Category Archives: climate

Carbon Dioxide

Posted on by
Reply

Enhanced levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are a likely key driver of global dryland greening, according to a paper published [Tuesday] in the journal Scientific Reports.

The positive trend in vegetation greenness has been observed through satellite images, but the reasons for it had been unclear.

After analyzing 45 studies from eight countries, Lixin Wang, assistant professor of earth sciences in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and a PhD student in Wang’s group, Xuefei Lu, concluded the greening likely stems from the impact of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide on plant water savings and consequent increases in available soil water.

Atmospheric CO2 is plant food. Who knew?

The Coercive Power of the State

Posted on by
Reply

This is the Progressive Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as articulated by California Governor Jerry Brown (D). At the just concluded Paris “Climate” Summit.

Tom, you used the phrase “policy.” Good policy. But I want to unpack that term a little bit. Inside the policy, you need a law. You need a rule. You need the coercive power of government to say, “Do this.” Now, you have to be wise and don’t say something stupid or order something stupid but the fact is, the regulations supported by the laws drive innovation.

And

You do have to have, at the end of the day, a regulation, a law. Progress comes from well-designed regulatory objectives that business then follows.

You can be sure California is going to keep innovating, keep regulating. And, shall I say, keep taxing.

All for the very best of causes. This complements the Left’s drive to take our weapons.  All for the very best of causes.  All for political power.  And, we mustn’t neglect Mao Tse-tung’s position:

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

The Pseudo-Logic of the Climatistas

Posted on by
1

Fat Head has a piece about the climate by Tom Naughton (the head fat head); it’s well worth the read.

What’s interesting to me, though, is his comment in the comment stream of his post.

Penn & Teller got hundreds of people at a environmental conference to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide—including the “science” information officer.

The real problem with this is that P&T ignored the at least equally pervasive problem of hydrogen hydroxyl. This extremely dangerous chemical already is pervasive in our atmosphere, in our lakes and rivers, and in our oceans. If allowed to accumulate too much in our oceans, in particular, it’ll lead to relative desalination of those critical waters, poisoning salt water life, right down to the sea water dependent single-celled organisms that are the very foundation of Gaia’s life-bearing ecology.

Why didn’t that Science Information Officer call P&T on this danger, instead of meekly signing their limited petition? It’s for the planet, after all, and all the children who live on it.

A Bit About Global Warming

Posted on by
Reply

The climate panic-mongers need to explain some things. This, for instance, from Steven Mithen’s After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC (quoted at Watts Up With That:

The next century of human-made global warming is predicted to be far less extreme than that which occurred at 9600 BC [11,600 BP]. At the end of the Younger Dryas, mean global temperature had risen by 7°C in fifty years, whereas the predicted rise for the next hundred years is less than 3°C. The end of the last ice age led to a 120 meter increase in sea level, whereas that predicted for the next fifty years is a paltry 32 centimeters at most,….

The timeline that opens the article at the link is complex, and it’s instructive. So is Andy May’s article at that link.

Cnut

Posted on by
Reply

Catholic leaders—”representatives of bishops conferences from around the globe”—have produced a document urging climate “negotiators” meeting in Paris next month to stop global climate change. The Catholics’

10-point proposal calls for governments to approve legally binding limits to global average temperatures, set a mid-century decarbonization goal….

Never mind that humanity has no control over global temperature; indeed, climate-related temperature variations have been demonstrated to be closely linked to the sun’s output variability, and the variability of the Earth’s (and Moon’s) orbital behaviors. Never mind, too, that atmospheric CO2 is plant food, without which we’d have no hope of feeding our multitudes; that when atmospheric CO2 was orders of magnitude higher in earlier epochs, life on Earth was lush; and never mind that significant changes in atmospheric CO2 are trailing indicators confirming the increasing health of Earth from the burgeoning life exhaling all that CO2 and alternatively confirming the ailing of Earth as life decreased in the face of cooling and Ice Ages, and so exhaling less CO2 into the atmosphere.

It’s amazing to me that Catholic leadership should commit so blatant a sin of arrogance. They would do well to learn from King Cnut’s example, wherein he attempted to stop the tide as a demonstration to his subjects of the limits of mere human power.