180 Years of CO2 Analysis by Chemical Methods

As per Beck (2007), 'CO2 concentration' has 'fluctuated exhibiting three…maxima around 1825, 1857 and 1942', with 'the latter showing more than 400 ppm'

Jul 09, 2023

Editorial comment: this post is too long for email; please click on the header and read online or in the app.

This is a follow-up post to this week’s attention paid to ‘climate change’, specifically, my post about CO2 measurements by Swiss chemist Nicolas de Saussure:

The Quite Unknown Story of CO2 Measurements--in the 1820s

epimetheus

July 4, 2023

Read full story

Discussion in the comments was lively, in particular revolving around the question, ‘what if the readings by Saussure’ were at least approx. correct? We also discussed whether these experiments could be replicated to arrive at a more profound understanding of what, during these balmy days of summer, is breathlessly ‘reported’ by legacy media and seconded by politicians. Notably absent are voices, such Nobel prize-winning physicist John Clauser, who, as reported by The Naked Emperor a few days ago, stated that

there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s large population and an associated energy crisis. The latter is being unnecessarily exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is incorrect climate science.

So, in order to further this particular discussion, let us turn to Ernst-Georg Beck who, writing in Energy & Environment 18, no. 2 (2007): 259-82, already performed such a peer-reviewed assessment. Entitled, ‘180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analyses by Chemical Methods’, Beck surveyed the ‘more than 90,000 accurate chemical analyses of CO2 in the air since 1812’.

Let’s go, there’s a lot to read and learn (to enhance readability, I’ve omitted the references; emphases mine).

Abstract

More than 90,000 accurate chemical analyses of CO2 in air since 1812 are summarised. The historic chemical data reveal that changes in CO2 track changes in temperature, and therefore climate in contrast to the simple, monotonically increasing CO2 trend depicted in the post-1990 literature on climate-change. Since 1812, the CO2 concentration in northern hemispheric air has fluctuated exhibiting three high level maxima around 1825, 1857 and 1942 the latter showing more than 400 ppm.
Between 1857 and 1958, the Pettenkofer process was the standard analytical method for determining atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and usually achieved an accuracy better than 3%. These determinations were made by several scientists of Nobel Prize level distinction. Following Callendar (1938), modern climatologists have generally ignored the historic determinations of CO2, despite the techniques being standard text book procedures in several different disciplines. Chemical methods were discredited as unreliable choosing only few which fit the assumption of a climate CO2 connection.

Strong start, eh? Let’s take a closer look and venture down that particular rabbit hole, shall we?

On the Problematic Background of the IPCC Reports

The four consecutive Assessment Reports of the IPCC—issued in 1992, 1995, 2001, and 2007—follow closely the views of three influential scientists, Arrhenius, Callendar and Keeling on the importance of CO2 as a control on climate change…
Following this line of argument, the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (IPCC, 2001, chapter 3.1) contained the further explanation which makes it entirely explicit that direct measurements can only be relied on post 1957 and prior direct measurements can be disregarded in favour of indirect measurements made of air trapped in ice:
‘The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from close to 280 per million (ppm) in 1800, at first slowly and then progressively faster to a value of 367 ppm in 1999, echoing the increasing pace of global agriculture and industrial development. This is known from numerous, well-replicated measurements of the composition of air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice. Atmospheric CO2 concentration have been measured directly with high precision since 1957; these measurements agree with ice-core measurements, and show a continuation of the increasing trend up to the present.’

The established watershed of 1957/58 is associated with Keeling’s proposition of a distinct method (cryogenic condensation followed by NDIR spectroscopy vs. a reference gas using manometric calibration), which was subsequently adopted by the World Meteorological Association(WMO).

There’s another problem with the measuring stations distributed across the globe, though, that has nothing to do with all of the above. Most of these stations

are located in coastal or island areas in order to obtain air without contamination from vegetation, organisms and industrial activity, i.e. to establish the so-called background level of CO2. In considering such measurements, account should be taken of the established fact that land-derived air flowing seawards looses about 10 ppm of its carbon dioxide to dissolution in the oceans, and even more in colder waters (Henry’s Law [incidentally, has nothing to do with CO2 per se]).

Yet, when one types ‘Henry’s Law’ into the search engine over at the Scripps Institute’s dedicated website, the following results are given:

Established Presumptions About Atmospheric CO2

A major issue regarding the IPCC approach to linking climate and CO2 is the assumption that prior to the industrial revolution the level of atmospheric CO2 was in an equilibrium state of about 280 ppm, around which little or no variation occurred. This presumption of constancy and equilibrium is based upon a critical review of the older literature on atmospheric CO2 content by Callendar and Keeling.
Between 1800 and 1961, more than 380 technical papers that were published on air gas analysis contained data on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Callendar, Keeling and the IPCC did not provide a thorough evaluation of these papers and the standard chemical methods that they deployed. Rather, they discredited these techniques and data, and rejected most as faulty or highly inaccurate.
Though they acknowledge the concept of an ‘unpolluted background level’ for CO2, these authors [Callendar, Keeling, and the IPCC] only examined about 10% of the available literature, asserting from that that only 1% of all previous data could be viewed as accurate (Müntz, Reiset, Buch).

Basically, this is standard operating procedure for ‘up and coming’ scholars: if you want to make a name for yourself, start (academically) name-calling each and everyone who came before you took a shot at the same topic.

Ernst-Georg Beck’s Accounting

During my own review of the literature, I observed that the evaluation of Reiset’s and Müntz's work by Callendar and Keeling was erroneous. This made me investigate carefully fully the criteria that were used by these and other authors to accept or reject such historical data.
The data accepted by Callendar and Keeling had to be sufficiently low to be consistent with the greenhouse hypothesis of climate change controlled by rising CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning. Callendar rejected nearly all data before 1870 because of ‘relatively crude instrumentation’ and reported only twelve suitable data sets in 20th century as known to him out of 99 made available by Stepanova (1952). The intent of these authors was to identify CO2 determinations that were made using pure unpolluted air, in order to assess the true background level of CO2. Callendar set out the criteria that he used to judge whether older determinations were ‘allowable’ in his 1958 paper which presents only data that fell within 10% of a longer yearly average estimated for the region, and also rejected all measurements, however accurate, that were ‘measurements intended for special purposes, such as biological, soil air, atmospheric pollution’.

There’s more—from Keeling (1986: 101-3; my emphases):

Our original goal was to find, if possible, a seasonal cycle in the nineteenth century atmospheric CO2 data in agreement with modern observations by applying the air mass criteria of Callendar (1940a) to screen out contaminated data. This goal we have demonstrated to be unachievable.
We find, after screening out suspicious data on the basis of air mass, that none of the five data sets of Callendar show the seasonal cycle which Callendar found in combination. [basically an admission that while five different sets of data, when viewed separately, yield no such seasonal cycle; curiously, though, when combined, they do—sayeth Keeling]
Brown and Escombe (1905b) investigated atmospheric carbon dioxide only as a slide line to botanical studies. They provide minimal information on methodology and weather conditions. A few of their data seem abnormally low. Their sampling was sporadic over a four year period at a site poorly chosen to study CO2, albeit convenient to their botanical laboratory. Their results are of interest mainly because they used an apparatus similar to Reiset’s which had been carefully tested by an independent method.
In conclusion, the measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide carried out by Reiset (1882) from 1872 to 1880 on the coast of northern France appear to be valid. They indicate a mean annual concentration, with respect to dry air, of 292.4 ±1.2 ppm. Comparisons with other possibly valid contemporary data suggest that these data are not biased by more than 10 ppm. It is thus unlikely that the CO2 concentration was less than 282 ppm in the late nineteenth century, and was probably close to 292 ppm.

So, Keeling read a paper and found the data credible to use the results, suggest no bias greater than 10 ppm, and, on top of it, selected it because it showed ‘agreement with modern observations’. In other words: Keeling and Callendar put the proverbial cart (‘modern observations’) before the horse (‘nineteenth century atmospheric CO2 data’). This isn’t science, but ‘da Science™’.

Yet, in many ways, it’s even worse than it sounds. Beck noted that ‘there was no verification or falsification of results and methods used by other authors’ in the 20th century, citing work by Lundegardh, Duerst, Kreutz, Misra, Scholander.

According to Callendar, Keeling and the IPCC, CO2 variations to be observed in air were due diurnal [differences between day and night, as mentioned by, among others, Saussure], and seasonal cycles, or to glacial/ interglacial fluctuations. [line break added]
Natural concentrations are assumed to have been in equilibrium until mankind disturbed the natural situation. In this way, any long term observations that might display decadal or centennial natural variations in atmospheric CO2 are ruled out a priori by Callendar and Keeling.

These statements are accompanied by the following graphic (from Neftel et al. 1985):

Criticisms by Callendar and Keeling, and the selective way in which they discarded previous data, are not able to be justified. Their most egregious error was perhaps the dismissal of all data which showed variations from their presupposed average. That said, it is of course the case that some of the older data has to be viewed as less reliable for technical, analytical reasons.

A Critical Survey of the Historic Chemical CO2 Data

Beck’s paper, which I recommend to anyone to read in full, is based on 180 technical papers published between 1812 and 1961. Apparently, Mr. Beck undertook to recreate the experimental assembly to measure atmospheric CO2 based on these papers (science, as opposed to ‘da Science™’).

While pointing to a certain selection bias in deciding which experiments to conduct,

nearly all of the air sample measurement used were originally obtained from rural areas or the periphery of towns, under comparable conditions of a height of approx. 2m above ground at a site distant from potential or military contamination. Evaluation of the chemical methods used reveals system high accuracy, with a maximum 3% error reducing to 1% for the data of Henrik Lundegardh (1920-26), a pioneer of plant physiology.
Three popular techniques have evolved since 1812 for measuring the CO2 content of air (gravimetric, titrimetric, volumetric or manometric) The Pettenkofer titrimetric method—being simple, fast and well understood—was used as the optimal standard method for more than 100 years after 1857.

Here, a brief reminder about ‘da Science™’ and propaganda: if you don’t want people to learn more about anything, not least the truth, hide or lie. Case in point: Paul Harvey (DePauw U) and his piece on titrimetric methods that never mentions Pettenkofer; neither do the English or German Wikipedia entries reference Pettenkofer’s accomplishment, nor does the more dedicated entry of ‘Titration’.

Back to Beck:

The Pettenkofer process and all its variants included the absorption of a known volume of air in alkaline solution (Ba(OH)2, KOH, NaOH) and titration with acid (oxalic, sulphuric, hydrochloric acid) of the produced carbonate. Basic accuracy is +/-0,0006 vol% optimized to +/-0,0003 vol% by Lundegardh, who provides comparative measurements with the other techniques.

The volumetric apparatuses used before Haldane and Benedict/Sonden/Petterson (e.g. 1900), including gas analysers used by the French authors Regnault, Müntz, Tissander and earlier authors were open systems which lacked efficient control of reaction temperature (see Schuftan 1933). So their data were less reliable. Most French authors such as Müntz, Tissander and Reiset (Pettenkofer process) used sulphuric acid for drying air (or releasing CO2, Müntz) before determination of CO2 content. Because of the absorption of a considerable fraction of CO2 in the sulphuric acid, their values are too low (Bunsen absorption coefficient H2S04 at 25°C = 0,96; H20 at 25°C = 0,759). These systematic errors were known since 1848, Hlasiwetz 1856 and Spring 1885 determined these absorption losses to 7-10% or about 20 ppm.

Ha, in my piece I as a non-chemist mused that due to imperfect mechanical-derived vacuum flasks, CO2 data might be ‘contaminated’ by residual air in these samples, hence the measurements might be somewhat ‘diluted’. It turns out that I was spectacularly wrong—if anything, the above paragraph indicates that CO2 might be higher not lower.

Neither Callendar or Keeling nor the IPCC commented on these systematic errors resulting in too low values. In fact, Reiset and Müntz were singled out for special praise by Keeling and IPCC as the source of the best available data of that time.
Discounting such unsatisfactory data, in every decade since 1857 we can still identify several measurement series that contain hundreds of precise, continuous data.
Measurements made prior to 1857 (introduction of Pettenkofer method, 3% accuracy), mostly by French authors (Boussingault; Brunner; Regnault), show systematic errors due to long connections (absorption in caoutchouc), H2SO4 for drying air and missing temperature management of error. Well known absorption errors are in the order of 30 ppm. Amongst these authors, only de Saussure (1826-1830) measured a realistic image of the seasonal CO2 cycle.

Yet, de Saussure’s work is omitted from the annals of ‘climate science’. As is most of the work compiled in the below table, which accompanies the above text by Beck:

If there are two data points that deserve specific mention, it is the data gathered by Kreutz in Gießen, Germany, which used ‘a closed system designed by Paul Schuftan, the father of modern gas chromatography; Kreutz compiled more than 64,000 single measurements using this equipment in an 18 month period during 1939-1941’. The prize for ‘the longest single time series’ goes to the Paris-based ‘Montsouris lab’, which took ‘12,000 measurements over the 30 years from 1876 to 1910’.

Kreutz, Schuftan, and the Gießen Data

Beck spends considerable time discussing the findings of Kreutz, taken at the Gießen Weather Station, which was the then-best scientific data on the issue of atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Equipped with the best available hardware, ‘Kreutz installed 4 places for parallel data acquisition’, incl. all weather parameters (such as radiation, wind, air pressure, humidity, etc.).

Over an 18 month period he analysed more than 64,000 single CO2 values at a rate of 120 samples per day…Kreutz’s results delineate well both the seasonal cycle and weather events around the city of Giessen, and confirm strikingly the persistence of C02 levels above 400 ppm over most of a period of two years.

The overall average CO2 level for the 25,000 values plotted from Giessen is 438.5 ppm [1939-41]. This figure needs to be adjusted downwards to take account of anthropogenic sources of CO2 from nearby city, an influence that has been estimated as lying between 10 and 70 ppm (average 30 ppm) by different authors.
Even after making this adjustment, the Giessen results strongly contradict modern (IPCC) estimates of carbon dioxide levels during the 1940s. The results of Kreutz were not cited or evaluated by Callendar and Keeling. Other work, such as Slocum, Effenberger and Bray, invariably give faulty citation of the details.

Beck then moves on to discuss three more pre-modern data sets in detail, specifically those by F. Schulze conducted in Rostock, Germany (1863-71), W. Spring in Liège, Belgium (1883), and P. Haesselbarth at Dahme in Prussia, Germany (1876). In summary, Beck writes about these three papers that they ‘share high levels of CO2 as high as 350 ppm or more at a time when data interpreted from ice cores indicates a level of around 290 ppm’.

A bit further below, Beck discusses a compilation of 138 academic papers from 1812-1961 of chemical analyses of air samples. ‘Data presented have been retained unmodified. They mostly comprise measurements made on samples collected at a height of approx. 2 (or some) m above ground, from stations located throughout the northern hemisphere, from Alaska, through Pune (India)’.

A raw picture is presented in figure 11 over the period 1812-1961 with 11 years smoothing (11 year moving average filter).
Figure 12 shows a comparison between the eleven years-averaged CO2 curve and the IPCC (2001) annually averaged temperature record between 1860 and 2000. Short-term fluctuations in CO2 are suppressed by the filtering, but at the broad level there is a close match between the 1942’s peaks for CO2 and temperature.
Subsequent Figure 13 presents a raw picture out of 41 yearly averages over the period 1920-1961 compared to ice core records by Neftel et al.
Notice that the peak CO2 content and peak temperature coincide in 1942.

I reproduce these three figures here:

Implications and the ‘Whodunnit’ Question

This is, of course, quite explosive stuff, I’d argue. Remember, this is in the peer-reviewed literature, and if atmospheric CO2 concentrations fluctuates that much, what is responsible for these shifts? Moreover, if CO2 fluctuates that much, why do temperatures appear to rise in a manner consistent with the Keeling curve and ‘modern’ reconstructions of atmospheric CO2 concentrations?

Turns out, Mr. Beck has something to say about this is well. Summarising his findings, he writes (emphases in the original):

Broad road geographic coverage, with measuring stations spread throughout middle- and northern Europe, USA, Atlantic ocean, Alaska, India and Antarctica.
High data density: the 41 CO2 series used include about 70,000 discrete
measurements, with the highest data density in the peak area between 1939 and 1942.
The application of different accurate standard measuring systems with high accuracy of 2-3%, as designed by Krogh, Schuftan, van Slyke, Haldane,
Scholander.
Measurements were made by several different, highly competent experts:
Buch, Haldane, Duerst, Kreutz, Scholander, Lockhart.
Verified suitable locations of the measuring stations: no contamination is known from human or natural sources, e.g. conurbation, war, soil degassing, volcanic emissions.
The Second World War cannot be responsible for the high values, because a rise in CO2 is exhibited from 1925 and culminating in 1942, and the second part of the maxima was recorded at places with no war activity (Alaska, India) [my emphasis].

Now, Beck also plotted CO2 data (with five-year averages) in Fig. 14, which clearly shows short-term fluctuations. In all, he finds that ‘all 8 temperature maxima during the 100 years from 1850 to 1950 correspond with CO2-maxima. Plotted for comparison, note that the ice core results do not contain decadal frequency fluctuations. The inreliability [sic] of ice core reconstructions was indicated by Jaworowski.’

These findings have led Beck to come to the following preliminary considerations:

The close relationship between temperature change and CO2 level exhibited by these results is consistent with a cause-effect relationship, but does not of itself indicate which of the two parameters is the cause and which the effect. The greenhouse hypothesis of IPCC argues for CO2 being the cause (through radiative feedback) of temperature rise. My results are equally if not more consistent with temperature being the forcing that controls the level of CO2 in the atmospheric system. In support of this causality, ice-core data consistently shows that over climatic time scales, changes in temperature precede their parallel changes in carbon dioxide by several hundred to more than a thousand years.

Methodically, we take note of the following equally relevant aspect:

Most of the historical chemical measurements were accomplished on samples collected from the boreal regions of the northern hemisphere. Here, the diurnal and seasonal variation in atmospheric CO2 displays a much higher amplitude than is the case for oceanic areas, where smoothing influences result in a diminution of CO2 levels by 10 ppm or more. An imbalance of photosynthesis, respiration and soil respiration in and near to forests may lead to periodic emissions of large quantities of CO2. Substantial differences in amplitude of parts of the carbon cycle is well known in the northern hemisphere (e.g. methane). Such effects may explain the various smaller fluctuations in CO2 content through the historical chemical record, which are not imaged by ice cores or at ocean stations.

Conclusions and Discussion by Beck

To wrap up this very long posting, I’ll quote directly from the paper’s conclusions and add my own thoughts in the Bottom Lines.

During the late 20th century, the hypothesis that the ongoing rise of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is a result of fossil fuel burning became the dominant paradigm. To establish this paradigm, and increasingly since then, historical measurements indicating fluctuating CO2 levels between 300 and more than 400 ppmv have been neglected.
A re-evaluation has been undertaken of the historical literature on atmospheric CO2 levels since the introduction of reliable chemical measuring techniques in the early to middle 19th century. More than 90,000 individual determinations of CO2 levels are reported between 1812 and 1961. The great majority of these determination made by skilled investigators using well established laboratory analytical techniques. Data from 138 sources and locations have been combined to produce a yearly atmospheric CO2 curve for the northern hemisphere.
The historical data that I have considered to be reliable can, of course, be challenged on the grounds that they represent local measurements only, and are therefore not representative on a global scale. Strong evidence that this is not the case, and that the composite historical CO2 curve is globally meaningful, comes from the correspondence between the curve and other global phenomena, including both sunspot cycles and the moon phases, the latter presented here probably first time in literature and the average global temperature statistic. Furthermore, that the historical data are reliable in themselves is supported by the credible seasonal, monthly and daily variations that they display, the pattern of which corresponds with modern measurements. It is indeed surprising that the quality and accuracy of these historic CO2 measurements has escaped the attention of other researchers.
How to interpret the monthly variation of CO2 (see Fig. 5, 7, 9 and modern measurements e.g. Mauna Loa), which indicates a coincidence with the lunar phases, is another question to be dealt within a paper in preparation.
Modern greenhouse hypothesis is based on the work of G.S. Callendar and C.D. Keeling, following S. Arrhenius, as latterly popularized by the IPCC. Review of available literature raise the question if these authors have systematically discarded a large number of valid technical papers and older atmospheric CO2 determinations because they did not fit their hypothesis? Obviously they use only a few carefully selected values from the older literature, invariably choosing results that are consistent with the hypothesis of an induced rise of CO2 in air caused by the burning of fossil fuel. Evidence for lacking evaluation of methods results from the finding that as accurate selected results show systematic errors in the order of at least 20 ppm. Most [modern, i.e., post-Callendar and Keeling] authors and sources have summarised the historical CO2 determinations by chemical methods incorrectly and promulgated the unjustifiable view that historical methods of analysis were unreliable and produced poor quality result.

Bottom Lines

After quoting at-length from this paper, the first question is whether Erich-Georg Beck is a serious, credible author? The answer can only be: yes, he is, for not only has this paper been published in the peer-reviewed literature (i.e., scholars conducting the review have not found flaws that would contraindicate publication).

Moreover, at the bottom of the paper is the following list of individuals and institutions that shared their expertise with Mr. Beck:

Dr. L. Brake, archive of the city of Giessen (D]
Jana Farová, Infocentrum Město Tábor, (Cz]
Dr. Haus, archivist Buderus company at Wetzlar (D]
Ralph-Christian Mendelsohn, German Weather Wervice (DWD], Offen Dr.
Franziska Rogger, archive university of Bern (CH]
Prof. Dr. Albrecht Vaupel, coworker of W. Kreutz, RWD/ DWD (D]
Dr. W. Wranik, Institute of Biosciences, Marine Biology Rostock (D]
I am especially indebted to Prof. Dr. Arthur Roersch, Dr. Hans Jelbring, Andre Bijkerk and Pro Carter for helpful discussions, Prof. Dr. Arthur Roersch, Dr. Hans J helping to produce a condensed draft and Prof. Dr. Arthur Roersch and P. Bob Carter for their linguistic support.

While Mr. Beck may not bear fancy university affiliations, he certainly left his mark. By the way, who was Erich-Georg Beck? I’ll quote extracts from his obituary (source; my emphases):

Ernst Beck was a biology teacher at the Merian technical grammar school in Freiburg [im Breisgau, Germany] and co-founder of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). He was a teacher of the old school, whom nobody could lead up the garden path. If a statement of politicians did not fit into its solid scientific conception of the world, he examined it by intensive study of international technical literature and, if possible, by own experiments. His website www.biokurs.de is still a treasure trove for everybody, who prepares for examines or finding answers to current scientific questions.
Due to his immense specialized knowledge and his methodical severity Ernst very promptly noticed numerous inconsistencies in the statements of the Intergovernmental Penal on Climate Change (IPCC). He considered the warming of the earth’s atmosphere as a result of a rise of the carbon dioxide content of the air of approximately 0.03 to 0.04 percent as impossible. And it doubted that the curve of the CO2 increase noted on the Hawaii volcano Mauna Loa since 1957/58 could be extrapolated linear back to the 19th century.
Because he knew that for a long time before the introduction of the costly spectroscopic and/or electro acoustical CO2-measures relatively simple, but reliable chemical methods of the CO2-measures were available. Thus, well-known chemists as for instance German chemistry Nobel Laureate Otto Warburg analysed also the composition of air in industry-free, rural regions. With his special meticulousness Beck collected and analysed thousands and thousands of older measurements of the CO2-content of the air and found out that such content has been sometimes higher than today in the first half of the 20th century and also partially in the 19th century. Obvious conclusion: The rise of the CO2-content since 1958 cannot have been caused alone by the burning of rising quantities of coal and oil in the post-[world] war [2] period. And there is also no straight-line connection between the CO2-concentration in the atmosphere and the global temperature development.

That much we could infer from the above. The kicker, however, is in the following paragraph:

Ernst Georg Beck published this analysis three years ago in the British technical periodical Energy & Environment and sowed thereby already before ‘Climategate’ in late autumn of 2009 serious doubts about the reliability of the statements of the IPCC. Climatologists who depend on financial funding from the German Government and the European Union and who are closely linked to the IPCC could not forgive him that publication. They tried to denounce Ernst Georg Beck in the Internet as naive amateur and data counterfeiter. Unfortunately, Ernst could hardly defend himself in the last months because of its progressive illness. It is therefore particularly necessary that we as members of EIKE feel obligated to continue the work of our dear colleague, who left us much too early.

Beck died in 2010, and the smearing and vilification campaigns by protagonists of ‘da science™’ certainly did not help in his battle with cancer.

Still, we note that Beck’s above-cited publication preceded ‘Climategate’, which was, in the final analysis, about precisely the codification, so to speak, of the omission of historical measurements by the IPCC.

As a father and as a scholar, I am concerned about what humanity is doing to nature and ourselves; I care deeply for the future of mankind, for the sake of my children, as well as anyone else’s children. I would, therefore, rather err on the side of safety, but the issues raised by Beck must be addressed in a meaningful way, not censored, smeared, and declared lunacy.

Until that point in time, I keep my scepticism and reservations as regards the veracity of the dogmatic pronunciations of the IPCC. I am not alone in this regard, as the above-linked statement by John Clauser suggests; Judith Curry, Roger Pielke, Jr., and many others are also inclined towards a comparable stance.

Let’s dive further down into this rabbit role in the near future. This issue is too important to leave it to self-declared ‘experts’ whose function is—gatekeeping.

We’ve received a telling lesson in this kind of misplaced trust during the so-called ‘pandemic’.

Trust, but verify.