Falsehoods always go down more smoothly when mixed with truths. And they’re probably the most credible when told by people who don’t know they’re false—the sincerity factor, you know.
Well, the lead paragraph of a recent New York Times article is a model of just that:
“The Trump administration on [June 19] replaced former President Barack Obama’s effort to reduce planet-warming pollution from coal plants with a new rule that would keep plants open longer and undercut progress on reducing carbon emissions.”
I suspect author Lisa Friedman, who “reports on climate and environmental policy in Washington” and is a “former editor at Climatewire,” really believes everything she said there.
It’s true that the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency announced a replacement for the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). It’s true that the new measure, called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, would keep coal-burning electric generating plants open longer.
So what are the falsehoods? They come in two clauses: “effort to reduce planet-warming pollution” and “reducing carbon emissions.”
Friedman doesn’t make two things explicit:
- The emissions the CPP sought to reduce were emissions of carbon dioxide (an odorless, colorless, gas non-toxic except at levels over 100 times its concentration in Earth’s atmosphere but essential to photosynthesis and hence to all life) not carbon (a solid that, as black soot in high enough doses prolonged long enough, can cause respiratory diseases).
- Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.
Pollutant, according to Mirriam-Webster’s, denotes “something that pollutes,” and to pollute is “to make physically impure or unclean” or “to contaminate (an environment) especially with man-made waste.” The Google online dictionary defines pollutant as “a substance that pollutes something, especially water or the atmosphere,” and pollute as to “contaminate (water, air, or a place) with harmful or poisonous substances.”
Carbon dioxide isn’t harmful or poisonous except at concentrations over a hundred times higher than its concentration in Earth’s atmosphere—levels that we’ll never approach by burning fossil fuels.
The real beef about carbon dioxide is that it probably makes Earth’s atmosphere warmer than it otherwise would be. That’s true, but the relevant question is, “How much?”
The answer driven by empirical observation (the essence of science) instead of computer models (which are hypotheses and must be tested by observation) is probably very little, and almost certainly not enough to cause harms (e.g., sea-level rise; more frequent or severe extreme hurricanes, droughts, floods, or other extreme weather events) that exceed benefits (e.g., longer growing seasons and wider growing ranges and hence more food production; diminished deaths from extreme cold, which kills ten times as many people per day as extreme heat).
Perhaps the CPP could be defended, and its demise mourned, if carbon dioxide’s warming effect were much greater, and the emission reductions achieved by it would prevent a good deal of that warming. But the reality is that even assuming a high warming effect from carbon dioxide, full implementation of the CPP, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, would have achieved no significant reduction in global temperature by the end of this century.
And then there’s the other thing carbon dioxide does in the atmosphere: it enables plants to grow. Indeed, the more of it there is, the better plants grow.
For every doubling of carbon dioxide concentration, there’s an average 35 percent increase in plant growth efficiency. They grow better in warmer and colder temperatures and in wetter and drier soils, make better use of soil nutrients, and resist diseases and pests better. Consequently, they expand their ranges, shrinking deserts and spreading into both colder (toward the poles) and warmer (toward the equator) regions. They also improve their fruit-to-fiber ratio. The result is more food for everything that eats plants—or eats something that eats plants.
Some people object that the nutrient density of a few crops declines slightly with higher carbon dioxide concentration. That’s true, but most don’t suffer that, and the higher crop yields make compensating for that affordable, whether by eating a little more of the less-nutrient-dense food or by consuming other food or nutrient supplements.
The greatest benefit from the increased food production goes to the world’s poor. And that’s a good thing.
Article originally published on CNSNews.
Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash.
Dan Pangburn says
Blinded by a focus on the increase in CO2, ‘climate science’ has apparently failed to notice that in the period 1988-2002 water vapor molecules increased more than 5 times as fast as CO2 molecules and about twice as fast as calculated from the average global temperature increase. Since 1900 WV molecules increased approximately 3.6 times as fast as CO2 molecules.
The increase in WV has contributed to warming but is self-limiting. CO2 does not, never has and never will have a significant effect on climate. http://diyclimateanalysis.blogspot.com
John Bradshaw says
Very interesting Dan.
David DeNoble says
I find it so interesting that they call it the “Greenhouse Effect”. Greenhouses have high levels of water vapor and O2, not CO2. The plants use the CO2 and give off O2. Metabolic processes yield CO2 and H2O. Since we are familiar with using water to put out fires, and fires are the only process we see that consumes fuel, most people would have a hard time seeing H2O as a product of combustion. I really think that is the main reason CO2 was listed as the culprit of warming. I live outside Houston, TX. We have high humidity all summer long. The “feels like” temperature is always high, and the night temperatures don’t go down much because of the water vapor in the air. Our CO2 levels don’t go up in the summer, our moisture from the gulf does. When we have high temperatures around 100, the humidity is lower and the night temperatures drop off. It is why the desert can be 100 during the day and 30-40 at night. It isn’t the CO2, it is the water vapor, or, in that case, the lack thereof. The ones who wanted power to control our lives didn’t pick CO2 because it has any record of heating things. They picked it because they figured the majority of people anywhere around the world would not think about it and question it. They don’t have any inkling of an urge, or a basis to question what the “scientists” are telling them.
P.T. Barnum understood it well. Sometimes you can fool almost all the people. With today’s social media, inclination to pressure by shaming and denigrating those who disagree with you, there is even more pressure to fool the people. Who really wants to be called a person who wants people to die, to have their lives ruined, to cause famine and all the other terrible things they throw out. This, like ObamaCare, was something foisted on the people because the elites figured the population was too ignorant to object to.
John Konrath says
It would be great if you actually referenced the “empirical observations” you mentioned. You wrote a very long passage but left out the “observations” that would be your evidence.
I suspect you are not familiar with how carbon dioxide heats the planet. Sit in your car in the sun with your windows closed. CO2 has the same effect as the glass. Visible light goes in but infrared light. (heat) has difficulty escaping. If you surrounded the planet with window glass it would heat the planet in the same way. BTW I guess window glass wouldn’t be consider a pollutant either.
Dan Pangburn says
JK,
Your simple example explains how the ‘greenhouse effect’ works but the mechanism for CO2 is more complicated. Important to the understanding is understanding how thermalization works, that absorption and emission take place continuously up through the atmosphere, that water vapor is a ghg, that the population of water vapor molecules declines dramatically from average about 10,000 ppmv (1%) down to 32 ppmv because of the low temperature at the tropopause (about 10 km), and that the population of CO2 molecules is about 410 ppmv all the way up.
This explains why CO2 has no significant effect on climate:
Well above the tropopause, radiation to space is primarily from CO2 molecules. If you ignore the increase in water vapor (big mistake), WV averages about 10,000 ppmv. The increase in absorber molecules at ground level since 1900 is then about 10,410/10,295 = ~ 1%.
WV above the tropopause is limited to about 32 ppmv because of the low temperature (~ -50 °C) while the CO2 fraction remains essentially constant with altitude at 410 ppmv up from about 295 ppmv in 1900. The increase in emitters to space at high altitude (~> 30 km, 0.012 atm) accounting for the lower atmospheric pressure is (410 + 32)/(295 + 32) * 0.012 = ~ 1.4%. This easily explains why CO2 increase does not cause significant warming and might even cause cooling.
There is a lot more at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
John Bradshaw says
Great to get the details Dan. Thx.
The globalists, particularly the Vatican, will not give up pushing their agenda in order to make themselves appear the saviour of the world. Meanwhile as Dr Beisner points out in this article, the poor people will suffer terribly by not using what is plentiful and cheap like coal. http://news.trust.org/item/20190614124558-n22zt
Al Miller says
John, sadly you’re brainwashed if you believe CO2 has the same effect as window glass. There are many, many proofs of this. This is complete and utter folly that certain groups wish you to believe. Sorry you’ve been lied to…
Ddwieland says
Graphical views of the empirical observations (with accompanying notes) are at http://climate4you.com/GreenhouseGasses.htm#Temperature%20records%20versus%20atmospheric%20CO2.
Your explanation of the greenhouse effect is fairly close to the standard one. One thing to notice is that it relies on a transparent barrier. That’s a major flaw in the GHE theory, because earth’s atmosphere is nothing like a sheet of glass or other film. (Thank goodness! We’d roast if it were.)
Victoria Mabry says
Can you address the concern of how rising CO2 levels affect coral reefs? This seems to be a concern for some people. Is it a valid concern?
dan pangburn says
Because CO2 has no significant effect on climate, there is no issue there.
There is about 50 times as much carbon dissolved in the oceans in the form of CO2 and CO2 hydration products as exists in the atmosphere, http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=17726 so the effect on ocean chemistry is nill.