New research & technology advances in theoretical physics & chemistry, power plant engineering, climate science, and genetics & medical science are radically reshaping humankind’s understanding of those fields, and the world we live in. Many of these developments were either advanced by Paragon, or research associates currently working with Paragon.
And while these ground breaking research and technology developments were not expected, they unequivocally prove that the physical world we thought we understood so well in 2007 actually operates per a different set of physical rules.
These breakthroughs have already begun to fundamentally change the course of human development, and our near-term economic and social futures as well — whether related to:
These discoveries are already affecting investment, technology development, and infrastructure planning. In the near future they will also affect government regulation of existing technology used in most industry today, as well as human development everywhere.
They will also affect many organization’s future investment decisions related to energy, climate, or medicine. However, most corporations, NGOs, governments, and countries are not yet aware of these developments. But one thing is clear — those operating in affected industries need to get informed, or risk losing their position or competitive advantage.
In 1999, Paragon Director of Research Sam Bock provided research and testimony on the detrimental effects of environmental pollution on human health before the Canadian Government Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. This helped convince that Senate committee to pass a recommendation requiring the annual review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. That presentation was successful because it effectively demonstrated numerous technical issues related to environmental pollution in terms the Senators could clearly understand.
Based on the success of that Senate presentation, in 1999 Bock decided to generate a similar comprehensive white paper on how to best solve the climate change problem. It would focus on (1) the causes of climate change, (2) the technologies required to rectify them, and (3) viable models for profitable, market-driven government incentive programs to allow rapid technology implementation without detriment to the economy. Bock had been researching and studying these issues around climate change since receiving a degree in Environmental Science / Economics from Middlebury College in 1982, where he had written his thesis, which was a technical and economic analysis of the roles oil & gas, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, and other technologies in meeting North America's energy needs.
However, when doing additional background due-diligence research to further corroborate and explain CO2 / GHG theory with simple charts and relationships that would clearly demonstrate concepts to government and business leaders, to his surprise Bock began to realize that that the historical temperature and weather data strongly indicate the world has not warmed as predicted by standard GHG theory, and, that instead, fluctuations of carbon-based soots appear have been driving the various eras and phases of climate change witnessed since the Industrial Revolution.
In 2006 Paragon became the first research group to grasp the full extent of unexpected and extreme regional & planetary warming being driven by particulate air pollution, and report that un-burnt fuels in carbonaceous soots appear to have caused much of the unanticipated and rapid climate fluctuations seen over the past century.
In 2007, using Daniel Rosenfeld’s research, Bock was first to recognize that the dispersing nature of atmospheric soot on water vapour (that prevents normal cloud formation) is also dramatically enhancing the Green House effect of a given amount of water vapour. (Rosenfeld, is a highly respected Israeli atmospheric scientist, who in collaboration with the NOAA authored Suppression of Rain and Snow by Urban and Industrial Air Pollution (Science, 2000).
Rosenfeld’s research is now part of NASA's permanent website, where Bock had first seen it.)
Water vapour is the primary green house gas found in a normal atmosphere, and is normally responsible for about 89% of an unpolluted atmosphere’s natural Green house effect (Jacobson, 2002). However Bock’s analysis using Rosenfeld’s data compelling shows that soot-polluted water vapour’s total “Green House” potential must be significantly higher than previously estimated. And if polluted water vapour is causing more of the observed atmospheric warming than previously estimated, this also means that any remaining atmospheric forcing due to other Green House Gases must be considerably less than previously thought. (see Paragon’s Research in Theoretical Physics and Chemistry)
A year later in 2008, after an exhaustive 5 year search of peer-reviewed climate research and temperature data, Bock became the first climate researcher to refute current CO2 / GHG theory and to instead provide evidence showing that almost all the climate warming of the industrial era appears to have been caused by carbon soots found in air pollution, and not primarily by an accumulation of CO2 and other anthropogenic GHGs.
More importantly, carbon soots fall out of the atmosphere, and can be eliminated, whereas CO2 accumulates. In other words, if atmospheric soots are driving much of the problem as they appear to be, then most climate change can be quickly reversed.
In 2008, Bock used Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) to further recognize and demonstrate the accelerating affects of coal soot, mercury, and other heavy metal pollution on water systems and the fish, animals, and humans consuming them, as supported by peer-reviewed research.
In 2010 ENMAX Corporation of Calgary used Paragon’s climate and environment research to demonstrate the toxic heavy metal issues and regional & global warming effects related to black & brown carbon particulates, volatile metal, and other emissions related to coal burning, thereby helping convince Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice and the Canadian government to phase out coal-fired generation plants in Canada.
Sam Bock / June 2008