The following is from today's Sankei Shimbun's "Sound Arguments."
Taishi Sugiyama is one of the most righteous intellects in the world today.
A must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people worldwide.
Decarbonization, not climate change, is the risk.
It is the season of heavy rainfall again this year.
Whenever there is a disaster, the media is full of opinions about the climate crisis and the urgent need to decarbonize.
The use of statistics is misleading.
Many reports say that "disasters have increased five-fold in 50 years due to climate change.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's document "Accelerating Efforts Toward the Carbon Half" also cites this as the leading evidence of the "further worsening of the climate crisis.
The source of information is a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
But a closer reading reveals that the five-fold increase is in the "number of reported disasters."
Herein lies the trick.
Disasters are recorded when houses, roads, and other structures are damaged.
Over the past 50 years, as the world has become more affluent and populous, more property has been at risk.
It has led to an increase in disasters.
In addition, government agencies have become better organized, and reports often come in from all over the world.
So it is not surprising that the number of reports has increased.
A similar trick is used in the Japanese environmental white paper, which shows a graph of the "amount of damage" caused by natural disasters and suggests that it has increased due to climate change. However, the reason for this increase is human economic activity, not the intensification of the weather itself.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an advisory body to the United Nations, includes a chart showing the "amount of food lost due to disasters," which suggests that the loss has increased due to climate change.
But since food production has increased, it is not surprising that the amount of food lost has also increased.
Strange that there are no statistics as there should be.
If they want to say that disasters have become more severe "due to climate change," they should look at physical weather data, not indicators that are affected by increased economic activity.
There is nothing "cataclysmic" about it.
It was a problem before it said whether it was the effect of global warming.
Typhoons are classified as "strong" or more extraordinary when winds reach 33 meters or more, but this number has not increased.
No other indicators show that typhoons have become "more severe."
There are various indicators of heavy rainfall, but rainfall has not increased, or if it has, it has increased only slightly.
Since the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can hold increases by about 7% per 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature, about one degree of global warming in the past may have increased rainfall by about 7%.
However, statistically, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, there was no tendency for the annual maximum rainfall during the planned flood period (3 days for the Tone River) in most of Japan's basins including the Tone and Tama rivers. It is shown.
Observed statistics on the environmental impact on ecosystems do not indicate a "climate crisis."
The number of polar bears in the Arctic, which is said to be extinct due to global warming, was about 10,000 around 1960, but now it exceeds 30,000 and is the largest in the history of observation.
The coral reef area of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which was said to be devastated by global warming, is also the largest in recorded history.
Neither Japan's Environmental White Paper nor the more than 3,000-page IPCC Subcommittee II Environmental Impact Report released this past February do not illustrate the statistics of such observations.
It is odd since observational data, especially statistics, are indispensable for understanding the global environment.
The overwhelming majority of the data are the results of computer simulations.
But the global environment is highly complex.
It is inappropriate to rely solely on simulations based on uncertain assumptions, significantly simplifying reality.
A serious examination of observational statistics reveals no drastic increases in disasters or destruction of ecosystems "due to climate change."
It is not scientific to incite a sense of crisis with rhetoric without showing such data and to drive people to the extreme goal of zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
China is a more significant threat than global warming.
CO₂ concentration has increased about 1.5-fold to nearly 420 ppm since 1850, at the end of the Edo period.
The earth's temperature has risen by about 1 degree Celsius during this period.
Assuming that CO₂ is the cause of all global warming to date, another 1 degree Celsius rise will occur when the CO₂ concentration increases by another 1.5 times to 630 ppm.
However, based on the International Energy Agency's forecast, this would be around 2090, even if global warming countermeasures are not strengthened after 2019.
Since there has been no drastic increase in disasters despite a one-degree rise, it is hard to imagine that one more degree rise over the next 70 years will suddenly cause a catastrophe.
In the first place, half of the CO2 emitted by human beings every year is absorbed by the ocean and land, and if the emission is halved, the increase in the concentration in the atmosphere will stop, and the warming will almost stop.
The Framework Convention on Climate Change aimed to stabilize this concentration, but it moved the goalposts in international politics and set the unattainable goal of zero CO₂ emissions.
If we compare the risk of global warming with the risk of "countermeasures" for global warming, it cannot justify the extreme goal of zero CO2 in 2050.
Germany's Energie Wende (conversion) policy has failed spectacularly, leading to dependence on Russian gas and finally to the catastrophe of war in Ukraine.
If Japan continues to push for decarbonization, its manufacturing sector will collapse, leaving the nation weak and vulnerable and giving China an opening to take advantage.
Taishi Sugiyama is one of the most righteous intellects in the world today.
A must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people worldwide.
Decarbonization, not climate change, is the risk.
It is the season of heavy rainfall again this year.
Whenever there is a disaster, the media is full of opinions about the climate crisis and the urgent need to decarbonize.
The use of statistics is misleading.
Many reports say that "disasters have increased five-fold in 50 years due to climate change.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's document "Accelerating Efforts Toward the Carbon Half" also cites this as the leading evidence of the "further worsening of the climate crisis.
The source of information is a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
But a closer reading reveals that the five-fold increase is in the "number of reported disasters."
Herein lies the trick.
Disasters are recorded when houses, roads, and other structures are damaged.
Over the past 50 years, as the world has become more affluent and populous, more property has been at risk.
It has led to an increase in disasters.
In addition, government agencies have become better organized, and reports often come in from all over the world.
So it is not surprising that the number of reports has increased.
A similar trick is used in the Japanese environmental white paper, which shows a graph of the "amount of damage" caused by natural disasters and suggests that it has increased due to climate change. However, the reason for this increase is human economic activity, not the intensification of the weather itself.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an advisory body to the United Nations, includes a chart showing the "amount of food lost due to disasters," which suggests that the loss has increased due to climate change.
But since food production has increased, it is not surprising that the amount of food lost has also increased.
Strange that there are no statistics as there should be.
If they want to say that disasters have become more severe "due to climate change," they should look at physical weather data, not indicators that are affected by increased economic activity.
There is nothing "cataclysmic" about it.
It was a problem before it said whether it was the effect of global warming.
Typhoons are classified as "strong" or more extraordinary when winds reach 33 meters or more, but this number has not increased.
No other indicators show that typhoons have become "more severe."
There are various indicators of heavy rainfall, but rainfall has not increased, or if it has, it has increased only slightly.
Since the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can hold increases by about 7% per 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature, about one degree of global warming in the past may have increased rainfall by about 7%.
However, statistically, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, there was no tendency for the annual maximum rainfall during the planned flood period (3 days for the Tone River) in most of Japan's basins including the Tone and Tama rivers. It is shown.
Observed statistics on the environmental impact on ecosystems do not indicate a "climate crisis."
The number of polar bears in the Arctic, which is said to be extinct due to global warming, was about 10,000 around 1960, but now it exceeds 30,000 and is the largest in the history of observation.
The coral reef area of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which was said to be devastated by global warming, is also the largest in recorded history.
Neither Japan's Environmental White Paper nor the more than 3,000-page IPCC Subcommittee II Environmental Impact Report released this past February do not illustrate the statistics of such observations.
It is odd since observational data, especially statistics, are indispensable for understanding the global environment.
The overwhelming majority of the data are the results of computer simulations.
But the global environment is highly complex.
It is inappropriate to rely solely on simulations based on uncertain assumptions, significantly simplifying reality.
A serious examination of observational statistics reveals no drastic increases in disasters or destruction of ecosystems "due to climate change."
It is not scientific to incite a sense of crisis with rhetoric without showing such data and to drive people to the extreme goal of zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
China is a more significant threat than global warming.
CO₂ concentration has increased about 1.5-fold to nearly 420 ppm since 1850, at the end of the Edo period.
The earth's temperature has risen by about 1 degree Celsius during this period.
Assuming that CO₂ is the cause of all global warming to date, another 1 degree Celsius rise will occur when the CO₂ concentration increases by another 1.5 times to 630 ppm.
However, based on the International Energy Agency's forecast, this would be around 2090, even if global warming countermeasures are not strengthened after 2019.
Since there has been no drastic increase in disasters despite a one-degree rise, it is hard to imagine that one more degree rise over the next 70 years will suddenly cause a catastrophe.
In the first place, half of the CO2 emitted by human beings every year is absorbed by the ocean and land, and if the emission is halved, the increase in the concentration in the atmosphere will stop, and the warming will almost stop.
The Framework Convention on Climate Change aimed to stabilize this concentration, but it moved the goalposts in international politics and set the unattainable goal of zero CO₂ emissions.
If we compare the risk of global warming with the risk of "countermeasures" for global warming, it cannot justify the extreme goal of zero CO2 in 2050.
Germany's Energie Wende (conversion) policy has failed spectacularly, leading to dependence on Russian gas and finally to the catastrophe of war in Ukraine.
If Japan continues to push for decarbonization, its manufacturing sector will collapse, leaving the nation weak and vulnerable and giving China an opening to take advantage.
