Climate Change: Is It Really Caused by Carbon Dioxide?

By Dr. Sam O. Otukol

Polar ice caps are melting. Glaciers are disappearing. Average temperatures across the globe are increasing. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lays the blame for global warming squarely at the feet of human activity, generating what is now known as greenhouse gases, the most important gas identified as carbon dioxide. Author Dr. Sam O. Otukol believes there are other scenarios. In Climate Change: Is It Really Caused by Carbon Dioxide? he focuses on global changes in climate and explores a wide range of causes.

Otukol discusses the key elements of the atmosphere and delves into the creation of carbohydrates and what happens when those carbohydrates or hydrocarbons are burned or metabolized. Climate Change: Is It Really Caused by Carbon Dioxide? assigns less significance to carbon dioxide as an alleged key element in creating the greenhouse effect and identifies another gas as the potential villain.

Supplemented with applicable graphics and tables, Otukol offers an alternative theory on global warming and presents global warming mitigation strategies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532014703

Dr. Sam O. Otukol

Dr. Sam O. Otukol was born in Butebo, Uganda, and studied there until completing a bachelor’s degree in forestry. He earned a master’s degree in forest biometrics at the University of New Brunswick and a PhD from the University of Toronto. Otukol worked twenty-two years for the BC Public Service designing methods for collecting natural resource data, writing data analysis procedures, and advising decision makers on interpreting the statistics. He is married and has five children.

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Copyright © 2017 Dr. Sam O. Otukol.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-1469-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1470-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017900253

iUniverse rev. date: 05/22/2017

CONTENTS

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Introduction

Evidence of Global Warming

Africa

North America, Iceland, and Greenland

South America

Europe

Russia

Asia

Middle East

Australia

Greenhouse Gases

The Role of Carbon Dioxide

Clouds

Types of Clouds

Other Greenhouse Gases

Potential And Latent Energy

The Three Amigos

Hydrogen

Oxygen

Carbon Dioxide

Other Gases

Nitrogen

Water Vapor

The Pimp and the Two Suitors

The Weaknesses of the Greenhouse Gas Theory

Misleading Statistics

An Alternative Theory on Global Warming

The Impact of Modern Society on Water Vapor Levels

Combustion

Cooking and Boiling

Generation of Nuclear Energy

Irrigation

How Heat Is Balanced in the Atmosphere

Weather and Climate

How Does Weather Work?

How Does Climate Happen?

The 1,000-Kilometer Beam from the Sun

The Chicken-on-a-Bad-Rotisserie Effect

Why Deserts Start on the Western Sides of the Continent

What If the Twenty-Three-Degree Tilt Did Not Exist?

Summing Up the Effects

The Key Factors in Global Warming

Global Warming Mitigation Strategies

Monitoring Temperature

Generating Less Water Vapor

Adaptive Technologies and New Strategies

Is Global Warming Really Caused by Carbon Dioxide?

References

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Map of Africa (source: www.pixaby.com)

Figure 2. Bush elephants in Botswana

Figure 3. Lake Victoria

Figure 4. Sand left behind by retreating Lake Chad

Figure 5. The snowcap on Mount Kenya

Figure 6. Mount Kilimanjaro

Figure 7. Continent of North America, Iceland, and Greenland

Figure 8. The Colorado River

Figure 9. The Great Salt Lake in Utah

Figure 10. Lake Mead

Figure 11. Retreating glaciers

Figure 12. Map of South America

Figure 13. Atacama Desert in South America

Figure 14. Aral Sea in Russia

Figure 15. The Dead Sea

Figure 16. Map of Australia

Figure 17. Deserts in Australia

Figure 18. Clouds near Pender Island, BC

Figure 19. Fog on top of Mount Douglas

Figure 20. History of fuel consumption in the United States

Figure 21. Means of transportation

Figure 22. Nuclear energy generation

Figure 23. Crop irrigation

Figure 24. Sun’s movements from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn

Figure 25. Relative location of earth in relation to the sun

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Products that power animal and plant life

Table 2. Alcohols

Table 3. Hydrocarbon gases

Table 4. Fossil fuels

Table 5. Household fuels

PREFACE

My inspiration to write this book comes from my advanced studies in geography, chemistry, and biology, personal experiences with drought, and the twenty-two years I spent working for BC Public Service. I was born in Butebo in Uganda and completed a bachelor’s of science degree in forestry. I moved to Canada in 1975 to complete a master’s in science in forest biometrics at the University of New Brunswick. From there, I moved to the University of Toronto to complete a PhD. My work has involved designing statistically robust methods for collecting natural resource data, writing data analysis procedures, and advising decision makers on how to interpret the statistics from the collected data. I learned that decision makers quite often make critical decisions based on what information is available, even when it might have known defects, and that the key skill is in managing risk and uncertainty of using the data. Such is the case with climate change data. There is much more to climate change than increasing carbon dioxide. This book explores what else is behind it.

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of this third millennium, AD, the world is in crisis. As the leading authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that there is clear indication that human activities are causing real changes in global weather. They state their conclusions bluntly: Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observation of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.

The IPCC lays the blame for global warming squarely at the feet of human activity (i.e., industrial production), generating what is now known as greenhouse gases (Climate Change: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC, 2007). The most important gas has been identified as carbon dioxide; its levels have been observed to be increasing rapidly over the past one hundred years. The other gases include methane and nitrous oxide. The position of the IPCC and other proponents of the greenhouse effect theory will be discussed in more detail in the section on current theories.

In spite of the IPCC’s reports, testimonies from many scientists, and the regular newspaper reports of changes occurring around the globe, some detractors are convinced that the claims regarding climate change are not real. In most cases, the nonbelievers fall into two categories. On the one hand, die-hard politicians want to defend our current way of life via an ideology that asserts that our activities, particularly commercial activities, should not be interfered with in any way. On the other hand, another group believes that all these changes in weather are temporary, caused by minor changes in the sun’s radiation, and that global climate will go back to normal in a few years.

This book presents a different theory on what might be happening. It is quite likely that climate change is a continuous process that has been going on in cycles and may have happened earlier in history when there were no industrialized civilizations. The question is, what is the common factor between those earlier occurrences of climate change and the current occurrence?

Climate change scientists have not been forthcoming in explaining the mechanism by which carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases hold heat.

The other factor to consider is that carbon dioxide molecules are known to be quite stable at atmospheric temperature. They do not change form or have an affinity to combine with other molecules at temperatures below 200 degrees