This article is the second in a series. You can read the first post here.“Based on the numerous experiments listed there, I can tell you that, typically, a 300-ppm increase in the air’s CO2 content … will raise the productivity of most herbaceous plants by about one-third, which stimulation is generally manifested by an increase in the number of branches and tillers, more and thicker leaves, more extensive root systems, and more flowers and fruit.”Perhaps the most well-known and significant … [Read more...]
Can Computer Models Predict Climate?
Editor’s note: This article builds on ideas Dr. Essex discussed with Dr. David Legates and me on From the Stacks, our livestream program, on March 15, 2022 (view here). Parts of it address highly technical issues of advanced mathematics, physics, and modeling that many readers will find difficult to grasp. Nonetheless, we encourage a thorough reading. Even without grasping the highly technical points, you’ll find its main points reasonably clear and persuasive and its conclusions both sound … [Read more...]
Death of a Nightmare: The Last Gasps of Poseur Politics
According to psychiatrist Seth D. Norrholm, dictators see themselves “as ‘very special’ people, deserving of admiration, and, consequently, [they] have difficulty empathizing with the feelings and needs of others; they also tend to behave with a vindictiveness often observed in narcissistic personality disorder.” In other words, they are nuts. And dangerous. And in power. Norrholm, who is currently scientific director of NeuroCAST, at Wayne State University’s Department of Psychiatry … [Read more...]
The Many Benefits of Rising Atmospheric CO2 — An Introduction
This article is the first post in a series. You can read the second article here.Atmospheric carbon dioxide: you can’t see, hear, smell or taste it. But it’s there—all around us—and it’s crucial for life. Composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms, this simple molecule serves as the primary raw material out of which plants construct their tissues, which in turn provide the materials out of which animals construct theirs. Knowledge of the key life-giving and life-sustaining role played by carbon … [Read more...]
The Nature of Things: Trees Shed Leaves, Coral Bleaches
Contrary to the incessant bleating of office-based Great Barrier Reef “experts” (who visit the Reef a couple of weeks in a year), the reported incidents of coral bleaching are nothing new, unusual or threatening. They are common natural events no more threatening than trees shedding their leaves with the changing seasons, or occasionally in response to a dry spell.Some readily verifiable relevant facts:1/ Tropical ocean waters are generally nutrient-poor and the symbiotic algal cells which … [Read more...]
The climate scaremongers: An open letter to the Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph regularly publishes articles by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, its International Business Editor, which eulogise renewable energy and claim that fossil fuels will soon be a thing of the past. But they never seem to tell the other side of the story. Here is that other side.***Fossil Fuels v Renewable Energy?Let me start by stating that I am not pro or anti anything. In a free market, the best technologies, solutions and products automatically come to the fore without the … [Read more...]
African Research on Solar Cycles: Science vs. Net Zero
“Climate change is no hoax, because the climate always changes. Modest global warming might be beneficial for the globe. But not all climate change is beneficial. Cooling would be disastrous.”“The American Geophysical Union … displays a diminishing interest in science, that is, in the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. Instead, it revels in an escalating interest in politics, including much talk about nebulous ideas like ‘environmental justice’ and mobilizing scientists to be ‘change … [Read more...]
America’s Natural Gas Juggernaut
America can fuel the world’s needs for clean-burning natural gas for many decades and have plenty left over for our own domestic requirements. The vast majority of our nation’s undeveloped gas supply is found in the Appalachian Basin of the eastern United States. The size of the resource is stunning and largely unknown outside of the teams of geologists and engineers that are responsible for its discovery and ongoing development.Gas fields with more than 3 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of … [Read more...]
Electric Cars Are Not Ready for Showtime
It seems that no one can ever do quite enough to satisfy the demands of professional complainers. Not even Elon Musk, a world-famous promoter of electric vehicles. He was met rudely by protesters at the grand opening of his Tesla assembly plant, just outside Berlin, during recent ceremonies: "...it [the plant] has faced opposition and some environmental activists blocked the factory’s entrance while displaying banners flagging its high water use…”All said and done, it should … [Read more...]
How The World Got Rich
One day a socialist is supposed to have come into the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s office at the height of his wealth in the 1890s and demanded that the rich should distribute their wealth to the poor of the earth. Carnegie, so the story goes, asked his assistant to estimate his current wealth and then divide it by the number of people in this world. The assistant returned shortly thereafter with the figures and Carnegie told him: “Give this gentleman sixteen cents. That’s his share of the … [Read more...]
