) increased crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.

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At About 30% Annual W/S Electricity on the Grid, Various Costs Increase Exponentially

The W/S systems uglify the countryside, kill birds and bats, whales and dolphins, fisheries, tourism, view-sheds, etc.

The weather-dependent, variable/intermittent W/S output, often too-little and often too-much, creates grid-disturbing difficulties that become increasingly more challenging and more costly (c/kWh) to counteract, as proven by the UK and California for the past 5 years, and Germany for the past 10 years, and recently in Spain/Portugal.

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All have “achieved” near-zero, real- growth GDPs, the highest electricity prices (c/kWh) in the EU, and stagnant real wages for almost all people, while further enriching the moneyed elites who live in the poshest places.

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Native People Suffer Extra Burdens: Their angry, over-taxed, over-regulated native populations, already burdened by the wind/solar/batteries nonsense, and then further burdened by the bureaucrat/moneyed elites bringing in tens of millions of uninvited, unvetted, uneducated, unskilled, ghetto-trash, crime-prone, poor folks, from dysfunctional countries.

Those folks are sucking from the multiple, government-program tits, while making:

1) minimal efforts to produce goods and services; and

2) maximum efforts to be chaotic, culture-destroying burden, the native populations never voted for.

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Minimal Temperature Change due to CO2: The climate is not any different, even though, atmosphere CO2 increased from 280 ppm in 1850 to 420 ppm in 2025, 50% in 175 years. During that time, world surface temps increased by at most 1.5 C +/- 0.25 C, of which: 

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1) Urban heat islands account for about 65% (0.65 x 1.5 = 0.975 C) of the warming, such as the UHI of about 700 miles, from north of Portland, Maine, to south of Norfolk, Virginia, forested in 1850, now covered with heat-absorbing human detritus, plus the waste heat of fuel burning.

Japan, China, India, Europe, etc., have similar heat islands

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/16/live-at-1-p-m-eastern-shock-climate-report-urban-heat-islands-responsible-for-65-of-global-warming/

2) CO2 accounts for less than 0.3 C, with the rest from

3) Long-term, inter-acting cycles, such as coming out of the Little Ice Age, 

4) Earth surface volcanic activity, and other changes, such as from increased agriculture, deforestation, especially in the Tropics, etc.

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BTW, the 1850 surface temp measurements were only in a few locations and mostly inaccurate, +/- 0.5 C.

The 1979-to-present temp measurements (46 years) cover most of the earth surface and are more accurate, +/- 0.25 C, due to NASA satellites.

Any graphs should show accuracy bands.

The wiggles in below image are due to plants rotting late in the year, emitting CO2, plants growing early in the year, consuming CO2, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. See URL

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/about.html

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Here are four articles attesting to the small global warming role of CO2 in the atmosphere

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Eight Taiwanese Engineers Determine Climate Sensitivity to a 300 ppm CO2 Increase Is 'Negligibly Small'

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/eight-taiwanese-engineers-determine-climate-sensitivity-to-a-300

By Kenneth Richard

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The Fairy Tale of The CO2 Paradise Before 1850...A Look at The Real Science

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-fairy-tale-of-the-co2-paradise-before-1850-a-look-at-the-real

By Fred F. Mueller

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Achieving 'Net Zero by 2050' Reduces Temps by 0.28 C Costing Tens of $TRILLIONS

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/achieving-net-zero-by-2050-reduces-temps-by-0-28-c-costing-tens

By Kenneth Richard    

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German Researcher: Doubling Of Atmospheric CO2 Causes Only 0.24°C Of Warming ...Practically Insignificant

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/german-researcher-doubling-of-atmospheric-co2-causes-only-0-24-c

By P Gosselin on 19. November 2024