Carbon Dioxide and Climate – Friend or Foe?

American Thinker 

Is CO2 really the bogey man? Is it a friend or foe of planet Earth? The answer may surprise you. 

CO2 is one of several greenhouse gasses. Water vapor however is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect. CO2 is also plant food. Think back to high school biology and photosynthesis. Water, CO2, and sunlight combine to produce carbohydrate and oxygen, the carbohydrate being the plant food.

CO2 is a relatively small percentage of air, 0.035% to be exact, less than one half of one percent of the air around us. CO2 levels can vary significantly, from less than 400 parts per million outdoors to over 1000 inside a crowded room. Submarine crews tolerate CO2 levels of up to 8000 parts per million without adverse health effects.

Although a minor component of our atmosphere, CO2 is essential for plant growth. A 100 percent increase in CO2 levels increases plant growth from 22-41 percent, depending on plant type. Aside from CO2, temperature also affects plant growth. Warmer temperatures translate to higher growth rates, assuming the other photosynthesis ingredients remain in place.  ......

Unless of course the climate change alarmists at the UN and elsewhere are less concerned about carbon footprints and global temperatures than they are promoting a major socioeconomic reset, where top-down government control is used in the name of “saving the planet.”

The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, a consultant organization to the UN, claims, “If we are to address the climate crisis we need to challenge the structural causes of the crisis which lies on unequal distribution of wealth, of carbon, and of power.”

They let the cat out of the bag, “Unequal distribution of wealth,” one of Karl Marx’s pet peeves."

Earth day is coming up. It is a good time to remind the public what the predictions were 52 years ago

 American Thinker

On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, the world was warned that billions would die soon because of a disastrous ice age.  The Earth had been cooling for thirty years, and it was about to get much worse.  Crops would not survive the ice age, so the people couldn't be fed.  The Earth was cooling even though CO2, the population, and fossil fuel consumption were rising rapidly, which we are told causes warming.

The complicit media dutifully repeated these warnings to scare the public with no questions and no research.  The warnings were 100% wrong because they were WAGS (wild-a-- guesses) instead of based on scientific data.

In 1922, this was in the Washington Post to scare the public. Again, there was no research or questions or scientific data...In 1989, the U.N. essentially gave the same warnings as in 1922 and again the sycophant media reported it to scare the public with no questions asked because they don't care when they are campaigning for a leftist agenda to destroy America."

I agree with scientists and journalists that damaging cold weather is caused by climate change

 American Thinker

Scientific data shows that the climate has consistently and naturally changed for billions of years, so yes, when we have late damaging frosts, they are caused by natural climate change. I hope a lot of money and time wasn’t wasted in coming to this logical conclusion.     What didn't cause late frosts is warming, supposedly caused by fossil fuel usage, rising CO2, humans, methane, cars and so many other things that the media, scientists, and others say we must stop using. It is a simple concept that fossil fuels and humans can't cause both warming and cooling.Throughout history, we have had warming periods and cooling periods. We have had floods and droughts. Storm activity has also fluctuated throughout billions of years.Why do journalists and others continually lie to the public that the current droughts and floods are worse than ever when that is demonstrably false. It is clearly to indoctrinate people into submitting to government policies that will destroy our quality of life and the economy as a whole.

Children of the Corn and the Fraud of Renewable Energy

 American Thinker

The corn crop did not look like any corn that this kid could remember. It was lush and tightly packed, dense even. Every field looked like it had been planted and cultivated by the same farmer, maybe some corporation. I’d bet a buck that this corn I drove past was genetically-modified Frankencorn, and totally dependent on high-powered fertilizers. I’ve probably eaten tons of it in the cheap salty corn chips I’m addicted to.

Corn (a.k.a. maize) is used not just as food for people and cattle, it’s also used to produce ethanol, and not just for boozers, but to mix in with our gasoline....

To understand just how wacky the RFS is, read “Stop the Ethanol Madness” by Mario Loyola, which ran at the Atlantic in November of 2019. Loyola explains how RFS is not only uneconomic but is also destroying the environment. Loyola asserts that “today’s corn-ethanol program is a glaring failure, and it is unconscionable that politicians of both parties are conspiring to keep it alive despite knowing full well what its problems are.”

Ethanol has about one-third less energy than does gasoline. So cars using ethanol get fewer miles per gallon. Flex-fuel vehicles that use E85 get up to 27 percent fewer miles per gallon.  .......

The corn ethanol lobby immediately rose up, and six days after the bill’s introduction, FarmProgress ran “Senate bill repeals corn ethanol mandate.” The article is worth reading as it reveals the entrenched interests at play in RFS. But the article is dated, as the world’s food supply has been damaged by the war in Ukraine, which is a breadbasket to much of the world.

This spring, Ukrainian farmers might have a little trouble between missile strikes getting their crops planted. However, if Ukrainian agriculture is taken offline by war, American farmers can make up some of the difference by raising food rather than fuel additives. That is, if Congress lets them.

 

'Climate change': An Ideologically Driven Movement

 American Thinker

Scientists have been telling us that humanity will end in ten years for the past half-century. Their track record predicting the future is less trustworthy than the prophecies of the Oracle of Delphi.  Carl Grant Looney, Ph.D. in his dazzling book Climate Change and the Emergence of Civilization: Global Warming, Great Floods and Ice Ages assembled spectacularly wrong predictions made by the leading scientists around 1970.  Does anyone remember the “scientific” theory of “acid rain” propagated during the 1970s and 1980s, which was supposed to destroy the forests and poison our lakes and rivers unless we closed down coal-fired power plants? ...It is a fact that climate has been in constant flux for millions of years. The collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia around 2200 B.C. was brought about by a catastrophic rise in temperatures and subsequent droughts.  Some may be surprised to learn that the Romans grew grapes in northern England. Hence, temperatures on this planet were a lot higher then. Given the level of erudition of global warming advocates, we should wonder whether they are aware that neither the Bronze Age civilizations nor the Romans had cars, oil refineries, or coal-fired power plants."

Vermont's green coup d'etat

American Thinker 

Vermont’s Senate has embraced an “act relating to environmental justice” which seeks to redistribute the costs of environmental pollutants from the city mice to the country mice, while punishing white people who live where there is fresh air for the sin of country living.  The law is patently unconstitutional by design – social justice ideology condemns the U.S. Constitution, and seeks to replace it with infinite powers in the social justice elite.

The false narrative of the far Left denigrates America contemptuously:

Americans have traditionally treated the ideas of equality and freedom as meaning simply that the individual is not prevented from following his own life, but that the society has no obligation towards the individual. This view is consistent with the country’s capitalistic history, and has resulted in the wealth and income inequality from which the society suffers… Because the black population suffers most, it has become the leader of the fight to bring the reality of our society into line with the economic, social and political expectations of the people.

The truth is, people who live in urban areas suffer the increased risks of pollution regardless of race; numerous white Vermonters suffer abject poverty despite living deep in the environmentally-clean mountains (and they can’t use a bus or go to the museum: unrecognized urban benefits).

 

The 'Religiofication' of Climate Change

 American Thinker

Climate change is the unofficial state religion of the Biden administration.  In his commentaries on mass movements, Eric Hoffer warned of the "religiofication" of practical purposes into holy causes and noted, "Blind devotion and religiosity leads to belief that the movement is virtuous and a source of strength.  The adherent identifies as a supporter and defender of a holy cause."   .....Climate czar John Kerry stated that walking away from global warming at Kyoto sent a message of duplicity and hypocrisy and that ignoring the twelve-year doomsday forecast issued in 2019 spelled certain disaster for the planet. ....Mr. Kerry's and wife Teresa's combined personal wealth is estimated to be $1.2 billion.  They have owned a private jet, beachfront properties, and a yacht, making their carbon footprint enormous  .....With the United States experiencing the highest rates of inflation in 40 years and energy costs soaring, activists ignore the hardships of ordinary Americans and insist that climate change is the primary existential threat facing humanity.  Sixty-nine percent of Americans support a reduced focus on climate change and efforts to allow for more oil and gas exploration.  Yet the 2022 federal budget proposes $36 billion to support climate change dogma that rejects these incontestable facts:   .....

No credible scientific body has stated that climate change threatens the collapse of civilization or human extinction.

Cold temperatures kill far more people than hot temperatures.

For 80 years, climate alarmists have failed to make correct predictions.

Over the past 600 million years, atmospheric CO2 and temperature levels have fluctuated widely and often without correlation.