Grant Carbon Dioxide a Presidential Pardon.  Just for the record, global CO2 emissions reached an all-time high in 2023 despite global renewable energy investments of nearly $12 trillion over nine years leading up to that time — nearly twice the level Paris promoted — while fossil fuels continue to provide about 80% of the world's energy.  Meanwhile the key reasons we were told this climate salvation were so urgent have since proven to be false alarms.  Recall, for example, the distressed polar bear floating away to its death on melting ice in Al Gore's 2006 science fiction horror film "An Inconvenient Truth" due to global warming before the scare got rebranded as "climate change."  Rather than facing extinction, thanks to curbs on hunting rather than upon CO2, the polar bear population has more than doubled since the 1960s from around 12,000 to about 26,000.  And those coral aquatic environments such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef that are being killed by CO2-induced rising ocean temperatures?  After sustaining substantial hurricane damage in 2009 scientists predicted that the reef's coral would be reduced by another half by 2022. Whereas over the past three years, it has gained more cover than at any point since records were first collected in 1986.

Net Zero Is Asinine.  There are many problems with the UN's net zero mission, primarily that it is totally impractical.  For thousands of years, humans have relied on fossil fuels for heating, cooking, and transportation.  From coal to oil to natural gas, fossil fuels have played a vital role in humanity's march of progress.  Think about it, were it not for fossil fuels, the vast majority of the products, services, and everyday luxuries we take for granted in the twenty-first century would simply not exist.  Make no mistake, the advent of fossil fuels has undeniably been a boon for humanity.  Tragically, the UN and their climate alarmist cronies ignore the enormous benefits that fossil fuels have blessed upon humanity.  Rather, they solely focus on framing fossil fuels as a scourge that must be eliminated or else the entire world will become uninhabitable.

The Editor says...
Ironically, the proposed solutions are more likely to make the world uninhabitable, which may be their goal.

German Researcher:  Doubling Of Atmospheric CO2 Causes Only 0.24°C Of Warming — Practically Insignificant.  German researcher concludes CO2 warming immensely exaggerated.... IR radiation of clouds considerably reduces the greenhouse effect of CO2."  The prosperity and political stability of our countries are in grave danger.  The reason for this is an ideology that claims catastrophic climate change caused by the alleged "greenhouse gas" CO2 and is intent to destroy our civilization and prosperity.  Its supporters are spreading a witch-hunt atmosphere against anyone who questions their ideology.

The Species that Saved the Planet.  PhD in ecology in 1971, Patrick Moore becomes a radical environmental activist.  Fifteen years in the lead group in Greenpeace opposing US underground nuclear weapons testing, French atmospheric nuclear testing, whaling, and clubbing baby seals.  His video shows from international media this picture of him running a small inflatable boat into the Soviet whaling fleet.  Greenpeace created a focal point for the media to report on public opposition to nuclear tests and to stopping killing whales.  They were successful.  Good for them!  But, he was the only director of Greenpeace with a formal education in science.  He left it because they drifted into a belief that humans are the enemies of the earth.  Set himself to develop an environmental policy that is based on science and logic rather than sensationalism, misinformation, anti-humanism and fear.  For example, he favors genetically modified (GMO) Golden Rice solving the vitamin A deficiency in Africa.  He reminds us that NASA and many scientists benefit from the fear of Climate Change.  He accepts that most of the rise of CO2 from 280 to 400 ppm is caused by human CO2 emissions.  The G7 plan to "end extreme poverty and hunger" by phasing out 85% of the world's energy supply including 98% of the energy used to transport people and goods, including food.  Ridiculous, he implies.

New study:  To avert 'greater-than-expected' degree of warming, carbon must be stored a minimum of one millennium.  "Climate" science is almost always junk science — forecasts from human-programmed computer-based guesses, endless doomsday predictions that never manifest, and an ever-changing narrative, oscillating between global warming and global cooling.  But when junk science comes out and completely undermines progressive policy initiatives by showing how utterly irrelevant and worthless such initiatives are?  It's a silver lining, and pretty tasty schadenfreude.  According to a new article out on Tuesday [12/3/2024] from Anthropocene Magazine, new "scientific" findings suggest that all the "climate change" ideas and schemes the left foists onto taxpayers to avoid this strikingly vague "existential crisis" don't mean anything unless they can sequester an unidentified level of carbon from the air and store it for at least a millennium. [...] The sad reality about this is that although this is a great example of how asinine and unrealistic the agenda and vision of the progressive left climate fantasists are, it won't sober them up — as one would reasonably expect — and it'll become the basis for even more maniacal "climate change mitigation" plans.

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not carbon.  In a carbon dioxide molecule, the oxygen atoms outnumber the carbon atoms by two-to-one.  Saying "carbon" when you're talking about carbon dioxide is a lazy shortcut that was probably originated in a TV newsroom somewhere.  [#2] The mass of the atmosphere is so great that there is no vessel (or cave or salt dome) large enough to hold enough sequestered carbon dioxide to make a measurable difference in the CO2 concentration in the air above.  [#3] China and India are not the least bit worried about carbon dioxide emissions, apparently, and whatever is done in North America over the rest of this century will be negated by what China and India do next month.  [#4] Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  It's plant food.  It would be far more beneficial to mankind to find additional sources of carbon dioxide, rather that places to hide it.

Let's Make CO2 Great Again.  U.S. voters know that President-elect Donald Trump has declared the Green New Deal a "scam" and promises to return common sense to environmental regulations and energy development.  His return to office rests partly on that pledge.  In Europe, German politicians whose green fetish has produced economic decline face serious electoral challenges.  And developing countries like India ignore "decarbonization" promises to aggressively develop coal mines and import more of the fuel to spur growth and eradicate poverty.  Less frequently reported is the story of carbon dioxide emissions greening the Earth and boosting crop production.  Educating the public on the benefits of carbon dioxide is the mission of the CO2 Coalition, which I lead.  We sponsor speakers and publish scientifically-based materials for adults and children.  Much of the information is about the role of CO2 as a beneficial greenhouse gas in moderating the extremes between daytime and nighttime temperatures and as a photosynthetic plant food.

Oh, that pesky carbon dioxide!  [Scroll down]  When a hydrocarbon is oxidized, water is always part of the exhaust — hence the condensation trails produced by jet aircraft.  Carbon dioxide is, of course, also produced.  What is not mentioned often enough — because it is the most forbidden of all knowledge — is that all of the carbon in fossil fuels got there due to the extraction of atmospheric carbon dioxide by photosynthesis.  It just keeps cycling around and around.  When sugary water (such as fruit juice or diluted barley malt extract) is digested by yeast, both alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide are produced.  The primary source of commercial carbon dioxide is the beer-brewing industry.  During the recent supply chain crunch, there was a shortage of soda pop because less beer was being brewed and thus less carbon dioxide was available to inject the necessary fizz into these products.  Carbon dioxide is also fairly inert, so it's safe for us to swallow and also use in fire extinguishers.  And because it is so inert, it takes such a complex biochemical process as photosynthesis to separate it into carbon and oxygen.  Climate change, however, is a given.  Were climate not to change, there would never have been ice ages and their interstitial warm periods — causes of which are still not fully understood.

The Zenith of the Green New Scam.  [Scroll down]  It took a few years, but the "green blob" finally settled on manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) as the main culprit, and climate extremists and their allies in government have been railing about the need to rapidly transition to non-CO2-producing energy sources to "save the planet" from impending climate-driven catastrophes.  The problem for the blob is that contrary to the predictions of the various climate models, no scientific evidence has yet been developed to categorically prove the theory that manmade CO2 emissions cause climate change.  The various hair-on-fire predictions from the likes of Al Gore have been proven to be drastically wrong over the years.  In point of fact, there is no scientific evidence that manmade CO2 emissions cause climate change.  Rather, the real causes of significant climate change (over long periods of time) are natural solar cycles, major and minor volcanic eruptions, natural changes in ocean currents, and the hydrologic (water) cycle in the Earth-Atmosphere system that has existed for millennia.

Simple Facts Expose The Climate Change Hoax.  To believe in the climate change hoax, you must believe 5 (palpably untrue) things:
  [#1]   CO2 is the "control knob" for the climate.  This has been proven to be ridiculous.  CO2 makes up only about 0.04% of the atmosphere, while 96 [to] 99% of the atmosphere is oxygen and nitrogen.  Water vapor, a much larger determinant of temperature, varies from 1 [to] 4%.  But what determines temperature more than anything else?  Changes in the Earth's solar orbit (obviously).  NASA has admitted this.
  [#2]   CO2 is harmful.  Wrong!  CO2 is plant food.  Humans inhale oxygen and exhale CO2.  Plants do the reverse.  It is scientific fact that higher levels of CO2 lead to greater plant growth.  This is essential if we are going to continue to be able to feed an increasing world population and one of the reasons why the planet now supports 8 billion humans.
  [#3]   We are at historically high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Again, not true.  We are actually at historically low levels of CO2. [...]

Carbon Dioxide: A Pollutant or the Food of Life?  You be the judge.  [Scroll down]  Fact:  Not only does Carbon Dioxide absorb only a tiny portion of the full spectrum of re-radiated heat from the surface of our planet, only radiation with a frequency around 14.8 microns, but it cannot hold the radiation, it re-emits it within microseconds in all directions.  [¶] Fact:  Any "Greenhouse" effect that CO2 "might" have is finished at 3 meters above the Earth's surface.  Doubling its current quantity in the atmosphere will have no discernible effect.  [¶] Fact:  Water for example, can absorb nearly the full spectrum of re-radiated heat, from 2 to 30 microns.  And it CAN hold the heat.  (We have all boiled kettles).  As well, because of its ability to manage energy through changes of state from ice, to water, to vapour, and back again, and by its huge abundance in our atmosphere, water is virtually the main control factor for all of our climate.  We see it in our clouds up to thousands of meters, and we feel it in the humidity or lack thereof.  Carbon Dioxide doesn't even make the scale by comparison. [...] Fact: Sadly for NASA and the IPCC, ALL the laws of Physics and Thermodynamics tell us that a cooler body, the atmosphere, can NEVER heat a warmer body, the Earth's surface.  And energy is NEVER cumulative in the way that they purport.

Realities cannot be denied.  Perhaps the biggest lie of all (against We the People) is that hoax of an existential threat; Climate Change.  The green-lovers (who doesn't love green?) have created this lie that CO2 is a toxic gas.  Before the public schools became indoctrinated, I learned about a thing called photosynthesis.  There is no life without CO2.  Photosynthesis is carried out by green plants, which take carbon dioxide from the air, incorporate it into organic matter, and release oxygen as a byproduct.  Respiration is carried out by animals, which take oxygen from the air, use it to burn organic matter, and release carbon dioxide as a byproduct.  Put simply, mammals breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide (CO2); plant life then absorbs the CO2 and converts it back into oxygen, then emitting it into the "air."  Climate change worshippers want the planet to be at Zero CO2.  The reality of science is that the true existential threat to the planet is their goal of zero CO2.

Elections Matter to U.N. Climate Negotiations.  COP 29, to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, is less than two months away, but despite the overall theme of "climate finance" having long been agreed to, normal discussions of topics and the framework language for the finance agreement has stalled.  Negotiations have gotten bogged down, in large part because the payor countries are uncertain what the United States will do if Donald Trump is reelected president.  The United Nations and most developing countries have argued over the years that the United States, as the biggest source of historical carbon dioxide emissions, should pay the most for climate reparations, mitigation, and adaptation.  It hasn't worked out that way under any administration so far, and Trump was the most recalcitrant on this point.  Trump continues to refer to climate change as a "hoax," on the grounds that China and other economic and geopolitical adversaries and competitors are using the issue as a backdoor means of diminishing the United States, harming its economy, and reducing its influence globally.

The Editor says...
China and India emit far more CO2 than the United States.  (Any discussion of the plans being made by the U.N. could stop there.)  Any assertion that the U.S. is "the biggest source of historical carbon dioxide emissions" is untrue:  Volcanos produce more carbon dioxide than all the activities of man.  (If you want to talk about "historical" CO2, I would remind you that history didn't start in 1800.  Volcanos have been around for a long time.)  Moreover, some people claim that cows and termites produce more CO2 than people (and cars and trucks) do.  But no matter where the CO2 comes from, it serves as plant food, and there is no need for "climate reparations" or mitigation.

Climate Watch: Is CO2 Reaching a Crisis Level?  In his film An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore acknowledged that CO2 levels have been much higher — ice cores provide indisputable evidence.  He did not say where it came from before there were humans burning coal, oil, and natural gas, or why the extremely high levels did not cause the oceans to boil.  Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore explains where it went:  into ocean sediments in the calcium carbonate shells of marine organisms that sank when the organism died: natural sequestration.  Detailed analysis of recent papers on atmospheric CO2 and temperature by Willis Eschenbach and others concludes: "For the past 66 million years, atmospheric CO2 can be understood as a neutral spectator molecule, right up through the present."  Why then would we want, at great expense, to remove CO2 and get closer to the red line of death?

Giant Wyoming Carbon Capture Project Pulls Plug For Lack Of Clean Power.  CarbonCapture Inc., which had wanted to build one of the world's largest direct air capture of carbon dioxide and storage projects in southwestern Wyoming, is pulling the plug on development of the complex in the Cowboy State.  "We've been seeing growing competition for clean power amongst industries that are emerging much faster than anybody would have ever predicted," said Adrian Corless, CEO of CarbonCapture, a Los Angeles-based clean technology company.  CarbonCapture cited "intense competition from data centers" in the region for electricity as partially the reason why it is moving from Wyoming. [...] A CarbonCapture spokeswoman declined to respond to questions regarding the project.

The Editor says...
The first question that comes to mind is how will they dispose of the carbon dioxide they have already captured?  Or is there nothing to show for it?  And the next question is why is it necessary to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?  (The correct answer is:  IT ISN'T.  If the answer they give is "because the U.N. told us to," there is no point in continuing the conversation.)  And the third question is How many megatons of carbon dioxide does the atmosphere contain?  It would take hundreds of years (and lots of energy) to extract enough CO2 from the atmosphere to make any measurable difference.  And look what caused the end of the Wyoming project:  They want to defer to the "data centers" and let them have the juice.  What does that mean?  Government data centers that collect all the internet traffic and every phone call to archive it all?  Or does that mean bitcoin mining?  If a marijuana farm needed the electricity, would they shut down and move out of their way?  What a bunch of misguided weirdos!

"Colossal Waste of Money": Climate Alarmists Turn on Carbon Capture.  The insane Net Zero revolution is starting to devour its own children.  The latest technology to fall foul of the zealots passionate hatred of all things hydrocarbon is carbon capture, a process that consumes billions of dollars, often fails to meet expectations and, horror of horrors, justifies the continuing activities of oil and gas companies.  Green Blob-funded Oil Change International (OCI) has released a report entitled 'Funding Failure:  Carbon capture and fossil hydrogen subsidies exposed'.  In an article circulated by Blob-funded Covering Climate Now and published by DeSmog — recently given £400,000 by the Rowntree Trust to continue running a grubby 'blacklist' of so-called climate deniers — carbon capture is said to be a "colossal waste" with the United States leading the way in public spending on "false climate solutions".  Perhaps not such good news for the Mad Miliband's £8 billion GB Energy operation which will act as a state-run subsidy fund for numerous wacky green projects including carbon capture and hydrogen.

New Study:  CO2's Atmospheric Residence Time 4 Years; Natural Sources Drive CO2 Concentration Changes.  Per a new study, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) utilizes "inappropriate assumption and speculation," as well as non-real-world models of "imaginary data," to claim CO2 emissions derived from fossil fuel burning function "weirdly," far differently in the atmosphere than CO2 molecules derived from natural emissions (e.g., plant respiration, ocean outgassing) do.  "The ambiguity is accompanied by inappropriate assumptions and speculations, the weirdest of which is that the behavior of the CO2 in the atmosphere depends on its origin and that CO2 emitted by anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion has higher residence time than when naturally emitted."  While the IPCC acknowledges emissions from natural sources have an atmospheric residence time of only 4 years, they have simultaneously constructed model outputs that assert CO2 molecules derived from fossil fuel emissions remain in the atmosphere for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even several one hundred thousands of years.

CO2 Has Been Indicted by Consensus, Not Real Science or Critical Thinking.  When asking those who believe that CO2 is a major climate antagonist to make their strongest argument, their most common response is:  "CO2 has been identified as the primary Climate culprit by the majority of experts (e.g., climatologists) and scientific organizations (e.g., the IPCC)."  This is clearly a consensus claim.  I've repeatedly warned that one of the major fights we are in, is to defend genuine Science, as its enemies are actively trying to replace it with political science.  This situation is a dead giveaway, as consensus is the currency of politics, NOT Science!  Put another way, the claim of consensus is deference to authority.  They are saying don't ask any questions!  Just be quiet as others know a lot more about this matter than you do.

Math Confirms [the] Foolishness of [the] Climate Alarmism.  The science of climate change often is presented in complicated language that speaks of computer models and the theoretical inputs and outputs thereof and concludes that the globe is on the verge of "boiling."  Well, leave it to three physicists — steeped in calculus and such arcane matters as the behavior of molecules and the nuclear charge of atoms — to simplify the analysis and arrive at a much less alarming determination.  "Straightforward calculations ... show that eliminating U.S. CO2 emissions by the year 2050 would avoid a temperature increase of 0.0084 degrees Celsius," states a brief paper authored by Drs.  Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; William Happer, Princeton University; and William A. van Wijngaarden, York University, Toronto.  On the Fahrenheit scale, the value of averted warming is 0.015 degrees.  In short, the amount of warming averted by eliminating CO2 emissions in the United States would be too small to measure.

The Toxic Fumes of Gaslighting.  Let it be known right now, without one shadow of a doubt, CO2 is not a toxic gas.  CO2 is necessary for life!  There is no existential threat of death to this planet regarding climate change — period!  There is however, an existential threat regarding your Liberty, Freedom and Independence, which is coming from the toxic fumes of gaslighting.  We are being lied to and gaslighted, as they try to convince you, me, and all people, that our lives and our lifestyles are killing this planet; there is no truth in their words.  However, the gaslighting fumes we are being forced to consume are destroying our nation.  The climate change hoax is only one example of the toxic gaslighting for which we are constantly doused.  Gaslighting is and always has been the existential threat upon our Liberty.  The tyranny that we are experiencing in America did not just happen in the last decade, it has been a gradual and silent coup against our Constitutional Republic; it was slow at first but now is quickly escalating.

On Carbon Dioxide.  The Little Ice Age ended about 1850 which is, oddly, the same year which climate activist fasten on to in their assertions that rising CO2 leads to warming.  Of course, CO2 will rise.  As the climate warmed up the oceans had to release CO2 into the atmosphere.  Water absorbs CO2 in inverse relationship to its temperature; the warmer the water, the less CO2 it can hold.  We all know that from our observations of carbonated drinks be they sparkling soft drinks, beer or champagne.  We know too, from the evidence provided by Antarctic and Greenland ice-cores, that atmospheric CO2 rise LAGS a general temperature rises, it does not lead it. [...] So where does the CO2 in the atmosphere get the heat from?  Solar radiation of course, but not all of it.  CO2 absorbs solar energy in the infra-red spectrum; it does so only in three specific frequency bands.  Once all the solar energy in those frequency bands has been absorbed, that's it.  It doesn't matter how much more CO2 is added to the atmosphere, the planet will not get one fraction of a degree warmer.  We're already at that stage. [...] Climate change and the demonisation of carbon dioxide can thus be seen as a political construct which is being used by unscrupulous megalomaniacs to alarm, control and manipulate people for nefarious ends.  It is the means through which we are all being herded towards an authoritarian One World Government of the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, a government which cannot be remotely democratic, a government which will attempt to enslave and control humanity for the benefit of the select few.

New Peer Reviewed Study:  CO2 Has Zero Impact on Climate Change.  A powerful peer-reviewed scientific study delivers substantial evidence that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the atmosphere have zero impact on the Earth's global temperatures.  The study concludes that even though most publications attempt to depict a catastrophic future for our planet due to an increase in CO2, there is serious doubt that this is, in fact, the case.  Instead, the study authors deduced that their research unequivocally means that the officially presented narrative that human activity is causing a detrimental CO2 increase on Earth's climate is merely a hypothesis rather than a substantiated reality.  The study, published in Science Direct in March 2024, confirms that the warming effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is naturally limited, with the limit having been reached decades ago.  The study also confirms what climatologist Dr. Judith Curry has stated, which is that the "manufactured consensus of scientists at the request of policymakers" regarding climate change is all a ruse to push an agenda that has nothing to do with climate change.

Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems.  Prior to the mid-19th century, Earth was in the grip of the Little Ice Age.  Since then, temperatures have on average trended upward.  At the same time, human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased, and the interest of scientists has turned to consider the extent of the relative contributions of anthropogenic CO2 and natural forces to warming.  The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group II (WGII) claims that human-caused climate change or global warming is dangerous.  According to the report, "Human-induced climate change ... has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability. ... The rise in weather and climate extremes has led to some irreversible impacts as natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt (high confidence)" (IPCC, 2022a, p. 9).  The AR6 WGI and WGII reports measure climate change as the global warming since 1750 or 1850.  The period before these dates is commonly referred to as the "pre-industrial period."  The Little Ice Age, a phrase rarely used in AR6, extends from about 1300 to 1850.  It was a very cold and miserable time for humanity, with a lot of well documented extreme weather in the historical record from all over the Northern Hemisphere.  It was also a time of frequent famines and pandemics.  Arguably today's climate is better than then, not worse.  None-the-less, the IPCC claims that extreme weather events are worse now than in the past, however observations do not support this.  Some extreme weather events, such as the land area under extreme drought (Lomborg, 2020), is decreasing, not increasing.  Globally the incidence of hurricanes shows no significant trend (IPCC, 2013, p. 216; Lomborg, 2020).  Observations show no increase in damage or any danger to humanity today due to extreme weather or global warming (Crok & May, 2023, pp. 140-161; Scafetta, 2024).

Carbon vacuum nicknamed 'Mammoth' goes online, promises to remove 1/1,000,000th of annual emissions with a hefty price tag.  Call me crazy, but it seems like if the goal is creating superior air quality, and doing it as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, which should be the goal for any government or "private" (air quotes because this is crony capitalism) business, then the solution is trees... right?  I've said this before but I'll say it again — this is not to suggest that high carbon levels in the atmosphere makes for dirty air as it's a requirement for every living thing on the planet, and the lower the carbon levels means the less plant growth we have, from crops to grasslands, and from biodiverse jungles to kelp forests.  Carbon is a "building block of life" after all, with the American Chemical Society declaring it "impossible to live without." Which is why, from the leftist cultists that spread death everywhere they go, it's easy to see why carbon is Public Enemy No. 1.

The Editor says...
Please stop saying "carbon" when you are speaking about carbon dioxide.  Using "carbon" as a nickname for CO2 probably started in the lazy news media, where the writers don't know the difference.

Iowa farmers fight the CO2 pipeline.  [#1] Many farmers are incensed at having their private land appropriated and torn up to accommodate the pipelines, and they have vowed to appeal and fight the court orders to the bitter end.  [#2] The underlying assumption that CO2 is an evil, existential threat to the planet is absurd.  At a mere 0.042 percent of the atmosphere (420 ppm), CO2 is a trace molecule.  Scientists assert that plants require a minimum of 350 ppm to curate (to employ a strangely in-vogue term) the very oxygen we breathe, and that rock formations from prior geologic eras demonstrate that a diverse, thriving biosphere enjoyed a CO2 concentration in the thousands of ppm.  Deep ice cores comparing temperature with CO2 levels reveal that CO2 levels trail, not lead, climate change by 100 or more years, and that solar activity, when graphed alongside changes in temperature, provides the best correlation between climate change and any other outside influence.  [#3] The plan requires "capturing" carbon dioxide in liquid-based solvents and materials, which would then be transported through pipelines. [...] The downsides to these solvents involve corrosion and toxicity.

Battery Baloney, Hydrogen Hype, and Green Fairy Tales.  More CO2 in the atmosphere brings great benefits to life on Earth.  If man adds to it, the oceans dissolve a swag of it, and what stays in the atmosphere is gratefully welcomed by all plant life.  In 2023 Australia added just 0.025 ppm to the 420 ppm in today's atmosphere.  Most of this probably dissolved in the oceans.  If we in Australia turned everything off tomorrow, the climate wouldn't notice — but our plant life would, especially those growing near power stations burning coal or gas and spreading plant food.  Climate has always changed and a warm climate has never been a problem on Earth.  It is cold that kills.  Especially during blackouts.

CO2 atmospheric residence time.  Tom Segalstad, Degrees in natural sciences with geology: he ""Greenhouse Effect Global Warming"" dogma is based on the hypothesis that Man's release of CO2 from fossil fuel burning will cause this extra atmospheric CO2 to increase the temperature of the lower atmosphere.  It will be impossible to melt the Earth's ice caps and thereby increase the sea level just by increasing the heat energy of the atmosphere through a few percent of added heat absorbing anthropogenic CO2 in the lower atmosphere.

Hydrocarbons are growing faster than alt-energy.  The new Statistical Review, released last Thursday, shows, yet again, that despite the hype, subsidies, and mandates, wind and solar energy aren't keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons.  Global hydrocarbon use and CO2 emissions hit record highs in 2023, with hydrocarbon consumption up 1.5% to 504 exajoules (EJ).  That increase was "driven by coal, up 1.6%, [and] oil up 2% to above 100 million barrels [per day] for the first time."  Global natural gas demand was flat, mainly due to stunning declines in Europe.  Gas demand in the U.K. fell by 10%.  It also fell by 11% in Spain, 10% in Italy, and 11% in France.  Soaring electricity demand was, yet again, the big story in 2023. Global power generation increased by 2.5% to 29,924 terawatt-hours.  About 32% of that juice (9,456 TWh) was generated in China, where electricity production surged by nearly 7%.  The U.S. came in a distant second in power generated, with 4,494 TWh.  Domestic power production dropped by about 1% last year.  Power generation in India also increased by about 7% last year to a record 1,958 TWh, 75% of which came from coal-fired power plants.

Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations:  AD 800 to 2000.  The authors developed a well-dated high-resolution history of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration spanning the period AD 800-2000. Based on measurements of stomatal density made on Tsuga heterophylla needles recovered from a sediment core that was extracted from Jay Bath (a shallow pond on Mt.  Rainier, Washington, USA), after which they compared the new CO2 history with "selected temperature records."  Paper reviewed:  Kouwenberg, L., Wagner, R., Kurschner, W. and Visscher, H. 2005. Atmospheric CO2 fluctuations during the last millennium reconstructed by stomatal frequency analysis of Tsuga heterophylla needles.  Geology 33: 33-36.

Captain Biden and His Economics Crew are Tempting Fate.  First off, President Biden's disastrous energy-related executive orders to stop the Keystone XL pipeline construction dead in its tracks as well as suspending oil/gas permitting and leasing on federal properties was a true gaffe for a fossil fuel economy such as the U.S.  When these pronouncements went into effect, prices for future deliveries of gas and oil shot up immediately.  According to the Washington Post, average gasoline prices at one point in President Trump's last year in office reached a low of $1.85 gallon; during President Biden's era, average prices jumped to $4.93/ gallon before falling back to the $3.45-$3.25 gallon currently.  To further compound the energy cost increases at the producer level, Biden also suspended additional global exports of liquified natural gas (LNG), claiming that it contributed to the "[...] existential (climate) threat of our time."  However, scientists agree that LNG produces much less carbon dioxide relative to oil (-30%) and coal (-40%), making it the cleanest of all fossil fuels.  Existential threat?  Not in the U.S.; according to the EPA, the U.S. has cut air pollution by nearly 80% in the last 50 years.

The Editor says...
[#1] Climate change is not the "existential (climate) threat of our time," nor is it any threat at all.  The climate always changes, from night to day, from summer to winter, and we all deal with those changes as they happen.  [#2] The "cleanest of all fossil fuels" is not the fuel that results in the least production of carbon dioxide, because carbon dioxide is not dirty.  Carbon dioxide is plant food.  If the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere doubled overnight, you would never notice the difference, except that the grass in your yard would grow a lot faster.  [#3] The EPA says "the U.S. has cut air pollution by nearly 80% in the last 50 years."  Yes but that is because unleaded gasoline was introduced 50 years ago, and lead in the atmosphere has been almost completely eliminated as a result.  The EPA could be eliminated now, and nobody would notice the difference, because every state has its own EPA.  California has several.

Practically nothing can be gained from "Net Zero" restrictions.
Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase.  Many people are surprised by how little warming would be averted from adoption of net zero policies.  For example, if the United States achieved net zero emissions of carbon dioxide by the year 2050, only a few hundredths of a degree Celsius of warming would be averted.  This could barely be detected by our best instruments.  The fundamental reason is that warming by atmospheric carbon dioxide is heavily "saturated," with each additional ton of atmospheric carbon dioxide producing less warming than the previous ton.  Using feedback-free estimates of the warming by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and observed rates of increase, we estimate that if the United States (U.S.) eliminated net CO2 emissions by the year 2050, this would avert a warming of 0.0084°C (0.015°F), which is below our ability to accurately measure.  If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070°C (0.13°F) would be averted.

The Editor says...
Any actions taken by the United States to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are completely futile as long as China and India are burning hydrocarbons as fast as they can, as as long as volcanos frequently erupt, and as long as cows and termites and swamps also make CO2.

The Cost of EPA's Senseless CO₂ Capture.  In April 24, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency passed a new rule that would require coal power plants that plan to continue operating after January 1, 2039, and new natural gas power plants that plan to begin operation on or after 2035 to capture at least 90% of their CO₂ emissions.  How much would this cost?  And is it worth it?  Well, as they say, we ran the numbers.  Thankfully, researchers from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have provided the cost and performance estimates for retrofitting an existing coal power plant with Shell's CANSOLV CO₂ capture system.  For the performance and cost estimates, I will use the NETL estimates for 90% carbon capture.  (Here, I am using the term "carbon capture," rather than "CO₂ capture," because NETL uses the mass of carbon, rather than the mass of CO₂, in its calculations.)  Before the retrofit, NETL's baseline coal power plant had a net output of 650 megawatts (MW).  But after retrofitting it with the CO₂ capture system, the power output was reduced by 24% to 495 MW.  In terms of money, the retrofit cost is about $988 million, or about $2 million/MW of net power output.

More about the EPA.

Cowering before Carbon: There is no greater transfer of wealth from poor to rich than this scam.  Despite turning this back this spring, South Dakota continues to be under attack by a freshly born green corporation, Summit Carbon Solutions, funded by China's Belt and Road initiative, and you, through the Green New Deal provisions buried in the last debt ceiling deal, to pipe "carbon," from the oil fields to some obscure part of the Dakotas and bury it.  The "people" may "rise up" and demand it be shuttered, and all they do is crawl away and try again.  There can be no more stupid waste of money than this.  But even some of our bravest politicians, including Kristi Noem, Pierre Poilivere and Danielle Smith in Canada cower before the almighty (anti-)carbon lobby and rabbit on about sequestering it.  It is an industry into which thieves flood because it means you loot the public purse at the beginning through Green New Deal giveaways, and then for all perpetuity because of the tax advantage.  People have been so scarified by the word, they do not know what it means anymore, they nod enthusiastically.

Almost as if industrial activity has nothing to do with it.
Despite All The Climate (scam) Law, CO2 Is Surging.  [Scroll down]  Anyhow, if the Warmists are stating that this is mostly the fault of Mankind, especially the use of fossil fuels, why aren't they all stopping their own use of fossil fuels?  Why are they not making their own lives carbon neutral?  That would solve this, right?  Instead, they all seem to be using more and more fossil fuels and energy.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say.  One of the major drivers of the exceptional heat building within Earth's atmosphere has reached levels beyond anything humans have ever experienced, officials announced on Thursday.  Carbon dioxide, the gas that accounts for the majority of global warming caused by human activities, is accumulating "faster than ever," scientists from NOAA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California San Diego found.  "Over the past year, we've experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record, and a seemingly endless string of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires and storms," NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a press release.  "Now we are finding that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing faster than ever."

Here's Why We're Where We Are.  [Scroll down]  Well, in the first place, there is this persistent conflation of carbon dioxide with gasses that cause or worsen air pollution.  Carbon dioxide does not cause or worsen air pollution, which is why it was never said to be an "emission" until it became necessary for political reasons to conflate it with the gasses that do.  These having been all-but-eliminated from the tailpipes of new cars some 30 years ago.  People can see — and smell air pollution and so — naturally — do not like it.  One cannot see — much less smell — "climate change," which is why it is necessary to frame the gas that supposedly causes it as an "emission," so that people will accept government edicts that push devices, very much the same as drugs were pushed as necessary to "stop the spread" of a plague people were made to fear that was only scary because of the lies people were told about it.  If the writer does not know that carbon dioxide is not an "emission" in the sense commonly understood then he is an ignoramus and has no business writing about "emissions."  If he does know it — and fails to explain it in his writing — then he is a malicious writer, like the ones who wrote about "safe and effective."

Generating electricity from CO₂.  A few years back, I was involved in a time-series analysis of the admittedly imperfect data we have for temperature going back 1,000 years.  That analysis showed that, temperature-wise, we are living on the modest upward rise of a long cycle, which is presumably solar in origin.  The upturn dates from the end of the Little Ice Age, around the year 1670.  That long cycle is further modulated by shorter cycles.  I recall 247 and 66 years working well in the regression analysis.  The second number was happily close to the period of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).  Schlesinger and Ramankutty's 1994 paper in Nature described it: "An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65-70 years".  The point of the exercise was to find any residual, a trend that remained after natural variation was subtracted.  It was hard to find: the amount of additional warming that could be attributed to CO₂ was quite small.  Indeed, when we looked more closely at CO₂, its increased concentration in the atmosphere followed the increase in temperature, not the other way round.

Climate Stupidity.  The specific gravity of carbon dioxide is 1.52 relative to dry air, and is the same weight as propane.  It is even heavier in relation to our humid atmosphere, ranging around 1.61.  It falls through the atmosphere about like a cotton seed.  Wind can blow it upward, but it falls right back down.  It acts like rainwater, seeking low points.  We do not need to build pipelines to inject it into the ground.  It sinks into to the ground all by itself.  Photosynthesis (CO2 + Sunlight + H2O) cannot exist without carbon dioxide.  Photosynthesis uses sunlight to transform carbon dioxide into glucose and other organic compounds that make plants and it transforms water into oxygen which is exuded.  We breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.  Plants absorb carbon dioxide and give us oxygen.  As Patick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace) has pointed out for over ten years, carbon dioxide is critical to the life cycle of the plant and animal kingdoms.  He has referenced analysis that indicates nearly triple the carbon dioxide content in our atmosphere would be more ideal for plant life.  He is correct.

Now a coffee ban?  The WEF is eyeing coffee.  Roughly 75% of Americans drink coffee every day.  That won't be the case for long, apparently, if the elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, have their way.  Did anyone notice what they were talking about back in January during the 2024 World Economic Forum's Davos get-together?  During a recent WEF panel discussion, a reporter for Moneywise, in an item posted on Yahoo!  Finance, reported that one speaker, some banker named Hubert Keller, remarked, "The coffee that we all drink emits between 15 and 20 tons of CO2 per ton of coffee."  Ominously, he added, "so we should all know that."  Keller also noted, "Every time we drink coffee, we are basically putting CO2 into the atmosphere."  What's more, the production of coffee additives such as sugar and milk also puts large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The Editor says...
When you exhale, you put CO2 into the atmosphere.  So what?  That's where CO2 belongs.  Carbon dioxide is plant food.  It is not a pollutant.  Emissions of carbon dioxide cannot be avoided, nor should they be.  Most carbon dioxide contributions to the atmosphere are natural and unstoppable.  Don't let tyrants tell you what to do based on their fear of carbon dioxide.  You won't wreck the Earth by drinking coffee or driving a car.

Carbon Capture Doesn't Work, So Why Are They Doing It?  Carbon dioxide harvesting is the Establishment's latest eco-darling initiative and a big part of the Biden administration's net-zero fantasies.  The 2021 Infrastructure Bill included a mind-blowing $12 billion in carbon capture technology funding and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act increased government subsidies for capturing CO2 from $50 to $85 per metric ton.  "Carbon capture and storage" (CCS) aims to trap CO2 as it is produced by refineries and power plants.  "Carbon dioxide removal" (CDR) involves large machines that extract CO2 directly from the atmosphere.  The trapped gas is liquified and transmitted at extremely high pressure to underground reservoirs.  Sometimes it is used to extract oil and gas from deep, otherwise-depleted wells, in a process known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).  Around 5,000 miles of CO2 pipeline already exist in this country, but experts estimate that up to 65,000 miles will be added if Biden's government's plans are realized.  Of course, all these exorbitant expenditures are based on the lie that CO2 is a pollutant, when carbon dioxide is actually the "gas of life," as plants require it to survive, and as we rely on plants to survive.  Every 8th grader knows this.

Coal's importance for Solar Panel Manufacturing.  Coal is not the favorite "child" these days.  It seems that almost the entire western political world has sworn to send coal to its grave.  Not only have the United Nations and the IEA literally declared "war" on coal, but countless political, activist organizations and even leading financial institutions have pledged, if it had to be in their power, to immediately stop the usage of coal.  The reason for all of this is of course this "terrible" chemical element called carbon (number 6 on the periodic table).  Please remember though that the same carbon is the 2nd most abundant element in the human body and it is a key building block for all life on Earth.  By the way, carbon is not only essential because CO2 is plant food and plants grow best at 1.500 ppm of CO2 in the air (current atmospheric content is 420 ppm), CO2 is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to keeping our Earth temperature temperate and livable.  I have to mention that the prize for keeping Earth livable has to go to water, or better yet, water vapor, the most important and most abundant greenhouse gas.  We all understand that increased greenhouse gas concentrations will contribute to slight warming, though only a few of us have learnt — including me only after studying it — that there are so called saturation levels to consider which means that higher concentrations of any greenhouse gas have less and less impact on temperature changes (the warming impact logarithmically declines).

Smoke, mirrors and CO2 emissions, Part 2.  The climate change charade makes headway by obfuscation, mixing vastly different units to hide reality as for example when warning of the threat posed by CO2 emissions, they count them in millions of tons (mt), but when crying over the effects of these emissions on global warming, they speak of parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric CO2.  How is the man in the street to make sense of these two quantities?  I explained [elsew]here how its effect is to present a very 'black' picture, rather than a rather white one.  Other examples of obfuscating terminology can be found in the changes in language usage over time, from 'global warming' during most of the last century, a term which has units of temperature that can be measured, to 'climate change' during much of this century, with no measurable units, and now 'global boiling', which only occurs in the mind of the UN Secretary General.  To 'prove' that CO2 is a pollutant, the populace is regularly presented with pictures of cooling towers in a way that suggests the white stuff exiting from the top is CO2, when in reality it is just condensing water vapour/steam!

EPA's Electric Rationing Madness Short Circuits Any Benefit.  There was a time when the EPA provided vitally important services to clean up and protect America's air, land, and water from truly toxic substances[.]  That was before climate madness ensued and essential plant-nourishing CO2 was deemed a "pollutant" to be eliminated by replacing reliable hydrocarbons that provide more than 80 percent of our energy with anemic and intermittent wind and solar pipedreams.  Just as you might have imagined they couldn't get crazier, consider EPA's latest plan to force closures of coal and natural gas plants that keep lights on, homes comfortable and businesses open when those friendly breezes and sunbeams aren't available.  This, also at a time when the Biden administration is trying to push millions of electric vehicles on overtaxed grids, and AI is also poised to gobble up all the extra juice it can manage to squeeze.

Reject, Don't Reform, Carbon Capture.  Rep. Danny McCormick is certainly one of the better officials in Baton Rouge, someone who is not only willing to talk about State sovereignty but also do something to advance it, which makes us unhappy to have to criticize him.  But in this case it is necessary.  Rep. McCormick is sponsoring HB783, a bill that would ensure all property owners receive equal compensation if their property is taken from them for the sake of a carbon capture project.  That sounds nice — equal pay for the little guy — except for one problem:  He should be rejecting the entire premise the carbon capture 'industry' is built upon instead of trying to normalize it.

Will More CO2 Warm the Atmosphere?  There is no doubt about the fact that various gases have a "greenhouse" effect.  They trap radiation leaving the Earth's surface, thus warming the atmosphere.  The chief greenhouse gas, by a wide margin, is water vapor.  Carbon dioxide and methane are two more minor greenhouse gases. [...] Liberals claim hysterically, but without empirical evidence, that because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, increasing amounts of it in the atmosphere must inevitably make our planet warmer.  That is a debatable claim for many reasons, including the fact that any greenhouse gas will reach a point of saturation, beyond which adding more of that gas will not have any perceptible effect on the climate.  Have we already reached the saturation point with regard to CO2?  A recently published paper by Jan Kubicki, Krzysztof Kopczyński and Jarosław Młyńczak argues that we have already reached that point, and adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will have no, or virtually no, warming effect.

Washing away the Climate Lunatics.  A brief filed with the court of appeals in The Hague in November by three eminent, American climate-related academics, Richard Lindzen of MIT, William Happer of Princeton, and Steven Koonin of New York University, the Hoover Institute, and former climate adviser to President Obama, challenged the finding of a lower court and held that scientific analysis, as opposed to an aggregation of "government opinion, consensus, peer review, and cherry-picked or falsified data," shows that "Fossil fuels and CO2 will not cause dangerous climate change, there will be disastrous consequences for people worldwide if fossil fuels in CO2 emissions are reduced to net zero, including mass starvation." [...] They go on to represent the CO2 as essential to food, and thus to life on earth, and that the more there is of CO2, the more food there will be, especially in drought-stricken areas.  They also make the case that greenhouse gases prevent us from freezing to death, that there are "enormous social benefits to fossil fuels and that net zero will expand human starvation by eliminating nitrogen fertilizer."

Official Temperature Data Aren't 'Data' and Shouldn't Be Used to Restrict Freedom.  It is becoming increasingly clear that the temperature data the U.S. government and many other governments use to predict catastrophic climate change, the data from surface temperature stations, aren't accurate.  To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43:  How bad is the surface station record?  Let me count the flaws.  Even its climate alarmist defenders acknowledge that surface station data runs too hot.  To make matters worse for the alarmist cause, the overheated surface station data are still lower than what climate models say the temperatures should be based on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  This fact strongly suggests the assumed climate sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide of pre-industrial levels built into models is also way too high.  Further evidence that the surface station data are flawed stems from the fact that the surface station readings do not match the temperatures recorded by global satellites and weather balloons, two alternative temperature sources whose data sets closely track each other.

Climate Scientists Hail Boost to Global Plant Growth From Higher CO2.  Both the quantity and nutritional value of plants is growing around the planet due to recent increases in carbon dioxide, claim the authors of an important new science paper.  The recent rise in carbon dioxide during modern industrial times, from a period of dangerous denudation, is at the centre of worldwide fearmongering designed to enforce a Net Zero collectivisation.  "In fact, the only clear result of increasing CO2 has been an overall greening of the Earth and increasing productivity of agricultural and forest crops," state the authors.  Regular readers of the Daily Sceptic will be aware of the massive greening of the planet that has occurred over the last 40 years.  Alas, this astonishing success story is inexplicably missing from most mainstream Net Zero-focused discourse.

The Cold Truth of the Warming Climate.  [Scroll down]  Martin Durkin's new film Climate:  The Movie, subtitled The Cold Truth, takes a shot at challenging this newly-made status quo.  Presenting an impressive line-up of scientists and speakers, including a Nobel laureate in physics, a former science adviser to several US presidents, as well as a co-founder of the Greenpeace movement, and other experts in their fields, it asks whether our commonplace understanding of climate is actually quite correct, or if there could be other credible explanations beside CO2 to the current situation.  The film highlights cycles of solar activity and the inaccuracy of heated-up urban testing grounds as primary among those, along with an understanding that it is temperature that drives up CO2, rather than the other way around.  But it also asks whether 'being green' isn't perhaps just another line of business for those involved in it — it is particularly the latter that the film manages to unfold for the viewer, be it through discussions of tilted academic funding or profits from so-called green investments.

Another Climate Folly:  Carbon Capture and Storage.  [Scroll down]  " [...] The captured CO2 is compressed or liquefied and then transported, usually by pipeline.  The CO2 is then safely stored permanently and securely thousands of feet underground — this process is often called 'sequestration.'" [...] The CO2 is then transported by truck or through pipelines to the storage site(s).  Pipelines require pumps.  Trucks typically require diesel fuel.  Is this process free?  Nope.  Requires energy.  Then the liquified CO2 is pushed down deep in the earth under layers of rock, which requires drilling and more pumping.  Is this process free?  Nope.  Requires energy.  So now that we've got liquified CO2 buried under a naturally porous earth at a pressure that can lift water the equivalent of the depth it is buried, how long will it stay there?  Who knows?  Even though there have been no long-term studies on this at the various geologic sites and conditions planned for these vast and expansive projects, various government-funded studies such as this one (laundered through MIT) are suggesting it's "safe and effective" because gas has been found buried in the earth for millions of years.  Spoiler alert:  we didn't put it there by drilling big holes.  Big difference.

More CO2 is good for the planet.  William Happer, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Princeton University: "More CO2 is good for the world... It's absurd to be trying to reduce CO2".  "We're in a CO2 famine now... It's unbelievable that they've managed to turn this beneficial gas, a part of life, into a threat."  "They talk about carbon pollution.  I can't imagine what they're talking about.  We're made of carbon, and we breathe out two pounds of CO2 a day, each of us — that's 8 billion people."  "Many of them say, well, people are the real problem, it's not the CO2, we've got too many people, and really we can't have more than a billion people in the world."  [Tweet with video clip]

How did the current obsession with decarbonization arise?  The movement initially attempted to focus on global cooling due to the reflection of sunlight by sulfate aerosols emitted by coal fired generators.  Afterall, there seemed to have been global cooling between the 1930's and the 1970's.  However, the cooling ended in the 1970's.  There was an additional effort to tie the sulfates to acid rain which was allegedly killing forests.  This also turned out to be a dud.  In the 70's, attention turned to CO2 and its contribution to warming via the greenhouse effect.  The attraction of controlling CO2 to political control freaks was obvious.  It was the inevitable product of all burning of carbon-based fuels.  It was also the product of breathing.  However, there was a problem:  CO2 was a minor greenhouse gas compared to the naturally produced water vapor.  Doubling CO2 would only lead to warming of less than 1°C.  A paper in the early 70's by Manabe and Wetherald came to the rescue.  Using a highly unrealistic one-dimensional model of the atmosphere, they found that assuming (without any basis) that relative humidity remained constant as the atmosphere warmed would provide a positive feedback that would amplify the impact of CO2 by a factor of 2.

Biden admin temporarily drops 'outrageous climate mandate' amid flurry of lawsuits.  The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) temporarily suspended its controversial rule requiring private companies to disclose carbon emissions data after it was met with a slew of lawsuits.  The rule, which was finalized in March, was immediately met with litigation by a cohort of 25 GOP attorneys general, along with energy companies Liberty Energy and Nomad Proppant Services, and business groups including the Chamber of Commerce, Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and Domestic Energy Producers Alliance.  Last month, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a brief administrative stay of the rule while the various lawsuits were consolidated.  The groups asked the 8th Circuit to force the SEC to block its rule.  On Friday, the SEC voluntarily agreed to temporarily suspend its rule while the litigation continues on the merits.

Now scientists say wearing jeans is bad for the environment.  They might be an essential piece of everyday clothing, but scientists now say that even a simple pair of jeans could be bad for the environment.  Wearing a pair of fast fashion jeans just once creates 2.5kg of CO2, the equivalent of driving a petrol car 6.4 miles.  Scientists from the Guangdong University of Technology analysed the life cycle of a pair of Levi's jeans from growing the cotton to their eventual disposal.

The Editor says...
[#1] China has an 1,100-gigawatt fleet of coal-fired power plants [*] with more under construction, and they're telling you not to wear jeans because there's the CO2 problem.  [#2] Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  CO2 emissions are not something that needs to be avoided; and even if CO2 were a problem, lack of clothing would be a bigger problem.

The Carbon Emperor has no Clothes.  Land-based temperature monitoring devises [sic] are predominantly clustered in urban areas, which generate higher temperatures because of the heat produced from congestion, concrete, and asphalt.  Temperature data from satellites, weather balloons, and rural monitoring devices reflect temperatures that have risen only very slightly over the last century or so (except for the 1930s and early 1940s, which were very hot and dry in comparison).  Atmospheric carbon dioxide is a trace element — currently about 420 ppm, or about 0.04 percent of the atmosphere. [...] Current scientific consensus asserts that carbon-dioxide levels affect temperature.  If that were true, then increases in CO2 would result in higher temperatures.  Ice cores have verified that temperatures rise first, followed by rising CO2 levels a century or two later.  As temperatures go down, CO2 levels subsequently drop.  The opposite would happen if CO2 controlled the temperature, but it never happens that way.  Industrial CO2 levels began to rise in earnest in the early 1940s, but as CO2 levels continued to increase during the 1940s, temperatures dropped.  Global temperatures have not risen nearly as fast as predicted by the climate gurus.

Corruption Is Treason.  It's not the issue of electric vehicles or batteries or wind turbines that is at question here, it's the ability of a government to get behind the ridiculous endeavor and mandate it based on previously passed laws concerning the environment and legislation to prevent pollution.  That's exactly what Biden has done, using the EPA, designating CO2 as a pollutant, which is the same as designating nitrogen as a pollutant, even though the EPA cannot show CO2 is a pollutant, they just designate it as such from information produced by bought-off scientists who can only obtain grants by the government, i.e. the EPA, if they support their claim.  It doesn't matter, the question is, how to legally obtain it, not whether it should be obtained.

China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units.
Five Asian countries account for 80% of new coal power investment.  Five Asian countries are jeopardising global climate ambitions by investing in 80% of the world's planned new coal plants, according to a report.  Carbon Tracker, a financial thinktank, has found that China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units, even though renewable energy is cheaper than most new coal plants.  The investments in one of the most environmentally damaging sources of energy could generate a total of 300 gigawatts of energy — enough to power the UK more than three times over — despite calls from climate experts at the UN for all new coal plants to be cancelled.  Catharina Hillenbrand von der Neyen, the author of the report, said: "These last bastions of coal power are swimming against the tide, when renewables offer a cheaper solution that supports global climate targets.  Investors should steer clear of new coal projects, many of which are likely to generate negative returns from the outset."

It's Not CO2, It's H2O!  Water vapor plays a crucial role in Earth's climate system, acting both as a natural greenhouse gas (GHG) and as a participant in the hydrologic cycle.  It's the most abundant GHG in the atmosphere, surpassing carbon dioxide (CO2) in its greenhouse effect contribution.  This significant role is primarily because water vapor absorbs infrared radiation emitted from Earth's surface, trapping heat in the atmosphere and warming the planet.  Water vapor's concentration in the atmosphere is not uniformly distributed; it varies greatly in space and time, primarily due to differences in temperature and availability of moisture sources.  Warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air, which explains why tropical regions have higher humidity levels than polar regions.  The global distribution and movement of water vapor are influenced by atmospheric circulation patterns, including wind currents and storms, which transport moisture around the globe.  The relationship between water vapor and climate is complex and involves numerous feedback mechanisms.

The climate changistas' newest plan to end life on Earth.  We've long been aware of the war on CO2 because the leftists have decided that humans' increased reliance on hydrocarbons, especially coal and petroleum products, is creating deadly "anthropogenic climate change."  Aside from the fact that our ability to harness hydrocarbons has improved human life in the last 150 years beyond all recognition (including making chattel slavery unnecessary and leaving us with a world in which obesity, not famine, is the greatest risk to human health), there's other evidence that CO2 is unrelated to the climate.  The two most obvious are that the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere is infinitesimally small and that the IPCC and others routinely ignore the sun's role in the earth's climate.  I also like to note that the greatest known periods of global warming — the end of the Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period, and the end of the Mini-Ice Age — all preceded increased human carbon dioxide output.

Carbon removal is a very expensive product that no one needs.  Nearly 800 companies around the world are exploring a wide variety of methods for drawing planet-warming greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere and storing it away or putting it to use.  A gigantic leap from the five startups that James Temple could have named in 2019.  However, the industry is in trouble because carbon dioxide removal is "a very expensive product that no one needs" and no one seems eager to pay the "true cost" for the "waste management of invisible garbage."

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon, nor is it garbage.  It's plant food.

Carbon Dioxide Is the Gas of Life.  Few political leaders even discuss the importance of carbon dioxide in our world.  It is more probable that changes in our sun are causing rising temperatures and rising levels of carbon dioxide.  Most every grammar school child knows that plants absorb carbon dioxide (which they used to grow) and give off oxygen, which all animals need to survive.  The one process complements the other.  Carbon dioxide is very important, as it is the gas of life.  At the present time, there is about 420 parts per million (0.042%) of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.  From that tiny percentage is grown every plant that exists on the Earth — bushes and trees and even our vegetables.  Some nurseries even burn gas in their greenhouses to increase carbon dioxide and make plants grow better.  Some world leaders consider carbon dioxide a poisonous gas, yet carbon dioxide levels are much higher on submarines and in spacecraft.

Under the Democrats' Rule, America Has Become A Failed State.  [Scroll down]  Global warming is a fiction, but our government drives at least half a trillion dollars being spent annually to "reduce" our "Carbon footprint."  These expenditures are direct (i.e., hundreds of billions of federal, state, and local government dollars) and indirect (i.e., the financial burdens forced on citizens through higher energy prices, higher transportation costs, and built-in green energy inefficiencies).  Every effort is chimerical when you consider human's actual, minimal CO2 impact.  Start with how much CO2 is in the air.  As of May 2022[,] CO2 in the atmosphere was 421 ppm or .04%.  But maybe it's rocketed up since then?  Nope.  Apparently, 100 ppm of that 421 ppm was generated during the last 120 years.  If we were to do nothing, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere in 2120 would sit at 531 ppm or .05%.  Not exactly choking the planet.  So, our government is essentially crippling our economy, sending inflation through the roof, and introducing a level of energy instability Americans haven't seen in half a decade to solve a problem that simply doesn't exist.  The governments of serious nations don't do that.

New study finds that CO2 is increasing the rate by which the globe is greening, even under drought.  Anew study finds that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are driving increased plant growth that's greening the Earth, even in areas experiencing drought.  The peer-reviewed study, which was published in the scientific journal Global Ecology and Conservation, finds that the phenomenon known as "global greening" is an indisputable fact.  The rate of global greening has increased slightly, and drought has only slowed, but not stopped, the process.  The study, which was done by Chinese and Australian researchers, attributes the greening to carbon dioxide fertilization as well as land management, such as irrigation.  The opposite of greening is referred to as browning.  The study found that greening acceleration occurred in 55.15% of the globe, while browning occurred in only 7.28%.

Is CO2 Really a Pollutant?  A New Study Says the Earth is Actually Greening.  A new study published by the journal, Global Ecology and Conservation, claims that a phenomenon known as CO2 fertilization is contributing to a net greening of the globe. [...] The findings suggest that increased CO2 has been a net gain for the environment, which would stand contrary to the claim that CO2 endangers public health; a claim that was made by Environmental Protection Agency president Lisa Jackson in 2009.  More recently, legislation in the U.S. has described CO2 as a pollutant.  It begs an interesting question: is CO2 a pollutant, or can its higher concentration actually a positive thing?  Strange as it seems, that is a question that is never asked in the main stream discourse — unless one of the many self-described 'fact-checkers' are finding against a claim that CO2 might not be the bogeyman we are expected to believe it is.

The Benefits Of Elevated CO2 On Society.  Increasing evidence points towards the claimed detrimental impacts of rising CO2 levels not being reflected in the observable data.  Consequently, the overall effects of heightened CO2 levels could potentially result in a net positive for society, particularly if the negative effects have been grossly overestimated. [...] As many of us learned in elementary school, CO2 is a critical raw material for photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert light energy into chemical energy, using CO2 and water to create glucose, which fuels their growth and development.  The CO2 fertilization effect refers to the enhanced growth of plants, including many crops important for human consumption, under elevated CO2 conditions.  Studies have shown that crops such as wheat, rice, and soybeans can exhibit increased growth rates and yields in environments with higher CO2 concentrations.

We need to talk about CO2.  Sadly, if you google CO2 it reads like the charge sheet of a particularly prolific mobster with global destruction on his mind.  CO2 is blamed for the increase in global temperatures of about 1.2°C since 1850.  This is the year that MSM reporting 'climate catastrophe' refer to when saying 'since records began'.  In most peoples' minds 'since records began' suggests the time of a burp bubbling to the surface of a primordial swamp, not the mid-Victorian era characterised by the doubling of average national income due to industrialisation and the introduction of the hard felt, dome-crowned bowler hat.  Since records began is a useful phrase; [...] And how accurate were the Victorian thermometers exactly?  However, we do know that 1850 marked the end of the Little Ice Age, a period of wide-spread cooling from 1300 to around 1850 when average global temperatures dropped by as much as 2°C.  It is this figure that modern alarmists mark as since records began.  It's certainly news to the geological record.

The climate doomsayers' cooked up coffee crisis.  Scientists in Brazil have discovered that "carbon dioxide fertilization offsets negative impacts of climate change on arabica coffee yield." They say that the CO2 fertilization effect will cause a net increase of the average Brazilian arabica coffee harvest by the years 2040 [to] 2070.  CO2 enrichment studies in Latin America show that elevated CO2 increased photosynthesis by 40% and increased the efficiency plants' water use by approximately 60%.  Higher CO2 eventually caused a 7 [to] 14% increase in plant height and a 12 [to] 14% increase in yield.  Another study showed that there were significant increases in all leaf area and biomass markers in response to increased CO2.

New Research Finds That Ancient Carbon in Rocks Releases as Much Carbon Dioxide as the World's Volcanoes.  A new study led by the University of Oxford has overturned the view that natural rock weathering acts as a CO2 sink, indicating instead that this can also act as a large CO2 source, rivalling that of volcanoes.  The results, published today in the journal Nature, have important implications for modelling climate change scenarios.  Rocks contain an enormous store of carbon in the ancient remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago.  This means that the "geological carbon cycle" acts as a thermostat that helps to regulate the Earth's temperature.  For instance, during chemical weathering rocks can suck up CO2 when certain minerals are attacked by the weak acid found in rainwater.

Climate Scientists Say We Should Embrace Higher CO2 Levels.  According to Patrick Moore, chairman and chief scientist of Ecosense Environmental and co-founder of Greenpeace, the climate change messaging isn't based in fact.  "The whole thing is a total scam," said Mr. Moore.  "There is actually no scientific evidence that CO2 is responsible for climate change over the eons."  Mr. Moore said that over the past few decades, the climate message has continually changed; first, it was global cooling, then global warming, then climate change, and now it's disastrous weather.  "They're saying all the tornadoes, all the hurricanes, all the floods, and all the heat waves are all caused by CO2.  That is a lie. ... We're part of the cycle," he said.  "We don't need CO2.  For us, it's a waste product — we need oxygen.  But plants are the ones who made the oxygen for us, and we're making the CO2 back for them."  He said the burning of fossil fuels — which emit CO2 — is a good thing for plant life.  "We are replenishing the atmosphere with CO2 up to a level that is much more conducive to life and growth of plants, in particular."

Cause of Climate Change? It Isn't Just Carbon Dioxide, Expert Says.  The scientific community doesn't all agree on the core causes of climate change, and according to climate expert Willie Soon, humanity should look beyond Earth to find the source.  The Earth's rotation around the sun affects the planet's temperature, says Soon, a visiting fellow on the Science Advisory Committee of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at The Heritage Foundation.  Glaciers, for example, "melted away because the sun started to get ... brighter and provided more solar energy to the climate system," according to Soon.  Throughout his career, Soon, a former researcher with the Center for Astrophysics-Harvard & Smithsonian, says he has sought to pursue the facts surrounding shifts in the climate because "science is not about belief."  "Science is about data," he said.

The Electric Car Con Explained.  The U.S. car fleet accounts for a mere 1.0% of global energy demand (5% x 19%), declining to 0.8% by 2050.  So even if the U.S. shifts 100% to electric-powered cars, the maximum climate impact in 2050 is a meaningless 0.2% (22% x 0.8%) reduction in global CO2 emissions from the current electric grid, up to a maximum of 0.5% assuming solar, wind, and hydro can, implausibly, power 60% of electric demand.  In other words, there is no factual basis to claim that the government mandate to switch to electric cars will have any material impact on global CO2 emissions. [...] Put simply, cars are not a meaningful source of global emissions and electric cars do not and cannot curtail the continued reliance on fossil fuels in electric generation.  On top of this, counting all sources, the U.S. is responsible for only 14% of all global CO2 emissions, declining to 9% by 2050 due to rest of world economic growth.

The Editor says...
Abbreviations corrected by The Editor.  Discussion:  Carbon dioxide is abbreviated CO₂ — Capital C, capital O, 2.  Preferably with a subscript 2.  It's a chemical compound of carbon and oxygen.  The oxygen atoms outnumber the carbon by two-to-one, yet the news media habitually (and ignorantly) calls CO₂ "carbon."  The symbol "Co" stands for Cobalt, which is something else entirely.

The Case Against Progressive Utopia.  The radical left rejects proven science, like photosynthesis.  In 2022, the EPA declared carbon dioxide (CO2) a "pollutant."  Every schoolchild knows that, using chlorophyll, trees convert water (H2O) plus CO2 into sugar and oxygen (O2).  To combat the supposed pollution of the atmosphere by CO2, the British Parliament passed a carbon tax, which forced British power plants to switch from burning coal to burning wood chips.  Woods chips are made by cutting down trees.  Trees absorb CO2 to generate O2.  Fewer trees mean less O2.  Claiming to protect us, utopian climate activists will reduce the production of that without which human beings cannot live.

Illinois Deals Blow to CO2 Storage; Carbon Capture Heads to ND Supreme Court.  Landowners battling carbon capture and sequestration in Illinois are celebrating a major victory.  On Thursday, the McLean County Board denied an application by One Earth Sequestration LLC to drill three carbon dioxide wells.  In a near-unanimous vote — with one member abstaining due to a conflict of interest — the board objected on the basis of safety issues.  Referencing findings of the county's Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), which assessed One Earth's application, Lea Cline, chairman of the Land Use and Development Committee, summed up concerns:  [Video clip] [...] The situation recalls an old saying that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."  It's the lesson farmers in North Dakota have learned, for even though they've witnessed victories over carbon capture permit applications, they realize the stakes are high for hopeful companies and the billions of dollars they stand to gain from federal subsidies.  Even now they are embroiled in litigation with one carbon pipeline company, Summit Carbon Solutions.  An attorney representing many landowners appeared earlier today before the North Dakota Supreme Court in Bismarck.  Brian Jorde of Domina Law protested the fact that Summit made surveys of many farmers' land in the Dakotas without their permission.

Climate Change Is Not Threatening Human Health.  One of the common claims made by climate hucksters recently is that climate change is increasingly harming human health.  On the surface this might sound true.  One of the examples often cited is that an increase in pollen will torment allergy sufferers.  It is true that more plants due to carbon dioxide fertilization and longer stretches of plant-friendly weather certainly results in more pollen from some species.  However, alarmism regarding this claim misses the broader point; better growing conditions means a lusher planet that better sustains human and animal life.  Allergies are a misery, true, but they are manageable.  Starvation is not so easily managed.  Voice of America (VOA) posted an article that pushes several other common claims about the supposed threat that climate change poses to human health, including extreme heat, air pollution, infectious diseases, and mental-health issues.  VOA reports that the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared climate change the "single biggest health threat facing humanity."

Moving from CO2 capture to CO2 Coalition.  I am a chemical engineer who once did research on removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the emissions of industrial plants or directly from the atmosphere.  But I now see CO2 as a critical plant food necessary for all of life on Earth.  Frankly, the more the better. [...] [I]t was not until I read a CO2 Coalition paper titled "Challenging 'Net Zero' with Science" that my eyes were fully opened.  The authors' arguments were based on rigorous scientific inquiry.  They concluded that CO2 and fossil fuels are beneficial, that there is no climate crisis, and that "net zero" policies seeking the elimination of CO2 emissions from coal, oil, and natural gas are detrimental — even dangerous.  I was struck most by the benefits of CO2, which was something I had not put much thought into.  CO2 is essential for plant growth and food production.  In fact, doubling atmospheric CO2 from today's concentrations of approximately 400 parts per million (ppm) to 800 ppm could increase food production by 40 [to] 60%.

This article should end all the furor over "carbon emissions" and "carbon footprints" and "carbon offsets" and "carbon credits."
New Study:  Natural CO2 Emissions Nearly Six Times Higher Than Man-Made Sources.  Analysis of CO2 residence times [atmospheric lifespan] suggests that 65% to 96.5% of the CO2 concentration increase since 1958 is natural.  According to a new study, the claim that increases in atmospheric CO2 are driven exclusively by humans relies on a made-up, disparate accounting model, with the residence time for natural emissions three to four years (which is consistent with actual observations), but CO2 from human sources is claimed to have a residence time of 50 to over 100 years. [...] Human emissions account for under 5% of the total from all sources, natural and anthropogenic [man-made].  Nature's sinks do not decide which CO2 to absorb, depending on the source.  Absorption is instead proportional to the source. [...] Harde further explains that treating the residence of CO2 as equal to anthropogenic and natural emissions allows for the conclusion that natural emissions add 31.2 ppm/year to the increase, whereas humans add 5.5 ppm/year.  The natural contribution to the CO2 increase since 1958 is therefore nearly six times greater than that from humans.

Explanation of Henry's Law.  Temperature increases always precede releases of CO2 from water into the air. [...] Henry's law states that at a constant temperature, the amount or concentration of a given gas that dissolves in a given type and volume of liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas.  Consumers experience Henry's law at work every day when a carbonated beverage is taken out of the refrigerators and slowly loses its carbonization fizz as it reaches room temperature.  Henry's law 100% controls or regulates the Earth's atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2).  As the surface temperature of a body of water increases it liberates CO2.  Conversely when that body of water decreases in temperature it absorbs CO2.  The Earth's surface is over 70% water.  Like Newton's laws of motion, acceleration, and gravity, Henry's law is just that; a constant law of physics.  Why is it that so many well qualified scientists including those with Ph.D. degrees in physics, chemistry, and geology do not discuss Henry's law and the fact that it is nature's CO2 control mechanism and regulator?

Meet the New Dark Age.  All plant and animal life on Earth, including the buried fossil fuels, is mostly composed of carbon and its various chemical compounds.  All this carbon has been previously extracted from (guess what) the atmosphere.  The fatuous mysticism underpinning weather hysteria is classic dark age stuff.  Science, however, doesn't work this way.  Peer review, the exposure of one's findings and conclusions to possible criticism by others working in the same field — in order to more thoroughly validate such findings — is the foundation of scientific progress.  Paying researchers to follow dictated guidelines, in order to get politically expedient results has nothing to do with progress.

What a Wonderful World — Thanks to CO2.  What a wonderful and beautiful world we live in thanks to the scenery from an abundance of lovely trees!  These trees depend on carbon dioxide — and we are very grateful for the gift of oxygen we receive from them.  It's really quite simple and yet quite amazing.  As you may be aware, there is false message that man is creating too much carbon dioxide.  This is a dangerous narrative, as all vegetation needs an abundance of carbon dioxide to thrive.  We hope you will explore all of the data to truly understand this.  [Video clip]

Global warming might not happen quite as fast as we thought — here's why.  Plants will absorb 20 percent more carbon dioxide than predicted by the end of the century, a new study has found, suggesting climate models are overestimating how fast the planet will warm.  Trinity College Dublin said its research painted an "uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet" after finding models had failed to take into account all the elements of photosynthesis.  During photosynthesis, green plants use light energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide, water and minerals into the sugars they need for growth.  Scientists thought climate change could weaken the process, but the new research suggests plants can adjust to the temperatures, efficiently absorbing carbon dioxide, producing extra nutrients, and continuing to thrive.  They found that on a global scale, the amount of carbon converted during photosynthesis could be up to 68 percent greater by the end of the century compared to the start of the century, and 20 percent more than some current models suggest.

Net Zero Is A "Suicide Pact".  There are many existential threats today but human-induced climate change is not one of them, in spite of what Western leaders and the mainstream media keep telling us.  Members of the scientific community are still struggling to fully understand the scientific complexities of CO2-induced climate change (Assumption #1).  However, the second assumption offers a simpler approach to obtain compelling evidence discrediting the net-zero agenda.  This approach involves an awareness of the planet's inventory of carbon in fossil fuels (coal, oil, & natural gas) and an understanding of the mechanisms by which oceans store most of the planet's bio-available CO2.  Such an understanding reveals that our emissions have an insignificant impact on the total CO2 content of the atmosphere.  Accordingly, our carbon emissions will not cause a climate crisis.

Leftists have made a 'scientific' breakthrough when it comes to CO2 and food.  There are two ways of viewing CO2: There's the sane and scientific way, which is that CO2 is a relatively rare gas that is a necessary component of life on earth because it is integral to the photosynthesis that creates plant life, and plant life is the core nutrient for all other life, both as a supplier of food and oxygen.  Alternatively, there's the insane, "anthropogenic climate change" way, which holds that CO2 is going to kill us all and that we need to do the best we can to eradicate its presence from our atmosphere.  In the latter category are "scientists" who think they've come up with the ultimate way to get rid of that pesky CO2:  Convert it into food!  I know that sounds like a joke — that is, using lab techniques to create food from CO2 itself, when nature does a perfectly fine job of making food from CO2 — but it's a real article from Nature, which used to be a science publication: [...]

Major Carbon Capture Pipeline Dead, or Is It?  Last week, Navigator CO2 announced they were pulling their request from the Iowa Utilities Board that sought a permit to install a 1,300-mile carbon-capture pipeline.  The news was enthusiastically embraced by the grassroots opposition who battled this to protect property rights.  We'll look into the details of this and remind you that there are two other pipelines currently being pursued, so we must not get complacent.  [Video clip]

Carbon Dioxide:  Vital Plant Food.  Carbon dioxide has been called a poison, yet it is actually the sustainer of all life on Earth.  Plants grow from the carbon in carbon dioxide in the air, and animals grow from the carbon in the plants they eat.  So carbon dioxide cannot be a poison.  Turn on the television any day of the week, and there is likely to be some discussion or news about some aspect of energy use.
  •   Everyone needs to buy an electric vehicle.
  •   End the use of fossil fuels by 2035.
  •   Every home with a solar panel (California).
  •   Cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline.
  •   No more coal.
  •   Eliminate the use of natural gas.
  •   No gas stoves.
  •   No gas furnaces.
  •   Battery-powered trucks and buses.
All these programs are based on one important foundation:  the belief that as carbon dioxide levels rise, the earth will get warmer, and will continue to warm until, with positive feedbacks, it burns up with us on it.  Few have ever taken the time to see if the foundation upon which they are operating is actually true.  Few even dare to ask a working scientist for the truth in the matter.  The truth is that carbon dioxide is needed by every plant on the Earth.  Trees, bushes, and plants of all kinds are made mainly of carbon and hydrogen, and the carbon comes from the tiny amount of carbon dioxide that is in the air.

Climate Data Refutes Crisis Narrative.  By sidestepping the question of whether CO2 is indeed a dangerous pollutant, and instead leaving that decision up to a politicized EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Massachusetts v.  EPA case issued a deeply flawed ruling.  Without CO2, life on earth as we know it would not exist.  CO2 is plant food, and without it, plants die.  There is evidence that more atmospheric CO2 would have a primarily beneficial impact on planetary ecosystem health.  If oil and gas companies defended themselves on this basis, they might take a case all the way to the Supreme Court and force a reversal of Massachusetts v. EPA.

New Norwegian Study Finds No Evidence Of CO2 Warming.  Well, this is awkward.  Statistics Norway, aka Statistisk sentralbyrå or "the national statistical institute of Norway and the main producer of official statistics", has just published a paper "To what extent are temperature levels changing due to greenhouse gas emissions?"  The awkward part isn't trying to grasp the subtleties of Norwegian since it's also available in English.  It's that the Abstract bluntly declares that "standard climate models are rejected by time series data on global temperatures" while the conclusions state "the results imply that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be sufficiently strong to cause systematic changes in the pattern of the temperature fluctuations."  But the really awkward part is that a paper from a government agency dares to address openly so many questions the alarmist establishment has spent decades declaring taboo, from the historical record on climate to the existence of massive uncertainty among scientists on it.

Carbon Dioxide Does Not Cause Warming.  The climate-change scheme and net-zero carbon policy are based upon a false notion that carbon dioxide and other gases cause global warming.  They do not.  We don't have to guess about this.  We have empirical and scientific proof.  I owned a Weights and Measures gas-physics test-and-repair facility and conducted tests.  We learned gas physics from engineers at factories that manufacture gas-physics instruments.  They must understand gas physics, or their instruments won't work.  In 1988, James Hansen flip-flopped from "global cooling" to "global warming" being dangerous.  Al Gore fed the fear with $22 billion in annual funding for universities and professors to study the matter.  Hansen's claim is a falsehood.  People move to warmer climes for their health.  Consider all the species, in the plant and animal kingdoms, that thrive near the equator, whereas none survives at the poles.  Yet, out of desperation for the money, professors cornered themselves into attempts to prove a falsehood to be true.  To do that, one must lie.  Each lie created new falsehoods until they have made gas physics look like a child's messy bedroom strewn with theories.  Nearly everything we have heard about global warming for the past thirty-five years has been from the professorial world, which has been untested theory.  How often have their declarations and predictions come true?

Norwegian Agency:  Man-Made CO2 "Not Sufficiently Strong" to Cause "Systematic Changes" in Weather.  A study from a Norwegian government agency has declared that mankind's emissions of CO2 are not strong enough to cause the widespread global warming that climate hysterics claim.  Statistisk sentralbyrå, Norway's statistics bureau, has published a paper this month that appears to contradict the climate cult's conclusion that mankind's emissions of carbon dioxide and other trace atmospheric gasses are leading to out-of-control global warming.  Researchers John K. Dagsvik and Sigmund H. Moen published the paper this month, and their abstract makes clear that, in their opinion, the supposedly vast amount of CO2 that mankind has pumped into the atmosphere during the industrial age is insignificant when it comes to affecting the world's temperature.

CO2 and Sea Level DO NOT Correlate.  I have looked at Sea Level rise a few times recently.  This post just adds another perspective by comparing three different data sets.  The main take away from this post should be the serious lack of correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and Sea Level changes.  No correlation, no dominant causation.  And whether you like it or not, sea level is strongly influenced by temperature, calling into question CO2's correlation to global temperatures.  Not surprising since there is no empirical CO2/Temperature datasets that show CO2 driving the climate on any statistically significant historical time scale.  Both the Jevrejeva et al 2014 and Frederikse et al 2020 data sets generally show alternating 30-year decelerations followed by 30-year accelerations (post-1856).  Is an exponentially rising CO2 concentration responsible for the post-1856 linear rise in Sea Level?  No, the more likely reason for the regular acceleration/deceleration events is ocean cycles (primarily the 60-year Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO)).  That deceleration/acceleration cycle will continue, bringing the sea level rise back in line with the long-term linear sea level trend.  The AMO is just starting its 30-year cooling phase (i.e.: deceleration).  Note, I arbitrarily correlated the CO2 concentrations with the post-1950 period.  Over 86% of humanity's emissions occurred post-1950, so any significant anthropogenic warming would have to have occurred over that period.

What Our Oceans Say about Global Warming.  The basic premise in the man-made global warming hypothesis is that CO2 molecules in the lower troposphere, emitted by the burning of fossil fuels on Earth, absorb the LWIR photons emitted as the Earth cools.  The CO2 molecules "trap" the heat energy in the photon, which causes the troposphere to warm.  Then the CO2 molecule reradiates an LWIR photon of the same wavelength it absorbed back to the Earth's surface, which warms the Earth's surface.  The more CO2 molecules that are emitted into the troposphere by burning fossil fuels, the more heat is trapped and reradiated back to the Earth's surface, increasing atmospheric and surface warming in a never-ending cycle.  Aside from the fact that heat can't be trapped, that the CO2 molecule does not immediately reradiate the heat energy back to the Earth's surface, that the temperature database for the lower troposphere depicts no warming, and that the Earth has no average temperature to measure or calculate, what else is wrong with this hypothesis?  It has to do with the fact that the world's oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface.  How do they fit into the man-made global warming hypothesis?

Greenhouse Gas Theories and Observed Radiative Properties of the Earth's Atmosphere.  The official — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approved — CO2 greenhouse effect hypothesis states that:  ["]increasing CO2 content of the atmosphere will increase the absorbed upwelling LW radiation from the surface, will reduce the outgoing LW radiation, and will increase the downward LW radiation received by the surface.  As a result, the surface will warm up until the top of the atmosphere radiative balance is restored.["]  Of course, this is not a greenhouse theory but an unproven hypothesis which poses deliberate constraint on the atmospheric response to increased GHG content.  The Earth-atmosphere system is in radiative equilibrium with a theoretical solar constant, and all global mean flux density components satisfy the theoretical expectations.  The IR flux optical depth has no correlation with time and the strong signal of increasing atmospheric CO2 content in any time series is not present in the IR flux optical thickness data.  Consequently, the atmospheric CO2 increase cannot be the reason for global warming.

Is Blaming 'Chinese CO2' for Global Warming Racist?  China is building coal plants faster than a Democrat can stuff a ballot box, earning it the glorious distinction of being the world's leader in CO2 and air pollution emissions.  But the usual suspects aren't losing their minds.  Greta has never protested there, and extinction rebellion is extinct.  China owns most of the mines, digging up rare earth metals to make the graven green idols of the new energy left.  China is also a leader in ocean pollution and ocean plastic, but bringing any of that is Asian hate speech.  A problem Cult stenographers at Reuters are addressing head-on.  Yeah, China emits a lot of CO2, but it's different. [...] What it is doing is burning coal to shore up its military-industrial complex and commercial global dominance and using cheap, abundant energy to advance its global political agenda while selling the rope to the West with which its elites have chosen to hang us all.

Is Carbon Capture Dead in South Dakota?  South Dakota and Iowa landowners have renewed reason to celebrate, as a major carbon-capture pipeline company is pulling up stakes.  Yesterday The Dakota Scout broke the news that Navigator CO2 Ventures is suspending its pipeline plans in five eastern counties of the Mount Rushmore state, as well as several in northwest Iowa.  According to that account, the company sent a letter to at least seven property owners along its proposed route.

Major Win for SD Farmers Over Carbon Pipeline Land Grab.  South Dakota farmers are celebrating a major victory.  Their state's Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject a controversial carbon-capture pipeline proposal.  Navigator CO2 Ventures is one of two private, for-profit companies that have been threatening to gobble up thousands of acres of private land throughout the Great Plains, for the ostensible purpose of saving the earth.  They intend to capture carbon dioxide emitted from ethanol plants throughout the Corn Belt and pipe it thousands of miles away to underground storage.  The pipeline system was slated to cross 112 miles of eastern South Dakota farmland.  South Dakota's PUC also unanimously denied Navigator's motion to preempt local ordinances.  The company argued that federal laws take precedence over county decrees.

A Silly Scheme by Green Zealots to Appease the Global Warming Gods?  As the Biden administration moves toward vastly increasing carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems as a means of reaching the chimerical goal of Net Zero America, that is, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the Satartia disaster should serve as a warning.  The government has allocated $10 billion for CCS projects, besides grants, funds, and tax credits.  CCS involves capturing CO2 from industrial and other sources, compressing it, and conveying it via pipelines for storage in underground geological formations and disused oil wells.  Or, it might be used for forcing out more oil from active wells, as Denbury is doing.  As you can imagine, this would involve a huge grid:  a Princeton study envisages 65,000 miles of pipelines carrying CO2 across America by 2050.  The trunk lines will be four feet in diameter.  Currently, there are 50 pipelines — about 5,000 miles — transporting 70 million tons of CO2 annually for enhanced oil extraction.  Developers are now seeking permits for multi-state CCS projects that will ferry CO2 from ethanol plants in the Midwest through some 3,500 miles of pipeline.  All this could be at great risk to the ecology, besides exposing numerous human habitations to Satartia-like accidents.

Montana Republicans lost Held v Montana.  [Scroll down]  Both human and natural CO2 have a half-life of 2.4 years according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  And IPCC's carbon cycle says human CO2 is only 8% of today's atmosphere, not 33% as the plaintiffs' experts assume.  The COVID pandemic reduced human CO2 emissions by about 20% for a year.  But the CO2 level continued to increase undisturbed by the dramatic decrease in human CO2 emissions.  Carbon-14 data show the percent of human CO2 in the atmosphere is about zero.  The bottom line is IPCC's own data show nature, not human CO2, causes the CO2 increase.  This negates all the plaintiffs damage claims.  Checkmate.

Button up Your Overcoat.  The idea that carbon dioxide (CO2) drives global warming or "climate change" now enjoys unquestioned authority and near universal approval.  As burgeoning public policy, nationally and in some states, it is seeping into what once were private matters of choice (e.g., light bulbs, kitchen cooktops).  Many scientists, primarily physicists, consider the belief pure supposition, however, and colossally off track. [...] Evidence is that CO2 is overall a coolant.  First, it radiates incoming solar energy and outgoing terrestrial heat away to space. [...] Usually omitted from the discussion, too, is a study in 1971 by two NASA scientists on whether burning fossil fuels for more CO2 could stave off a then perceived ice age threat.  They concluded, no.  First, warming by CO2, if any, would be offset by the more familiar product of burning fossil-fuel — smoke and airborne soot — aerosols. [...] The NASA scientists advised against using fossil fuels to warm the planet in 1971 because they were "atmospheric coolants" with a potential, alarmists claimed, for triggering an ice age.  They are still coolants.  Also, while aerosols from combustion cool in direct proportion to their increase, CO2's warmer (but still tardy) emission bands would quickly "saturate," damping off any temperature increase.  All later studies and the IPCC agree on this, and it means no "runaway warming."  Recent research shows more critically that, because CO2 concentrations follow temperature change on all time scales their rise or fall is an effect not cause of temperature change.

Biden wants to suck from the sky an essential ingredient for food.  One of the things that's important for sane people to keep in mind is that the war on climate change is a war on food.  It's obvious when Ireland, Holland, and Oregon come for the cows that provide dairy and meat for people.  It's also obvious when the sinister World Economic Forum keeps insisting that we learn to enjoy bugs (while they enjoy filet mignon, of course).  There are other ways to attack food, though.  One such way is to give the government control over CO2 in the atmosphere, which is what could happen thanks to the Biden administration's plan to fund a project that will vacuum that life-giving chemical compound from the atmosphere.

Biden Regime to Spend $1.2 Billion to Vacuum Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Air.  On Friday, the Biden regime announced it will spend $1.2 billion in taxpayer money to vacuum the sky of carbon dioxide.  Energy Secretary Granholm boasted about the project to reporters on Friday [8/11/2023].  "These two projects are going to build these regional direct air capture hubs," US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters, according to CNN.  "That means they're going to link everything from capture to processing to deep underground storage, all in one seamless process." [...] The UN says the last chance to save planet Earth may be vacuuming CO2 out of the sky and burying it.  And, they're serious.  In order to stave off the worst of global warming's consequences, the world's nations must find a way to reduce carbon emissions by 40 to 70 percent by 2050.  That's one of many claims made in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Priti Patel:  We must pause all net zero targets.  Dame Priti Patel has urged the Government to pause its net zero targets, warning that voters were being "left behind" by the pursuit of green policies.  The former home secretary 'criticised' a "corrosive culture" of pursuing time-limited targets amid pressure on ministers to redraw their environmental objectives.  Conservative backbenchers have urged a rethink after Labour failed to win this month's Uxbridge by-election amid a voter backlash against the expansion of London's ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez).  In an interview with Camilla Tominey on GB News, Dame Priti said: "My views on this are that actually we need to pause all this activity — 2030 is not that far away you know, click your fingers [and] 2050 will be upon us.  "The public are not ready for this, and importantly we cannot just have the state, the Government, just sort of saying 'these are the targets that you have to meet' when we don't have the technology.  We're not ready.

The next "green" horror: exploding carbon-capture pipelines.  Right now South Dakota is under attack by a freshly born green corporation, Summit Carbon Solutions, funded by China's Belt and Road initiative, and you, through the Green New Deal provisions buried in the last debt ceiling deal, to pipe "carbon," from the oil fields to some obscure part of the Dakotas and bury it.  There can be no more stupid waste of money than this. [...] A policy researcher friend tried to track down the annual billions, trillions over the last thirty years, that the U.N. and its various satellites have given of your money to "climate change" mitigation outfits in the Global South.  The money vanishes, nothing happens, it's stolen.  She google-earthed one heavily PR'ed outfit, only to discover that it didn't exist, just a pile of sand.  These projects are payoffs to an army of activists placed at every weak point in the system.  If the projects exist, they don't work.  Both the Guardian and Harper's have done extensive work on the fraud of "climate mitigation."  Carbon sequestration is a scam meant to steal public money.

For Climate Change, Democrats Depend on Fear Mongering Instead of Actual Science.  Bottom Line:  "Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming." Now for the rest from the Health Physics journal (tracking radiation safety) and it gets deeper than my Physics for Biology majors back in college. [...] All the Left wails about is CARBON! CARBON! CARBON!  This study studies WHICH carbon isotopes are found and what are the relationships between the varying isotope quantities.  But look at that underlined bit above:  it is telling us that it can be quantified if WE (burning fossil fuels) are responsible for the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.  And as that "Bottom line" above states, the Left has a conundrum to try to explain away when compared to "natural occurring" CO2.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Carbon Dioxide.  The numbers since the year 2000 provide convincing evidence that increasing carbon dioxide has positive impacts and reducing carbon emissions entails dire consequences.  The pre-industrial (circa 1850) atmospheric CO2 concentration of 280 ppm (parts per million) compares to today's 420 ppm, a 50% increase.  Meanwhile, the global population has risen 560%, from 1.2 billion to 8 billion.  Those extra 6.8 billion people are mostly being fed, and it's not all because of human agricultural productivity, pest control and plant genetics.  Observations of Earth's vegetative cover since the year 2000 by NASA's Terra satellite show a 10% increase in vegetation in the first 20 years of the century.  Clearly, something other than agriculture is helping to improve overall plant growth. [...] CO2 fertilization is not only greening the Earth, it's feeding the very fertile human race.

The fake end of the world.  We all know that the anti-industry industry wants to eliminate CO2 emissions that result from producing energy.  Ever since they switched gears from The Coming Ice Age! to The Runaway Greenhouse! they've told us that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is a bad thing that threatens the planet.  They've managed to bake that into the social discourse, so firmly that contradicting them can get you cancelled on Instagram or Facebook, or maybe even on Twitter, and get you fired from your job.  What's their argument?  They insist that if the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases from today's 415 parts per million by volume (ppmv), the temperature will increase by two degrees Celsius — about the difference between the average temperatures in New York and Miami — and that this would be harmful.  They say this with a straight face, even though one of their high priests, Stephen Schneider, wrote in 1971 that EACH doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere would ADD 0.81 degrees Celsius to the Earth's average temperature, and even increasing CO2 concentration by a factor of ten would increase temperature by only 2.5 degrees Celsius.

New York City pushes the limits of green policies.  New York City has embraced a set of controversial policies that push the limits of green experimentation in seeking to reduce emissions from buildings, kitchen appliances, and cars.  Critics argue the new policies are likely to be costly and burdensome for the city's millions of residents.  New York City has drafted rules to slash carbon emissions from its roughly 50,000 buildings by more than 40% by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050 — an ambitious goal, especially considering buildings in the city are the source of 70% of its total greenhouse gas emissions.  Of particular note, the rules would clamp down on gas stoves.

The Editor says...
There is no point in avoiding the emission of carbon dioxide as a byproduct of business and industry, for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that China and India have no such concerns, and they share the same atmosphere.  You may hold your breath or do whatever else you can to avoid emitting CO2, but it won't make any difference to the makeup of the atmosphere.  In addition, carbon dioxide is plant food, not air pollution.  If you are concerned about the carbon dioxide content of the air — about which you can do nothing — it is probably because you watch too much television and/or you read the New York Times.  Also, here is my weekly reminder that carbon dioxide is not carbon, for the same reason that water is not hydrogen, so please stop talking about "carbon emissions."

The Contradictions of Carbon Capture.  In May, 2022, the Biden Administration announced a $3.5 billion program to capture carbon pollution [sic] from the air, and the money has been flowing copiously.  A quick search on LinkedIn for companies engaged in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) projects will reveal dozens of companies, most of which are U.S.-based.  They are well-staffed and generously funded with millions of up-front taxpayer dollars.  Summit Carbon Solutions does have its share of proponents — among them ethanol producers, heads of Chambers of Commerce, and politicians of all stripes from state and local governments.  It's one thing to dangle large sums of other people's money to induce cooperation, but landowners are apparently being bludgeoned into submission with eminent domain.

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is a natural part of the atmosphere.  It is plant food, not pollution.  That should be the end of this whole discussion.  The federal government is spending billions of dollars to solve problems that don't exist.

Wildfires and Progressive Climate-Change Deniers.  The reality is that even if U.S. banks stopped financing fossil-fuel projects today, global CO2 emissions would rise for decades owing to growing coal production in India and China.  Another inconvenient truth is that government policies to reduce CO2 emissions will be swamped by wildfire emissions.  University of California researchers last year calculated that wildfire emissions in 2020 were two times higher than the state's greenhouse gas reductions from 2003 to 2019.  California wildfires in 2020 were the state's second largest source of CO2 emissions after transportation and generated double the greenhouse gases of all the state's power plants.  Another study this spring in the journal Science estimated that burning boreal forests in North America and Eurasia in 2021 released 1.76 billion tons of CO2, nearly twice as much as global aviation that year.  That's also more than four times New York State's annual emissions and about three times as much as the Inflation Reduction Act's projected reductions in 2030.

Green industrialization greatly increases CO2 emissions.  Despite calling for rapid reduction in CO2 emissions, the left is rushing green industrialization which will dramatically increase emissions for the foreseeable future.  This obvious absurdity has yet to be admitted.  On the one hand, there is growing literature on the enormous material requirements required for building huge numbers of wind and solar power generating systems.  Then the growing realization that gas-fired backup will keep renewable power generation CO2 emissions high. [...] Combining these two factors means CO2 emissions should rise, not fall, as green industrialization proceeds.  Both factors are ignored, but both are big.  The energy transition increases emissions.  It is that simple.

CO2 is a climate red herring.  [Scroll down]  Although we are in the midst of a broadly warming period following the end of the most recent ice age, satellite and weather balloon data suggest that the models (and theory) are off by quite a bit.  The models project much more warming than observed in back casts.  That is interesting but perhaps not definitive.  There is also evidence that the atmosphere has slipped into a new cooling period that could lead to the next ice age.  A seminal review paper by Wijngaarden and Happer (here) illustrates a critical limitation of CO2 radiation transfer that makes it impossible for this trace molecule to cause runaway global temperature.  The limitation is known as saturation.  The key figure from the Wijngaarden-Happer paper diagrams the inhibiting effect of various greenhouse gases on infrared radiation to space.  GHGs reduce Earth's reradiation of incoming shortwave solar radiation to space as longwave heat radiation.  Reduced reradiation of heat means air and surface warming.

Alan Jones with the facts on worldwide CO2 emissions and Australia's insignificant contribution to it.  Carbon dioxide is .04% of [...] the atmosphere.  That is over the whole world.  Human beings create only 3% of that .04% over the whole world.  In Australia human beings, manufacturers, factories, cows breaking wind, bush fires, are responsible for 1.3% of the 3% of the .04%.  Is anyone seriously suggesting that we should stand the economy on its head, force up energy prices, damage businesses, jeopardize employment because .04% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide?  [Video clip]

Farmers Band Together Against CO2 Pipeline Project in South Dakota.  On their way to attend their niece's wedding in July 2021, fourth-generation farmer Ed Fischbach of Mellette, South Dakota, and his wife made a quick stop to check the mailbox.  His wife reached inside, pulling out a handful of letters.  Within the small pile was an envelope from a company she had never heard of — Summit Carbon Solutions. [...] The Iowa-based company described plans to build a massive carbon capture pipeline across five midwestern states in the letter.  The 1,400-mile pipeline would transport carbon dioxide under high pressure, produced by ethanol and biofuel refineries, for burial in North Dakota.  The goal would be to reduce the region's carbon footprint to protect the environment.  The Fischbachs then learned that the pipeline would travel through some of the most productive areas of the 1,400-acre property that has been in their family for decades.

South Dakota Farmers Face Carbon-capture Land Theft.  Farmers in South Dakota are facing egregious intimidation tactics by a private company that wants to use eminent domain to confiscate valuable farmland for carbon-capture pipelines.  Summit Carbon Solutions requested a restraining order against Brown County farmer Jerad Bossly.  The company claims he threatened the lives of its representatives who showed up unannounced to survey his property, a farm that has been in his family for four generations.  He told The New American that when they arrived, he was about 12 miles away, working in a field.  His wife was home, recovering from gallbladder surgery, and was taking a shower when the Summit surveyors knocked at her door.  They entered the house, but finding no one there, they proceeded to an outbuilding where one of them walked in.

The Editor says...
"Carbon capture pipelines" are one of the dumbest ideas ever proposed.  First of all, it's carbon dioxide they're after, not carbon.  Second, there's no real reason to remove carbon dioxide from the air, because that's what trees and grass do.  CO2 is not a pollutant.  Third, nobody will never be able to remove CO2 from the air as fast as China and India are putting it into the air.  But most of all, if CO2 must be extracted from the atmosphere, that can be done anywhere in the world.  If CO2 must be sequestered, extract it from the air at the same place it is to be stored.  No CO2 pipelines are necessary.

Plants cause global warming now.  Did you know that plants cause global warming, and as plants grow bigger, stronger, and healthier due to increased CO2 they will kill us all? [...] Now you may be under the impression that the photosynthesis of plants pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere and releases O2.  In fact, the carbon that you find in plants is pulled from the air, not the soil, which is why plants can grow in even rocky, sandy soil, or even in hydroponic gardens.  All that biomass is mainly carbon pulled out of the air.  This is why greenhouses often are enriched with extra CO2 — to stimulate plant growth.  Plants really like CO2, and greenhouses often burn natural gas to increase concentrations to between 1000 and 1200 PPM, about 3 times the atmospheric level.  The plants suck that CO2 up and spit out more O2, increasing their yields by about 40% — in other words, they sequester that CO2 by turning it into plant matter.  You would think, then, that the increase in biomass that results from rising CO2 in the atmosphere would have a beneficial effect, right?  Well yes, yes it does.  But that is not how the alarmists want you to see it.

Ice Cores, Temperatures, and CO2.  It's pretty amazing to realize that the air trapped in the tiny bubbles in the ice is the very air that was trapped there way back when the ice formed.  And that air can be hundreds of thousands of years old.  Not only that, but we can analyze the trapped air to see the changes in CO2 over time.  How accurate are the results?  Well, different ice cores drilled and analyzed by different groups of scientists give very similar results.

Nature Controls the CO2 Increase.  Climate alarmism and politics are based on the invalid United Nations (UN) assumption that human CO2 is the dominant cause of the CO2 increase above 280 ppm, or since 1750.  This assumption conflicts with UN's own data, is derived from invalid circular reasoning, and violates physics.  UN data show human carbon emissions have added only 33 ppm to atmospheric CO2 as of 2020 while natural CO2 emissions added 100 ppm.  This predicted human-caused increase of 33 ppm is 8% of the total carbon in the atmosphere as of 2020, not 33% as the invalid assumption claims.  Also, δ¹⁴C data prove nature is the overwhelming cause of the CO2 increase since 1750, and lower the 8% of human carbon in the atmosphere calculated from the UN data to less than 4 percent.  The relative equilibrium percentage levels of available natural carbon in land, air, surface ocean, and deep ocean is the strongest predictor of the effect of human carbon on atmospheric CO2 because the independent human carbon cycle seeks the same percentage levels as the equilibrium natural carbon cycle.  For example, if the carbon levels of land, surface ocean, and deep ocean were each doubled, the effect of human carbon emissions on atmospheric CO2 would be reduced by about half, to 18 ppm.  The bomb-caused increase in ¹⁴C and δ¹⁴C has now depleted as δ¹⁴C has returned to its balance level of zero.  Yet the ¹⁴C level is now higher than in 1950.

Can a Discriminatory View of Legal Standing Stand?  In 2009 the EPA found that CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" endanger human health and welfare because they potentially warm the atmosphere.  Many scientists have taken issue with this finding, which has provided the justification for reducing conventional energy sources, raised the cost of energy to consumers, and unrolled massive federal and state spending for manifestly unreliable alternative sources.  The Biden administration has pressed this autocracy-enabling finding to its bosom, using it to justify regulating everything, — including gas stoves, electric vehicles, air conditioners, home appliances — indeed, anything that makes a good life affordable and efficient.  How well-substantiated was this EPA decision which has so upended our lives and wasted trillions of taxpayer and consumer resources?  Not very. [...] If the concept of "standing" means anything, some courts seem to have stood it on its head.

CO2 is innocent but Clouds are guilty.  This is a continuation of previous papers (1) and (2) on Cloud Reduction.  Further analysis of cloud data has revealed four new observations:
  [#1]   Mount Pinatubo ash in the atmosphere and Amazonia deforestation may be seen in the cloud data.
  [#2]   A correlation of measured "Temperature — Dew point Temperature", T-Td, to Cloud Cover was found.
  [#3]   The Temperature — Dew point Temperature variable suggests Cloud Reduction has been going on before 1975.
  [#4]   A simple model shows that Clouds either by reduced Cloud Fraction, decreased Cloud Albedo (lower reflectivity), or both can account for most of the observed Radiation and the associated Global Warming, GW.

Net zero is a disastrous solution to a nonexistent problem.  It is true that, since the industrial revolution, when we began to use fossil fuels — first coal, then oil and gas — as our source of energy, this has led to a steady, albeit gradual, increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  The know-nothings (notably but by no means exclusively the BBC) customarily refer to this as pollution.  In reality, it is the very reverse:  so far from carbon dioxide being pollution, it is the stuff of life.  It is the food of plants, and without plants there would be little animal life and no human life.  The principal effect of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to stimulate plant growth, known as the fertilisation effect.  Careful studies have shown that the planet is indeed becoming greener thanks to increased CO2.  And yet we're told that we need to prevent any further increase in CO2 in order to become 'green'.  A secondary effect of increased CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere is to warm the planet slightly.  This is no bad thing:  many more people die each year from cold-related illnesses than from heat-related ones.  And the warming is very slight indeed.  According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an offshoot of the United Nations, the Earth is warming at a rate of at most one-sixth of a degree per decade, a barely perceptible amount.  And of course we don't experience the mean global temperature anyway:  we experience the temperature in our own neck of the woods, which varies enormously.

1500 Scientists Say 'There Is No Climate Emergency'.  Very few people actually dig into the data, they simply accept the UN IPPC reports.  Yet many highly respectable and distinguished scientists have done exactly that and found that the UN-promoted manmade climate change theory is seriously flawed.  Are you aware that 1500 of the world's leading climate scientists and professionals in over 30 countries have signed a declaration that there is no climate emergency and have refuted the United Nations claims in relation to man-made climate change? [...] The reality is that the climate changes naturally and slowly in its own cycle, and solar activity is the dominant factor in climate and not CO2.  We can conclude that carbon emissions or methane from livestock, such as cows, are not the dominant factors in climate change.  In essence, therefore, the incessant UN, government, and corporate-media-produced climate hysteria in relation to carbon emissions and methane from cows has no scientific basis.  Please note that I have no commercial interest in stating that climate change is not caused by CO2.  In truth I am against 'real' pollution, and the reality is that the CO2 component is not a pollutant.

Challenging "Net Zero" with Science.  Governments around the globe are taking actions to implement fossil fuel-free or "Net Zero" energy systems without a thorough examination of the scientific basis for doing so.  This paper undertakes that examination by reviewing the scientific support (or lack thereof) that has been used to justify this transition to Net Zero.  No atempt is made to address the significant economic, societal or environmental consequences of a near-total reliance on renewable energy and the required batery-backup that is necessary to transition to a fossil fuel free future.  Two of the paper's authors — Drs.  William Happer and Richard Lindzen, professors emeriti at Princeton University and Massachusets Institute of Technology, respectively — have spent decades studying and writing about the physics of Earth's atmosphere.  The third, Gregory Wrightstone, a geologist of more than 40 years, has spent much of the last decade writing and speaking about the interplay of geology, history and climate.  The authors find that Net Zero — the global movement to eliminate fossil fuels and its emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases — to be scientifically invalid and a threat to the lives of billions of people.

Former Reuters science reporter: The media is lying about CO2 and a "climate crisis".  This corruption of news reporting into narrative journalism has been apparent for years to climate-hysteria skeptics.  Until recently, however, that revolution-by-evolution process hadn't become apparent to most of the rest of the populace.  Now, however, with all sorts of new data coming out about masks and natural immunity in the COVID pandemic, many more people have seen The Science exposed as based entirely on political agenda.  The mainstream-media refusal to cover new and conclusive meta-analyses of scientific studies that refute their three-year narratives in support of government emergency rule now demonstrates that corruption on a much broader scale.

The lies government will tell to force green energy.  Democrats want to bury and regulate CO2, a clear, innocuous, non-pollutant gas that allows plants to grow and the world to be fed.  They want to eliminate clean-burning, efficient, affordable natural gas plants that keep people comfortable with air-conditioning and heating.  They claim that coal power plants with scrubbers emissions travel across states.  That is nuts!  The missions clearly dissipate soon after they go in the atmosphere. [...] There is no scientific data that show a direct correlation between temperatures and our consumption of natural resources or with humans breathing out CO2.

Landowners fight back against latest green energy scam: 'Carbon capture' pipelines.  The goal of the green anarchists is quite transparent.  They want to make oil and gas too regulated, expensive, and scarce to remain viable while subsidizing and mandating fake green energy to perpetuate the lie of global warming so they can eventually transition us to centrally controlled unreliable energy.  Then we can fulfill the dream of "eat bugs, own nothing, and be happy" by 2030.  Republicans who have bought into this "carbon capture" scam think it's a way of saving oil and gas by acceding to the premise that CO2 is a problem, but in fact it will play into the hands of green energy fanatics.  Thankfully landowners in the upper Midwest and Great Plains, who are on the hook for eminent domain, are beginning to fight back.  Imagine building pipelines and infrastructure not for oil and gas to efficiently flow to consumers, but for a green energy scam to supposedly capture carbon in the air and then route it underground and somehow store it in large quantities forever.  It is the most impractical and expensive way of utilizing our natural resources, will enrich cronies, will make oil and gas prohibitively expensive, and will barely make a dent in atmospheric levels of carbon.

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not carbon, so please stop talking about "carbon emissions" and "taking carbon out of the atmosphere."  [#2] Carbon dioxide can be extracted from the air at the same place that it is used or sequestered.  There is no need for CO2 pipelines.  [#3] The mass of the atmosphere is so great that a hundred CO2 sequestration plants operating for a hundred years would not reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by any measurable amount.  The amount of CO2 they capture in the next century will probably be exceeded by the CO2 emitted by China this week.  [#4] While the "save the Earth" do-gooders are working on projects like this, China and India [and Indonesia and Viet Nam and Japan] are building coal-fired power plants as fast as they can.  [#5] Where are they going to store all that CO2, and how do they know it won't find its way back into the atmosphere?

There is no correlation between CO2 and rising ocean levels, according to decades of data from NOAA.  For years, the global warming cult has shamed people for not believing in their religion of doom, for not agreeing that the oceans are rising, that the world is ending because of CO2.  According to decades of tidal data collected by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), ocean levels have generally stayed the same for centuries, regardless of CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  When a minuscule increase in the ocean level is detected, it is observed over a century, and the rise is not even correlated with CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  Tectonic activity, hurricane damage, the El Nino effect, and changes in ocean currents are just a few of the uncontrollable variables that affect sea level measurements.

How to tell that the climate alarmists aren't serious.  It's the math!  I ask you:  if someone proposes a (ridiculous) solution to an "existential problem" that has no chance of success, should we be forced to take the problem seriously?  If the climate alarmists truly believe there is a climate emergency, then they should be able to answer the first basic question about "the plan."  Will the plan even remotely make any difference in man-made emissions?  Remember that based on their screeching, we have less than twelve years (or maybe 8, 5, 3) before we all die from "man-made climate change."  And the plan should include sacrifice from everyone to save the planet.  If man-made climate change is an existential problem, the problem of a generation, then you would expect all major contributors to the climate problem to contribute to the solution.  But, alas, no.  China seems to be exempt from actually reducing emissions.

The Truth About Co2, Why We Want More Of It And Why It's Not The Cause Of Global Warming.  [Video clip]

Carbon Capture Is a Woke Fantasy.  Let's say you're brainstorming with some friends, trying to figure out how to cash in on the woke green wave.  It would probably not occur to the less boldly imaginative among us to propose 1) capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from agricultural areas covering five Midwestern states, 2) dehydrating and compressing it into liquid form at various capture locations, 3) transporting it via brand new pipelines, and 4) sequestering it into its permanent rocky tomb a mile beneath the surface, safe from climate change, nuclear war, and all but the most severe cosmic catastrophes.  As a bonus, liquid CO2 that survives burial has commercial industrial applications, like dry ice for food preservation or creating cloudy or foggy effects for Hollywood productions.  It's also used in fire extinguishers and to carbonate soft drinks, and it is even an important cooling agent for cryogenic freezing, as was done, for example, to Ted Williams and his son John Henry.  If you're wondering where the money comes from for these enterprises, the Department of Energy has announced many tens of millions of dollars in funding for research and implementation of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects.

The Editor says...
What is the point of sequestering the CO2 below ground, if it is going to be turned into dry ice, which will release the CO2 back into the atmosphere?

It's absurd to think carbon dioxide and methane are our enemies.  It is truly a sad reflection on education in the last few decades that so many politicians, academics, and even research scientists have been utterly fooled by what is nothing but fictitious, fiddled physics supposedly proving that water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane can, because of their radiating properties, raise the global mean surface temperature.  The late Canadian Professor Tim Ball (whom I met) called it the biggest scam in history in his TV interviews and books.  A retired physicist became ashamed of himself for having taught such false, unsupported "science," as you can read at the foot of the home page on my website.  Why would you continue denying the laws of long-established physics, which can be used to explain why these gases cool us — water vapor by a few degrees, but carbon dioxide and methane by less than 0.1 degrees?  Surely you don't believe the climatology claims that water vapor does most of "33 degrees" of warming at average concentration!  If it did, then how much warming do you believe it would do in a rainforest, where the concentration may well be three times as great?  It is water vapor in humid Singapore that caps the maximum daily temperature, such that it rarely exceeds 33°C any day of the year.

Greenhouse gasses are good.  Greenhouse gasses are not just good, they are important to making Earth habitable.  Without them, most life would not be thriving.  It would be too cold.  Even the federal government, when reading beyond the false claims against CO2, which is not a greenhouse gas, shows evidence to support they are a positive.  Fifty-nine degrees colder on average is ice age territory, when most animals and people lived closer to the equator in order to survive, as fossil records show on any number of sites.  What NASA did was lie about the impact of water vapor, as others do who are all in on the global warming chimera.  It is considerably higher, which is the reason computer models do not work.  By minimizing the biggest contributor to greenhouse gasses, they make it impossible to get close to accurate results.

To End Climate Lunacy, Stop Treating Warming & C02 Hysterically.  Those who oppose economically destructive "climate" policies — like those promoted by the Biden administration and at the recent United Nations COP27 conference — will continue to fail to stop the advance of these policies so long as they continue to accept the false claim that warming of the planet and carbon dioxide emissions are harmful.  They are not.  On balance, global warming and CO2 emission are beneficial.  Before getting to why that is, however, it is crucial to understand why accepting the false climate claim is so harmful.  When the destructiveness of climate policies is shown, the response is that the policies nevertheless are necessary to address what President Biden refers to as the "existential threat" of global warming and increased CO2 emissions.  When it is noted that these climate policies will at most microscopically and insignificantly reduce temperatures and CO2 emissions, climate policy mandarins push for even more draconian policies.  The result has been that since the 1990s, climate policies have become increasingly destructive and wasteful.

How You can Derail the Climate Agenda.  [Scroll down] Climate science, you see, is not just wrong about the link between carbon dioxide and climate.  It is so wrong that it doesn't even get the diagnosis right when you take the narrative at face value.  The proof of this arose out of the 2020 lockdowns.  Two findings emerged.  The first was that fossil fuel use dropped by only so much.  The other was that atmospheric carbon increased like clockwork. [...] A cleared forest emits kilograms of carbon dioxide per square meter until the canopy recovers, or nothing at all if you leave a canopy behind by thinning the forest instead.  Farm fields emit too.  You can tell on NASA visualizations when farmers are tilling or harvesting.  In the past, hedgerows would keep the fungi alive, slow down the wind, and help soak up these emissions.  Nowadays, farm fields are more like cleared forests: they're wide open with no canopy.  These emissions are so much bigger than fossil fuels that it's not even a contest.  A recent research paper showed that a mere 12% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was tied to fossil fuels.  So clearly, it's soil, not oil.

Control Freaks and the Guilt Trip Travel Agency.  On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States of American ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.  So much for the wisdom and efficacy of courts.  Carbon dioxide is critical to the life chemistry of plants.  Animal life depends on plant life.  Within reasonable limits, and as much as we understand from known history, there have been times when the atmosphere had more carbon dioxide and times when it had less.  Until very recently, these variations were not created by the activities of man.  When there was more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plant life flourished.  In those times, the potential for human life to flourish was greater.  [¶] The advance of technology in the Bronze Age and Iron Age allowed fewer men to feed more people and led to the green revolution of the 1950s and '60s, which allowed farmers to be much more productive.  Critical to this was the Haber-Bosch process, which allowed nitrogen fixation and created ammonia and artificial fertilizer.  Without this artificial fertilizer, farm productivity could not support the current population of the Earth.  Farm machinery depends on fossil fuels, and the Haber-Bosch process depends on methane, which is the main component in natural gas.  [¶] If you reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plant life will decline.  If you reduce the production of energy from fossil fuels, farm production will decline.  If you reduce the production of natural gas, nitrogen fixation using the Haber-Bosch process will decline.  Each of these declines will reduce the productivity of farming.  [¶] If you reduce the productivity of farming, life will become nasty, brutish, and short again.

CO2 is not the enemy.  Scientific studies should not be written in such a way that it becomes impossible for those with little interest in science to comprehend.  They should be written in a way to make what has been learned about the wonders of the universe known to a wider audience.  That includes findings about what CO2 is.  Contrary to what seems to have become popular belief, CO2 is not a villain unleashed on the world to bring about global warming under the guise of climate change, which is still used despite the lack of any recent warming.  It does not exist as a greenhouse gas and has no bearing on temperature.  CO2 is the equivalent of one of the good guys in nature.  When carbon-based life, like humans, exhale, CO2 is released into the air.  It then becomes plant food.  Plants take in CO2 and another good guy on the planet — oxygen — is released.

The Media's Rank Dishonesty About 'Climate Change' And Hurricane Ian.  [Scroll down] [Australian meteorologist William] Kininmonth noted that while the temperature of the tropical oceans has risen over the past four decades, the cause is not CO2.  He attributed the likely cause to "a reduction in the transport of heat as the oceans slow."  He stressed that recent tropical ocean warming "is probably simply the result of a fluctuation in the ever-changing ocean circulation; carbon dioxide must be recognized as a very minor contributor to the observed warming and one that is unlikely to prolong the warming trend beyond the peak generated by the natural oceanic oscillations."  Kininmonth's final paragraph reads:  ["]The pattern of recent global warming underscores the validity of what meteorologists widely recognize:  the oceans are the vital inertial and thermal flywheels of the climate system.  The corollary is, if one wants to control climate, it will be necessary to control the oceans.  Efforts to decarbonize in the hope of affecting global temperatures will be in vain.["]

CO2 Emission Reduction Has A Downside and It's Huge!  As the costs to produce agricultural products increase, those costs are passed on to the consumer, thereby reducing disposable household income, which reduction also disproportionately burdens the poor.  In recent months we have all experienced the sour taste of this unfortunate chain of events to one degree or another as we have dealt with rising gas prices that helped contribute to inflated food prices.  Yet that experience represents only the tip of the iceberg compared to what is coming if CO2 emission reduction polices are not reversed and altogether abandoned.

When did global warming become climate change?  [Scroll down] Clearly, the temperature database of the Earth's land, ocean, and atmosphere show no significant increase.  But what about the CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere?  Has it changed?  Since 1980, the global mean average CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere has risen from 340 ppm (parts per million) to 420 ppm, an increase of 23.5%. [...] How much of the increase of 80 ppm in CO2 concentration is due to natural causation versus man-made activities?  No one knows.  There has been no significant, if any, warming of the Earth's land mass, atmosphere or oceans during the period when CO2 concentration increased.  Therefore, there cannot be a correlation between a rising level of CO2 in the atmosphere and global warming, since there has been no significant global warming. [...] If there is no global warming, an increase in CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere has not caused global warming.

California Will Allow Human Composting After Death to Combat Climate Change.  The far-left state of California further embraced neo-paganism this week when Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law allowing the practice of composting dead human beings to better combat climate change.  Citing the high CO2 emissions associated with cremation, the bill will give people the option to give their dead remains over to a process known as natural organic reduction (NOR) should they not want to be buried or cremated.  "The process involves placing the body inside a long, reusable steel container along with wood chips and flowers to aerate it — allowing microbes and bacteria to break down the remains," according to the Daily Mail.  "One month later, the remains will fully decompose and be turned into soil."  The act of cremation reportedly accounts for 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The Editor says...
[#1] Are they trying to claim that gradual decomposition by "microbes and bacteria" does not produce carbon dioxide?  [#2] In 2016, China produced 10,432,751,400 tons of CO2.  If it's true that "[t]he act of cremation reportedly accounts for 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year," a quick calculation shows that China will emit that much CO2 in less than 20 minutes.

Beer shortages feared after extinct underground volcano contaminated CO2 reservoir: 'Big concern'.  Breweries could soon see beer shortages thanks to an unprecedented carbon dioxide contamination that is taking the industry by storm.  The potential shortage would be due to an extinct underground volcano in Mississippi contaminating the naturally-occurring carbon dioxide reservoir in the area, adding supply chain woes to the already devastating effects of inflation.  "It's certainly something we're keeping close attention to," said Ronn Friedlander, co-CEO of Massachusetts' Aeronaut Brewing Company.

Leafcutter ants produce so much gas that they actually rival cows.  The fact that cows produce a ton of greenhouse gas in the form of methane is science factoid that people tend to pull out in casual climate discussions (you have those, don't you?).  As it turns out, one of the other major natural contributors of greenhouse gas is a creature that is a whole lot smaller but a lot more numerous.  In a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers from the University of Montana reveal that leafcutter ants are also major gas producers, pumping out incredible quantities of a different gas, nitrous oxide.

Scientists calculated the global population of ants: there are 20 quadrillion, or 2.5 million per person.  An estimated 20 quadrillion ants roam the earth, scientists have estimated.  The astonishing number — 20,000,000,000,000,000 — means there would be about 2.5 million ants per single human living today.  "It's unimaginable," Patrick Schultheiss, a lead author on the study, told The Washington Post.  "We simply cannot imagine 20 quadrillion ants in one pile, for example.  It just doesn't work."

All organisms produce methane.  It is well known that methane, a greenhouse gas, is produced by special microorganisms, for example in the intestines of cows, or in rice fields.  For some years, scientists had also observed the production of methane in plants and fungi, without finding an explanation.  Now researchers have shed light on the underlying mechanism.  Their findings suggest that all organisms release methane.

Carbon Dioxide Feeds the World.  CO2 provides the food for plants like wheat, rice, fruit and vegetables which are human staples plus other plants such as grass which feeds the animals who give us milk and meat or the glorious trees which give us beautiful forests plus timber, paper and many collateral benefits.  CO2 is a most unobtrusive substance being invisible, odorless and non-flammable.  It circulates in our blood and passes through our lungs for so long as we live.  Plants stop growing below 150 ppmv of CO2 in the air.  If that happens all animals on earth, including humans, will starve to death.

Don't They Know That Crickets Pass Gas Too?  Among the critters that metabolically produce CO2 are bacteria.  As far as I can find out, every creature on Earth that has a mouth has a gut. [...] You, me, the cows, the crickets, all God's creatures need to fart.  Especially we humans, as we have more bacteria living inside each of us than there are dollars in our $30+ trillion national debt.  Yeast, while a sort of fungus and not a bacterium, also exudes CO2 as it goes through its lifecycle.  Baking bread, fermenting grains into beer, bourbon, and other alcohols, and converting grape sugar into wine all release yeast-created CO2.  You can tell a greenie is truly dedicated to reducing carbon emissions when he stops eating avocado with toast, comparing sips of microbrews, and relaxing with a boutique single malt or pinot noir after a long day.  By the way, bacteria that live in the seabed alone make up 10% to 30% of the Earth's whole biomass.  They are snuggled into the mud happily breaking down organic matter into its basic components and releasing carbon dioxide.

Carbon Capture Pipelines = Environmental Idiocracy!  [Scroll down]  You see, in Iowa, along with North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska, the push is on to enforce a plan to capture CO2 and bury it in the ground.  Of course, the excuse is to protect the earth from Climate Change!  In all of my years of fighting the lies and insane policies of the radical environmental movement, this is without doubt their dumbest plan ever — but it's also one of the most dangerous that we have ever faced.  Here's the scheme.  Thousands of acres of privately-owned, food-producing Midwest Corn Belt farmland are targeted for a new 1300-mile long-pipeline.  But not a pipeline to bring us desperately needed fuel oil.  No — the purpose of this pipeline is to capture carbon dioxide and transport it under ground!

The Editor says...
[#1] There is no reason to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, and even if there was a reason, there is no reason for a pipeline, because the CO2 can be extracted at the same place it will be stored.  A pipeline of any substantial length makes no sense.  It all comes out of the same atmosphere, no matter where you get it.  [#2] China and India are putting CO2 into the air much faster than it can be extracted.

The Big Green Lie Almost Everyone Claims to Believe.  Almost every member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, pays homage to the Big Green Lie. [...] The Big Green Lie — that carbon dioxide is a pollutant — is so pervasive that even those considered skeptics — including right-wing NGOs and pundits — generally adhere to the orthodoxy, differing not in their stated belief that CO2 is a pollutant but only in how calamitous a pollutant it is.  Because everyone now participates in the "CO2 emissions are bad" lie, the debate over climate policy hasn't been over whether a CO2 problem exists but over how urgently CO2 needs to be addressed, and how it should be addressed.  Do we have eight years left before Armageddon becomes inevitable or decades?  Do we get off fossil fuels by building nuclear plants or wind turbines?  Should we change our lifestyles to need less of everything?  Or should we mitigate this evil — the view of those deemed climate minimalists — by shielding our continents from a rising of the oceans by enclosing them behind sea walls?  With almost everyone across the political spectrum publicly agreeing that curbing CO2 is a good thing, the debate has been between those who want to do good quickly by reaching net-zero in 2040 and sticks in the mud who want to slow down the doing of a good thing.  With discourse careening down rabbit holes, almost everyone gets lost pursuing solutions to Alice-in-Wonderland delusions — and wasting trillions of dollars in the process.

Craft breweries shutting down due to U.S. carbon dioxide shortage.  Craft breweries across America have been on the front lines of businesses facing higher material costs because of inflation.  Now, many are confronting a shortage of a key ingredient: carbon dioxide, the gas that gives beer its crisp, effervescent taste.  And one brewer has already said it plans to shut down a key manufacturing plant and lay off workers as a result.  Night Shift Brewing, in Everett, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, cited the CO2 shortage as the reason it is suspending operations at its longtime facility and outsourcing to nearby locations instead.

The one point that can get people off the global warming obsession train.  Climate alarmists play the "hide the magnitude" game.  If they didn't, they would soon be out of business.  Politely ask a few of your friends how much of the air they're breathing is CO2.  I've done that, and the typical answer, when I can get one, is twenty percent or more.  (Most people have no idea and would rather not guess.)  Climate alarmists rarely talk about the actual quantitative composition of our atmosphere.  The impression they give is that (1) a substantial part of the air that surrounds us comprises carbon dioxide; (2) that the proportion of carbon dioxide is increasing rapidly; (3) that the increase is primarily the result of human activity, mostly from burning fossil fuels; and (4) that if CO2 continues to increase, it's game over for humanity.  Recently, the rhetoric has escalated from "climate crisis" to "climate emergency."  The actual magnitude tells a very different story.  Carbon dioxide constitutes four one-hundredths of one percent of the air we breathe (or 400 parts per million).  That is an extremely tiny fraction of the atmosphere.

The Silliness of Carbon Capture and Sequestration.  Beltway nostrums are a dime a dozen, and the climate  problem   threat   emergency   crisis  existential threat is tailor-made to elicit hundreds of them.  An old one now receiving increasing attention is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a technology designed to capture greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as they are produced as byproducts of such industrial processes as power generation, and then to sequester them underground in caverns or fossil-fuel reservoirs instead of releasing them into the atmosphere. [...] Let us make the wild assumption that a large CCS subsidy program would cut U.S. GHG emissions by half.  If we apply the Environmental Protection Agency climate model and make assumptions that exaggerate the future effects of reductions in GHG emissions, that 50 percent cut would reduce global temperatures in 2100 by 0.087 degrees C.  That would not be detectable:  The standard deviation of the surface temperature record is 0.11 degrees C.  Assume instead, again wildly, that an international CCS effort would reduce global GHG emissions by 25 percent.  Temperatures in 2100:  0.343 degrees C lower than otherwise would be the case.  How much are such outcomes worth?

Media Claims CO2 "Traps Heat"! A Big Lie or A Big Stupid?  This video exposes a popular climate myth pushed by the media.  Although greenhouse gases warm the earth's average temperature, CO2 does not trap heat!  Click bait media thrives on fearmongering and publishes misleading illustrations of solar energy entering the earth's atmosphere, but no energy or little energy escaping back to space.  To blame rising CO2 on climate change they must call CO2 a heat trapping gas, so they can then make simple minded claims that any rise in CO2 must increase extreme heating[.]  But all climate scientists agree that the energy absorbed by CO2 is quickly shed in less than one thousandth of a second.  Hardly enough time to argue[.]  And satellite data and energy budgets estimated by climate scientists' have calculated that of the absorbed incoming solar heat, the earth radiates 99.6%, with several tenths of percent uncertainty, back to space as infrared heat waves.  The greenhouse effect is more complex because CO2 has both warming and cooling effects.

Reducing CO2 Hurts the Planet and Humanity:  Time to Reconsider Massachusetts v. EPA.  In the 2007 case Massachusetts v. EPA, [T]he Supreme Court found that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, as "air pollutants" under the Clean Air Act. [...] Since this ruling the science has proven green house gasses specifically CO2 has little or no impact on the climate.  On February 26th, 2021 a revised and expanded third edition of scientific look at climate change titled Hot Talk, Cold Science by the distinguished astrophysicist Dr. S. Fred Singer, with the assistance of renowned climate scientists David R. Legates and Anthony R. Lupo, wrote,  ["]As alarmists clamor to impose draconian government restrictions on entire populations in order to combat "climate change," this book reveals some startling, stubborn contradictory facts, including:
  •   CO2 has not caused temperatures or sea levels to rise beyond historical rates.
  •   Severe storms have not increased in frequency or intensity since 1970 — neither have heat waves nor droughts.
  •   Global change is not harming coral reefs.
  •   Any increases in CO2 concentrations across huge time spans (there have been a few) haven't preceded rising global temperatures; they've followed them by about six to eight hundred years — just the opposite of alarmist claims.
  •   Alarmist climate scientists have hidden their raw temperature data and deleted emails — then undermined the peer-review system to squelch debate.
In sum, despite all the hot talk — and outright duplicity — there is no 'climate crisis' resulting from human activities and no such threat on the horizon.["]

Huge Finding:  Higher CO2 makes food crops and herbs more nutritious and medicinal.  The war on carbon [dioxide] is a war on life itself.  It is a war on plant health, animal health and human life.  Not only is carbon dioxide necessary for photosynthesis, but it also makes plants more nutritious, multiplying their medicinal value.  Numerous studies show that higher carbon dioxide levels increase the vitamin and mineral output of plants.  Studies also show that higher carbon levels increase the plants' output of flavonoids, phenolics, essential oils, tannins, antioxidants, amino acids and other phytochemicals.  Humans and animals depend on the vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals provided by the plant kingdom.  When plants are starved of basic elements like carbon, they cannot provide the nourishment that humans need to thrive.  As the world's population surpasses eight billion people, there will be a greater global need for warmer temperatures, longer growing seasons and higher carbon dioxide levels to build up an ecosystem that supports highly medicinal crops, herbs and super foods.

Biden Administration Shackles Taxpayers in Carbon-capture Scheme.  Billions of our tax dollars are funding carbon dioxide (CO2) harvesting across the United States.  Experts say the senseless ventures have no impact on global temperatures yet are helping to fuel the energy crisis and raise already-skyrocketing prices you pay for just about everything.  CO2 — a simple molecule that is a crucial plant food and helps make life on earth possible — has been demonized since 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court irrationally labeled this important atmospheric gas as an "air pollutant" and granted regulatory free rein to the Environmental Protection Agency.  Now, in some apparently warped spirit of Dr. Seuss, the Biden administration wants to build huge machines that suck CO2 directly from the sky.  Carbon-capture technology has been around for decades, trapping CO2 as it is released from refineries, manufacturing facilities, and power plants.  The process is known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), or carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).  These methods either store the gas underground or put it to various uses such as producing high-value chemicals or extracting more petroleum from otherwise depleted oil wells.

Dept. Of Energy Is Spending $2.5 Billion On Carbon Capture.  The biggest lie of the millenium is that carbon is bad and it should be removed from the atmosphere.  CO2 is essential to life, and especially to plant growth.  Without CO2, photosynthesis cannot take place.  Technocrats are attempting to curtail food production and reduce population at the same time, using taxpayer funds to finance it.

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not carbon, so please stop calling it carbon!  [#2] It is impossible to remove enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make any measurable difference.

The Many Benefits of Rising Atmospheric CO2.  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 dioxide, or CO2, is so well established, in fact, that humans — and all the rest of the biosphere — are described in the most basic of terms as carbon-based lifeforms.  We simply could not and would not exist without it.  Ironically, far too many demonize and falsely label this important atmospheric trace gas a pollutant.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Instead of being shunned like the plague, the ongoing rise in CO2 should be welcomed with open arms.

IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming.  UN scientists have unveiled a plan that they believe can limit the root causes of dangerous climate change.  A key UN body says in a report that there must be "rapid, deep and immediate" cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.  Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.  Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century.

Reaction to the article above:
IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming.  [Scroll down]  According to the IPCC Press Release, we must halve emissions by 2030.  That clearly is not going to happen.  Even in the UK, the CCC's Fifth Carbon Budget only targets a cut of 25%.  The idea that China, India and the rest of the developing world are going to cut emissions at all is nonsensical, even if they wanted to, which they don't.  Beyond 2030, the real pipe dreams kick in.  Unproven and expensive technologies such as removing CO2 from the air and carbon capture, for instance.  There is also talk of totally reordering our lives and the cities we live in — "compact and walkable" is one phrase used.  Meat eating does not escape either.  Much hope is pinned on falling costs for renewables, but the report fails to address the simple fact that intermittent wind and solar cannot run a modern economy.

Carbon Dioxide and Climate — Friend or Foe?  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.

New York set to ban natural gas in new buildings.  New York Governor Kathy Hochul will soon release a budget that likely will include a plan to make New York the first state to ban natural gas and other fossil fuels in new construction, according to Food & Water Watch and other environmental groups.  Officials at the governor's office said Hochul was working with the legislature to finalize the budget, but could not say when they would reach an agreement.  In her State of the State address in January, Hochul committed to "zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions for new construction no later than 2027."  A decision by the state would follow similar gas bans in New York City in December and dozens of smaller U.S. cities in recent years as they seek to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy.

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not dirty.  Other than the electricity from a nuclear power plant, what fuel is cleaner than natural gas?

UN report says removing CO2 from [the] atmosphere [is the] only way to save [the] climate.  Sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is the world's only chance to avoid climate change disaster, according to a report due to be released Monday [4/4/2022].  The paper by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to say that dangerous climate change will be avoided only if vast quantities of carbon dioxide are removed from the air, the Times of London reported.  "Carbon dioxide removal is necessary to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions globally and nationally," a draft version of the summary report said, according to The Times.  If "negative emission" technologies fulfill their potential, it continues, they could even enable a reversal of global warming.  However, carbon-capturing technology is nowhere near where it needs to be.  Today, 19 operational plants capture only 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, compared to the 36 billion tons the world produces annually, according to the report.

Water Vapor, Not Mankind, is the Greatest Contributor to Green House Gases.  It seems over the past decades there's been the notion that mankind has been the largest contributor to green house gas emissions.  While green house gases do come from things developed to help mankind grow and prosper like: factories, plants that produce energy, cars, trucks, railroads, airplanes, they combined are not the greatest contributor to green house gasses.  It is important to understand what are green house gases and how they help or harm mankind and what should be done.

New Study:  The CO2-Drives-Global-Warming 'Concept' Is 'Obsolete And Incorrect'.  In analyzing UAH global temperature and Mauna Loa CO2 records from 1979 to 2021, climate researchers Lightfoot and Ratzer (2022) report there has been "little, if any" correlation between these two variables during this period.  They assert that between 91 and 98% of Earth's greenhouse gas effect is from water vapor, as CO2 and other trace gases contribute less than 5% to greenhouse gas forcing.  A solar minimum has just began in the current solar cycle 25.  The declining solar output is projected to eventually lead to a ~1 to 1.2°C cooling over the next 30 to 40 years.  Solar minimum periods are also accompanied by crop failures due to frost and weather extremes delivering excessive heat.  The authors conclude by suggesting the popularized conceptualization of CO2 as a driver of global warming has proven to be "obsolete and incorrect".

Don't buy Climate Alarmism — Our CO2 does not control the climate.  All claims that human CO2 emissions cause climate change begin with IPCC's invalid theory that says human CO2 emissions have caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750 (or above 280  ppm).  All climate treaties, laws, regulations, taxes, green energy tax credits, and carbon capture, assume this false IPCC theory is true.  Peer-reviewed publications, that the IPCC ignores, prove this IPCC theory is false and that IPCC's own data prove nature, not human CO2, controls the CO2 level.  These publications show human CO2 emissions are insignificant to atmospheric CO2.  Therefore, efforts to reduce human CO2 emissions waste considerable time, money, and productivity.  The few scientists (remarkably absent from government payrolls) who study the true causes of climate change find that nature, not human CO2, controls the climate.  And since our CO2 does not control the climate, we can't "solve" or "address" climate change by turning off our CO2.

I thought we only had a few years left to solve the problem.  CO2 is a clear, innocuous, non-pollutant gas that causes plants to thrive.  It is not causing rainforests to die; it makes them thrive.  It does not cause starvation.  It allows the World to be fed — an issue of increasing importance as food shortages loom[.] It is a true shame that so many people are trying to control this non-pollutant while promoting the highly flammable pollutant lithium, the key ingredient in electric car batteries.  The first thing people need to do in order to get energy policies right is to stop giving in to the premise that humans, CO2, and fossil fuels cause warming because there is no scientific data to support that conclusion, only highly flawed computer models predicting it.  A huge number of problems in the world are being caused because politicians in the United States and Europe have been intentionally destroying the fossil fuel industry because they say it causes global warming and climate change.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide:  A little perspective, please.  In 1900 the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 275 ppm (Parts per million of volume).  With all of the industrialization and increased use of motorized vehicles that occurred in the hundred years leading up to 2000, the carbon dioxide concentration increased to 400 ppm. [...] Remember these values represent the accumulation of carbon dioxide over one hundred years.  If anyone has run any repeatable tests showing the effects of carbon dioxide concentration on heat retention, they haven't been widely published.  Calculated values or models generally predict higher temperatures for higher concentrations of carbon dioxide than measured temperatures support and are less than convincing about the predicted correlation between the increase of carbon dioxide concentration and the temperature.  If the air contains 400 ppm of carbon dioxide, the other 999,600 ppm of the atmosphere consist of other gases, primarily nitrogen and oxygen.  This means there are 2,499 cubic feet of the other gases for every cubic foot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  It is unrealistic to assume that one cubic foot of carbon dioxide could assume enough heat from sun light to heat 2,499 cubic feet of atmosphere even one degree and it certainly couldn't raise the atmospheric temperature as much as the green fanatics claim.

China Seeks to Cut Reliance on Coal Imports With Mining Boom.  China plans a massive increase in coal mining, a move that will dramatically reduce its reliance on imports and deal a blow to its near-term climate actions.  The National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic planner, told officials from major mining regions at a meeting late last week that it wants to boost domestic production capacity by about 300 million tons, according to people familiar with the matter.  It also plans to build a 620 million-ton stockpile of the fuel split between government, miners and users.

The Editor says...
Obviously China has no intention of cutting its own throat to avoid carbon dioxide emissions.  If China isn't afraid of CO2, it doesn't do any good for the rest of us to avoid CO2, either.

Farming the air.  You are built almost entirely out of carbon dioxide and water.  So is all the food you eat.  Likewise for all the energy you use moving about and staying alive.  Carbon dioxide and water!  In short the carbon dioxide in the air is the global food supply.  This is why all life on Earth is said to be "carbon based".  The climate alarmists play a tricky word game here.  They call carbon dioxide "pollution" and wind and solar power "clean."  Our food supply is not pollution.  Nor is emitting carbon dioxide (which we all do when we exhale) unclean.  This is just false advertising.  Watching a child grow is watching processed carbon dioxide be reprocessed.

Why global warming is good for us.  Global warming is real.  It is also — so far — mostly beneficial.  This startling fact is kept from the public by a determined effort on the part of alarmists and their media allies who are determined to use the language of crisis and emergency.  The goal of Net Zero emissions in the UK by 2050 is controversial enough as a policy because of the pain it is causing.  But what if that pain is all to prevent something that is not doing net harm?  The biggest benefit of emissions is global greening, the increase year after year of green vegetation on the land surface of the planet. [...] The cause of this greening?  Although tree planting, natural reforestation, slightly longer growing seasons and a bit more rain all contribute, the big cause is something else.  All studies agree that by far the largest contributor to global greening — responsible for roughly half the effect — is the extra carbon dioxide in the air.  In 40 years, the proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 has gone from 0.034 percent to 0.041 percent.

The Editor says...
There has been practically zero global warming in the last 40 years.  The cause of the "greening" is CO2, not warming, so the headline is misleading.  Gradually rising temperatures and gradually increasing CO2 in the atmosphere are two different (but loosely and asynchronously connected) issues — but neither one is a problem.  And if they are problems, they can't be fixed through legislation, so we can only adapt.  Or just turn off the TV and ignore it.

Stanford Professor's Plan to Save the World.  [Scroll down]  The goal of 100% elimination of CO2 emissions makes no sense, not even for true believers in global warming.  About half of the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels is reabsorbed by the Earth.  To stop increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere a 50% reduction of CO2 emissions is enough.  Climate change a.k.a. global warming is junk science.  But because it is a treasure chest for academics and political activists, it is promoted as sound science.  CO2 is plant food.  The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has provided great benefits, greening the deserts and increasing agricultural productivity.  Solid evidence that CO2 is creating global warming does not exist.  Neither is it clear that global warming would be harmful.  Finally, the Chinese and Indians are the big emitters of CO2, and they aren't going to stop.

Activists, progressives say state needs to spend $15B in climate fight.  With a 2019 state law calling for a zero-carbon economy by 2040, a broad coalition of environmental and social justice activists Wednesday said lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul need to commit $15 billion this year to start toward that goal. [...] The coalition, calling itself NY Renews, addressed a question that's drawn few clear regulatory or legislative answers:  How to pay for the plans to cut the release of greenhouse gas-causing CO2 into the atmosphere.  That includes development of vast solar and wind power sources, which are costly, as well as retrofitting buildings for efficiency, subsidies for items such as "green" electric vehicles, as well as protections against the increasingly violent storms that have swept through the state.

The Editor says...
If you're worried about "the release of greenhouse gas-causing CO2 into the atmosphere," perhaps you should worry more about atrocious syntax and incompetent journalism:  CO2 doesn't cause greeenhouse gas.  It IS a greenhouse gas.  Also, CO2 is not a pollutant:  it is highly beneficial.

Will We Purposely Add CO2 to the Atmosphere Soon?  I finished Patrick Moore's book, Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom, recently.  In fact, I was unable to put it down.  Moore is an ecologist and one of the original founders of Greenpeace.  He parted ways with them because of "...their transition from what was sensible environmentalism, to a platform of anti-human and anti-science campaigns that were more concerned with fundraising and scaring people with mis-information...."  Moore has since become a public critic of the general global warming hysteria and has dedicated his work toward researching and providing evidence of what he believes are mostly false narratives. [...] Moore explains that polar bears, undersea reefs, African trees, and other "warming threatened" forms of life on the planet actually thrive in the current climate and there are more diverse species of animal life on Earth right now than during most other eras.  He explains in detail that the CO2 level and climate temperature data are not correlated in any way.  There is a causative relationship only if you look from the arbitrary range of data points starting in about 1850 to the present — a mere 170 years.

How Leftist Global Warming Policy Will Wreck Your Truck.  There's a pretty simple reason why trucks will continue to get more popular and expensive: federal regulations attempting to reduce the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) is forcing elimination of fossil fuels in normal light-duty vehicles based on the flawed premise that CO2 is a pollutant. [...] [CO2 has] never been a pollutant until recently.  It's the stuff you exhale your entire life.  It makes plants grow.  It, along with water, is the desired outcome of all combustion.  Moreover, the Earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen — CO2 is only some of the stuff in between that.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but CO2 is the stuff of life and, even more importantly, the stuff of a better life for everyone.  ...until 2007, anyway.  That was the year of the Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, saying CO2 could be regulated as a pollutant under the CAA [Clean Air Act] if the Bush administration couldn't give a good reason why it shouldn't be.  The Obama administration declared in 2009, in one of its first acts, that there was no good reason and made it law — conveniently without legislative amendment to the CAA.

Climate Change causes largest ever Australian wheat crop.  When will it end?  Suffering Australian farmers have had to harvest the largest total volume of agricultural produce since records began, highlighting how stupid it is to let coal plants keep releasing vital plant nutrients into the atmosphere.

Global CO2 emissions have been flat for a decade, new data reveals.  Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement have rebounded by 4.9% this year, new estimates suggest, following a Covid-related dip of 5.4% in 2020.  The Global Carbon Project (GCP) projects that fossil emissions in 2021 will reach 36.4 [billion] tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), only 0.8% below their pre-pandemic high of 36.7 GtCO2 in 2019.  The researchers say they "were expecting some sort of rebound in 2021" as the global economy bounced back from Covid-19, but that it was "bigger than expected".

Discovery Of Massive Volcanic CO2 Emissions Puts Damper On Global Warming Theory.  [Scroll down]  The calculation of the total yearly volume of volcanic CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is based on the presumption that very few volcanoes are erupting at any one time.  Scientists from various worldwide volcano research institutions, most notably the United States Geological Survey, have estimated this number to be 20.  This very low number has been challenged by many scientists including those at NASA.  A multinational team led by NASA has initiated a high-resolution satellite CO2 monitoring project.  This project is focused on determining how many geological features are emitting CO2 at any one time.  This project may eventually give scientists a better idea of how many land volcanoes are emitting CO2 at any one time.  However, it is doubtful the project will properly record ocean CO2 emissions from Earth's 900,000 deep ocean floor and very difficult to monitor volcanic features.  In any case, this project is certainly a step forward towards achieving a better understanding of the climate influence of volcanic CO2 emissions.

Climate Change is much more than CO2 and CO2 is much more than Climate Change.  At COP26, the wealthy global elite arrived in Glasgow on 400 private jets to lecture those attending.  They said that human's technological achievements have caused a global "climate emergency", that it is "one minute to midnight" and that if we fail to stop this "disastrous trend" a catastrophe would ensue. [...] Distracted by a scientific community that profits by exaggerating the imagined threat from a mildly warming global climate, world leaders in Glasgow declared that "to go beyond a rise of 1.5°C would unleash extreme sea level rises and catastrophes, including crippling droughts, monstrous storms and wildfires far worse than those the world is already suffering".  But is this scaremongering story true?  Note for instance that the difference between the mean annual temperature in cold Finland and warm Singapore is more than 20 degrees?  Yet, both these countries are very successful.  They just adapted successfully to their very different climates.  Note also that CO2 is vital to life on Earth.  How many delegates at COP26 have any idea about how the Earth's climate works?  And have they any idea about the costs and benefits of their plans?

Net zero greenhouse emissions is an impossible goal.  The scale of the effort needed to meet net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) targets is extremely large and appears impossible to achieve on a reasonable timescale.  All alternatives to current en-ergy systems start from relatively very low bases, and face serious, and perhaps insurmountable, environmental, economic and materials-availability barriers.  The debate over net zero needs much more honesty, a sense of realism, and an appreciation of broader global developmental, economic and environmental needs.  Even if 40% of the UK's fossil fuel use could be eliminated through efficiency improvements, 120 GW of new, continuous CO2-free energy generation capacity — equivalent to 40 nuclear power plants of Hinkley Point C size or 300 GW of new offshore wind — would be required to replace the remaining 60%. The capital cost would be over £1 trillion, even without the necessary back-up.  Storage costs and operating costs would also be very high.  The UK government has announced a new target of reducing GHG emissions to 22% of 1990 levels by 2035.

Figuring out the lack of connection between CO2 and ice ages.  Here is a bizarre observation:  Climate scientists claim they can explain every facet of the climate-weather system, yet they still don't know why ice-ages occur.  Isn't that peculiar? [...] The first problem for CO2 supposedly controlling global temperatures during the Earth's many ice-ages is that when CO2 concentrations were high the world cooled and when CO2 was low the world warmed.  This counter-intuitive temperature response strongly suggests that CO2 was not the primary feedback agent.  The second problem for CO2 supposedly controlling ice-age temperatures is that interglacial warming periods are always initiated by increased Milankovitch insolation (i.e., increased sunlight because of Earth's orbital cycles) in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), but never by sunlight increases in the Southern Hemisphere (SH).  If the feedback agent assisting this orbital sunlight forcing was a global gas (CO2), it would be logical for increased sunlight in either hemisphere to force interglacials.  That, however, is not what happens.  Interglacials are only ever NH sunlight events, a fact that strongly suggests that the true feedback agent for interglacial warming periods is regional rather than global.  Something is happening in the northern hemisphere.

Coronavirus-driven CO2 shortage threatens US food and water supply, officials say.  An emerging shortage of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) caused by the coronavirus pandemic may affect food supply chains and drinking water, a Washington state emergency planning document has revealed.  The document, a Covid-19 situation report produced by the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), contains a warning from the state's office of drinking water (ODW) about difficulties in obtaining CO2, which is essential for the process of water treatment.  The document says that the ODW is "still responding to [that day's] notification of a national shortage of CO2".  It continues:  "Several [water plants] had received initial notification from their vendors that their supply would be restricted to 33% of normal."

The Deep Optimism Manifesto.  CO2 is not driving temperatures or climate.  This is difficult for people to see because there is so much noise and a history of politically driven messaging.  If you study climate for ten minutes to ten hours, I can almost guarantee you won't reach this conclusion.  But if you study climate for 20 hours or more, and you're willing to think critically about cognitive biases, political messaging, and the amount of money spent on "research," you will find a group of highly qualified scientists and statisticians yelling from the rooftops that CO2 is not and probably never has been a driver of the earth's climate.  There are huge mistakes in the data and calculations.  The "scientific consensus" is a myth.  There is no climate emergency.  Contrary to what you have been told, CO2 is actually beneficial for life and is not causing problems in the oceans.

Does China Really Believe in 'Climate Change'?  China told Biden climate czar John Kerry that it would march to its own drummer on the issue of global warming.  The South China Morning Post wrote that "Beijing has rebuffed American calls to make more public pledges on climate change before a UN climate summit in November, insisting it should follow its own plan rather than bowing to US pressure, according to a person familiar with the two countries' negotiations."  Without China's subscription to the model endorsed by the Paris accord, Biden's "climate change" program is effectively dead on arrival.  "China is the world's largest [carbon {dioxide}] emitter, accounting for 27 percent of global emissions."  Beijing effectively wields unilateral veto power over the targets set by climate science should it ignore its mandates or pursue unrelated or separate goals.

Volcanic sources of CO2.  Back in 2006, three Mammoth Mountain ski patrollers suffocated when they fell into a crevasse.  Cause of death was attributed to naturally occurring carbon-dioxide gas.  Mammoth is a sleeping volcano, and various gasses ooze out of it from vents that reach down into the bowels of the Earth.  The local toxicity from the outgassing is such that trees have been eliminated from much of its higher surface, making it an ideal place for skiing.  The CO2 output is estimated to be 1,200 tons per day.  Lurking beneath this reality is the explanation of how plant life began.  Photosynthesis requires atmospheric CO2 in sufficient abundance for plants to produce carbohydrates.  Before humans began to burn fossil fuels (made from carbohydrates), there had to be naturally occurring CO2.  But from where?  Again, the bowels of the Earth.  In actuality, CO2 cycles around and around, from atmosphere to plant to fossil fuel (dead biomass) and then back to atmosphere.  Meanwhile, the bowels of the Earth continue to add to the mix.  Kind of diminishes the significance of human activity in all of this.

Carbon Dioxide Has Reached a Point of Diminishing Returns.  People like Al Gore think the greenhouse effect is like a blanket, where the atmosphere, which in 1960 had 3 molecules per 10,000 of CO2 and now has 4 out of 10,000, smothers the earth, preventing heat from escaping.  In their view, the extra CO2 and methane somehow cause the atmosphere to store all this extra heat and unleash it in the form of storms, drought, heatwaves, snowstorms, fire, flood, pestilence, melting glaciers, killer bees, etc.  Climate scientists know this isn't true.  As I have explained in one of my more popular posts, the atmosphere can't store very much heat.  On a long-term basis, it can't store any heat at all.  So today I want to give you a three-minute explanation of how the greenhouse effect actually works in plain english, with no technical jargon. [...]

World's biggest 'carbon-sucking' machine is switched on in Iceland: $15 million device will capture 4,000 tons of CO2 per year and could help 'reverse climate change'.  The world's biggest carbon-sucking machine, billed as a tool to reduce climate change, has been switched on in Iceland.  The $15 million 'direct air capture' (DAC) machine, created by Zurich-based company Climeworks, launched on Wednesday [9/8/2021] at the Hellisheiði Power Station, Iceland.  Called Orca, it will capture 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year as part of efforts to reduce levels of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere — equivalent to the annual emissions from about 790 cars.

The Editor says...
The Hellisheiði Power Station is a geothermal power plant.  That's a point in their favor, but the project is futile:  How many tons of CO2 will China emit in the next 30 minutes?  One volcano can emit 1,200 tons of CO2 per day.  Even if all the natural and industrial sources of CO2 were stopped immediately, a sequestration machine like the one described in the article above can't make any measurable difference in the CO2 content of the atmosphere.  If this system removes 4,000 metric tons of CO2 from the air (per year), that may seem like a lot, but the atmosphere contains one trillion times that much CO2.  This machine — or a million such machines — will not "reverse climate change."

Greenhouse saturation research could kill the "climate emergency".  The "climate emergency" appears to have died, far out on the scientific frontier.  Word of this death has yet to reach the mainstream.  Professors William van Wijngaarden (Canada) and William Happer (USA) have published some extremely important research on the radiation saturation of the major greenhouse gases.  Their first report is titled simply "Relative Potency of Greenhouse Molecules".  It makes use of a major breakthrough in radiation physics.  Until recently the estimates of greenhouse potency were based on approximation bands of absorbed radiation wavelengths.  Now the authors have done line by line spectral analysis, looking at over 300,000 individual wavelengths within these bands.  It turns out that saturation occurs much sooner than previously thought.  In particular the primary greenhouse gases, CO2 and H2O, turn out to be "extremely saturated" at present atmospheric concentrations.

The IPCC's deliberate CO2 deception.  [Scroll down]  The idea here is that some fraction of our emissions is absorbed by land (the biosphere) and ocean.  The remaining fraction stays in the atmosphere, creating our cumulative emissions, which is the (supposedly very bad) CO2 increase.  Given that the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 is less than our annual emissions, this simple story works well.  So we find it is a common theme in ordinary discourse.  But the scientists who oversaw the writing of the SPM are experts on this stuff and they know it is wildly false.  Our CO2 does not accumulate in the atmosphere.  The reality they hide is something called the "CO2 flux".  This is the part of the carbon cycle that makes (carbon based) life on Earth possible.  The CO2 flux is an enormous amount of CO2 that is both emitted and absorbed every year.  Natural emissions are something like 20 times our emissions.  So when it comes to CO2 emissions we are small stuff.  Keep that in mind.  Moreover, the flux is so huge that roughly 25% of the atmospheric CO2 is exchanged every year.  A quarter of the CO2 molecules are absorbed, replaced by newly emitted molecules.  But this inconvenient fact is never mentioned by the IPCC.  The point is that given this huge flux our emissions do not stay in the atmosphere very long before they are absorbed.

Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Funds Removing Carbon Dioxide From the Air.  If the driver of climate change is too much carbon dioxide, then one solution would be to remove that gas from the air.  The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by the Senate on Aug. 10 includes massive investments in direct air capture technologies to do just that.  These technologies have elicited interest from the private sector and other governments as well as continued skepticism from some quarters.  Alongside $2.5 billion to develop commercial carbon sequestration and transportation, as well as billions more in related spending, the bill allocates $3.5 billion from 2022 through 2026 to create four regional direct air capture hubs, which are intended to help curb greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by taking in air and removing carbon dioxide from it.  According to the bill, the hubs will be a network of air capture systems along with infrastructure for transporting and sequestering carbon dioxide, unspecified subsurface resources, and possible off-takers for carbon dioxide utilization.  Each network will be expected to capture and handle at least 1 million metric tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year.

The Editor says...
[#1] The article above starts out with If, and the rest of the article — and 3½ billion dollars in wasteful spending — is based on the rash presupposition that CO2 is harmful, which it isn't.  Water vapor plays a far greater role in the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide does.  Let's see you squeeze all the water vapor out of the air first!  [#2] Where are they going to stash all that CO2?  What happens when a pipe ruptures and all that CO2 escapes?  Bhopal.  The giant cloud of CO2 will stay close to the ground and silently asphyxiate everybody in its path.  (CO2 is harmless when it's only .04 percent of the ambient air, but it's not harmless at 100 percent.)  [#3] Carbon dioxide is plant food.  It is not a pollutant.  It is supposed to be in the atmosphere.  It is not a threat.  [#4] China has no use for this foolishness, and the industrial activity in China this week will negate everything this project accomplishes in the next 100 years.  [#5] The mass of the atmosphere is about 5.15×10^18 kg.  The carbon dioxide content is .04 percent, which would be 2.06×10^15 kg.  That's two trillion metric tons of CO2.  To reduce that amount by one tenth of one percent would require the extraction and sequestration of two billion tons of CO2.  The factory described in the article above could easily do that, in only two thousand years!  And where would all this carbon dioxide be stored?  What country has enough spare energy (i.e., electric power, probably derived from the combustion of coal) to operate the machinery to remove that much CO2 from the atmosphere?  [#6] Who decides what is the Goldilocks amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?  The people in charge of this project should set a target amount like 390 parts per million and quit when they get there — which they won't.

Where The Sun Don't Shine:  Climate Alarmists' Thinking.  "We're building," reads the headline of an op-ed written by Sen. Bernie Sanders for the British Guardian, "Congress' strongest-ever climate bill."  Why?  "Because the planet is in peril." [...] Backed by nothing more than a bloated certitude, the Vermont socialist declares "the planet will face enormous and irreversible damage" if "the United States, China and the rest of the world do not act extremely aggressively to cut carbon emissions." [...] Human CO2 emissions, in the febrile minds of Sanders and other members of the climate doomsday cult, is responsible for a nearly uncountable number of ills:  hotter temperatures, more potent storms, wildfires, melting ice caps and glaciers, armed conflict, migration, poverty, famine, drought, floods, species extinction, weeds, pests ... and a host of conditions and events so absurd no half-rational person would ever think of them.  Virulent though it might be, Trump Derangement Syndrome is hardly the mental health menace that Carbon Obsession Disorder has been for decades[.]  Occasionally alarmists will point out that methane is a greenhouse gas.  Yet their fixation has long been on CO2.  But let's be clear:  Other factors impact climate and temperature, and few can match the power of the sun (which Democrats should be confident in, since they worship at the altar of the solar panel).

The Editor says...
[#1] Carbon dioxide is not carbon.  Carbon dioxide is plant food.  It is not a pollutant.  There is no "climate emergency."  The planet is not "in peril."  [#2]  If you're waiting for "China and the rest of the world... to cut carbon [dioxide] emissions," you're simply out of luck, because China has ambitious plans, and those plans apparently involve a lot of electric power, since they're rapidly expanding the number of coal-fired power plants in their country.  Obviously, they couldn't care less about carbon dioxide, even though their politicians are way off to the left of America's socialist Democrats.  Any action taken by the U.S. to curtail CO2 emissions will only damage the U.S. economy (which appears to be the socialists' goal) unless China does the same.

Why all the 'climate crisis' mumbo-jumbo doesn't add up.  Carbon dioxide is at about 0.04% concentration in the atmosphere.  If you had a bottle that held 250,000 molecules of air, on average, only one of them would be CO2.  About 70,000 would be oxygen.  Yes, burning fossil fuels such as coal or gasoline releases CO2 into the atmosphere.  But where did the carbon in the fossil fuels come from in the first place?  It was extracted from the very same atmosphere by plants doing photosynthesis many years before.  For plants to thrive, they need CO2 in the air and water around them.  During that process, they produce oxygen, which I've been told can come in handy.  Nowadays, practically every newsworthy weather event is attributed by the corrupt media to human-caused climate change.

Caution:  Tabloid sensationalism.  See comments below.
Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, study finds.  The lifestyles of around three average Americans will create enough planet-heating emissions to kill one person, and the emissions from a single coal-fired power plant are likely to result in more than 900 deaths, according to the first analysis to calculate the mortal cost of carbon emissions.  The new research builds upon what is known as the "social cost of carbon", a monetary figure placed upon the damage caused by each ton of carbon dioxide emissions, by assigning an expected death toll from the emissions that cause the climate crisis.  The analysis draws upon several public health studies to conclude that for every 4,434 metric tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere beyond the 2020 rate of emissions, one person globally will die prematurely from the increased temperature.  This additional CO2 is equivalent to the current lifetime emissions of 3.5 Americans.

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon, nor is it a lethal pollutant, in the quantities seen in ordinary air.  With the exception of coal mine accidents, volcanic eruptions, or extremely rare events like this one, nobody dies from inhaling carbon dioxide.  You will likely never see a death certificate that lists inhalation of second-hand CO2 as the cause of death.  Carbon monoxide is poisonous, but carbon monoxide is not carbon dioxide.  Follow the science!

Madrid [is] building a huge urban forest in a bid to combat climate change.  To combat climate change and pollution, Madrid is building a green wall around the city.  A 75-kilometre urban forest with nearly half a million new trees[.]  "What we want to do is to improve the air quality in the whole city," says Mariano Fuentes, Madrid's councillor for the environment and urban development.  "To fight the 'heat island' effect that is happening inside the city, to absorb the greenhouse emissions generated by the city, and to connect all the existing forest masses that already exist around the city."  The project will also make use of derelict sites lying between roads and buildings to help absorb 175,000 tons of CO2 per year.  When finished, Madrid's 'green wall' will be a forest of indigenous trees that can absorb CO2 but also the heat generated by human activity.  Temperatures under the shade of these trees are 2 degrees lower than the rest of the city.

The Editor says...
[#1] The political leaders of Madrid are willing to spend untold quantities of money "to absorb the greenhouse emissions generated by the city."  This only makes sense if Madrid has its own atmosphere, and doesn't share the atmosphere with India and China, where their political leaders couldn't care less.  [#2] When they say the trees will absorb "greenhouse emissions," they could only be referring to carbon dioxide.  So why not just say, "carbon dioxide?"

Another Global Warming Fact Alarmists Want Buried.  The entire climate change movement has been shady from its beginnings.  Data have been hidden, truth has been sacrificed to politics, and hypocrisy and personal interests among its "leaders" have produced a giant credibility deficit.  The more we learn, the worse the alarmists look.  Take, for instance, a new report that shows greenhouse gas emissions are not an American or Western problem.  They are primarily a Chinese problem.  A study from Sun Yat-sen University in China found that more than half of the world's urban greenhouse gas emissions are generated in only 25 big cities, and 23 of them are located in China.  In other words, if the entire developed world cut its greenhouse gas emissions as activists, politicians, journalists, and celebrities have demanded, nothing would change regarding the climate.  (This assumes human carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for warming the planet, which is a load of speculation that's yet to be proved.)

Just 25 'mega-cities' produce 52 per cent of the world's urban greenhouse gas emissions — and 23 of them are in China.  Just over half of the world's urban greenhouse gas emissions come from just 25 mega-cities — 23 of which are located in China — a study has reported.  The cities that emit the most greenhouse gases included Handan, Suzhou, Dalian, Beijing and Tianjin in China — but also Tokyo, Japan, and Moscow, Russia.  China's President Xi Jinping has pledged to cap carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 — part of its commitment to the Paris Agreement.

Climate Change for Christians.  Presently, a naturalistic worldview dominates public policy on climate change, both in Washington and in many blue states.  Modern naturalism posits that the universe evolved through random physical processes.  This hypothesis entails that our Earth is extremely fragile and that man, often viewed as a clumsy Johnny-come-lately, could completely destroy it if he's not careful. [...] The biblical worldview (BWV) posits that God is the creator, sustainer, and ruler of all things, including the weather. [...] Christians go on to emphasize what all honest scientists admit: it is difficult to ascertain the precise causes of climate change.  To say the recent warming trend is caused solely by man-made CO2 is simplistic and highly improbable.  Ninety percent of greenhouse warming — so vital for life on Earth — is due to water vapor and clouds.  As one scientist puts it, "CO2 is a bit player."  Furthermore, most CO2 is generated by sunlight interacting with the oceans.  Human activity accounts for a minuscule 5%.  If our contribution were truly significant, why the constant fluctuations of the last 150 years?

Explaining how the water vapor greenhouse effect works.  The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere exists in direct relation to the temperature.  If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapor, and vice versa.  So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates.  Then, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, this additional water vapor causes the temperature to go up even further — a positive feedback.  How much does water vapor amplify CO2 warming?  Studies show that water vapor feedback roughly doubles the amount of warming caused by CO2.  So if there is a 1°C change caused by CO2, the water vapor will cause the temperature to go up another 1°C.  When other feedback loops are included, the total warming from a potential 1°C change caused by CO2 is, in reality, as much as 3°C.

It's Water Vapor, Not the CO2.  It's true that water vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth's greenhouse effect.  On average, it probably accounts for about 60% of the warming effect.  However, water vapor does not control the Earth's temperature, but is instead controlled by the temperature.  This is because the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere limits the maximum amount of water vapor the atmosphere can contain.  If a volume of air contains its maximum amount of water vapor and the temperature is decreased, some of the water vapor will condense to form liquid water.  This is why clouds form as warm air containing water vapor rises and cools at higher altitudes where the water condenses to the tiny droplets that make up clouds.

Communist China:  World's Biggest Climate Polluter Keeps Polluting.  Communist China, in 2020, built over three times as much new coal power capacity as all other countries in the world combined — the equivalent of more than one large coal plant per week, according to a report released in April by Global Energy Monitor.  Also in 2020, China's CO2 emissions rose by 1.5% while those of most other countries fell.  Although, in 2020, the world retreated from coal, these retirements were eclipsed by China's new coal plants.  Even before China built those new plants, it was already the world's biggest emitter of fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2):  In 2019, China was responsible for almost 30% of CO2 emissions — roughly twice the amount emitted by the US, then the second largest emitter.  China, the planet's primary coal consumer, already has the largest concentration of coal plants globally; in 2020, it produced 3.84 billion tons of coal, its highest output since 2015.  In addition, China, in 2020, imported 304 million tons of coal, up 4 million tons from 2019.

The Net-Zero Shell Game and Joe Biden's Deceptions.  President Biden's Earth Day announcement that the United States is to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 2005 levels (equivalent to a 42% cut of 2019's pre-Covid emission levels) within nine years comes with a double deception — one of cause and the other of effect.  It aims to force America to reach net-zero no later than 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.  This, the White House claims, is what "the science demands."  In fact, it is the first deception.  The 1.5-degree limit has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics and green ideology.  The 1992 UN framework convention on climate change set the aim of avoiding "dangerous anthropogenic interference" with the climate system, a problem it left undefined.  Four years later, the European Council's environment ministers filled in the gap.  On behalf of the European Union, it declared that "the Council believes that global average temperatures should not exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial level."  The pre-industrial baseline is the giveaway that this is ideology, not science.  No one can be sure what average global temperature was back then, but according to green ideology, the industrial revolution is the original sin of modern civilization.

There is no climate emergency.  The science and data strongly support that our planet's ecosystems are thriving and that humanity is benefiting from modestly increasing temperature and an increase in carbon dioxide.  These facts refute the claim that Earth is spiraling into one man-made climate catastrophe after another.  Carbon dioxide (CO2) is portrayed as a demon molecule fueling run-away greenhouse warming.  If you get your news only from mainstream media, you would likely believe that CO2 levels are dangerously high and unprecedented.  You would be wrong.  Concentrations of this gas are slightly less than 420 parts-per-million (ppm), or one-sixth the average historic levels of 2,600 ppm for the last 600 million years.  Increases in carbon dioxide in the last 150 years, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, have reversed a dangerous downward trend in the gas' concentration.  During the last glacial period, concentrations nearly reached the "line of death" at 150 parts per million, below which plants die.  Viewed in the long-term geologic context, we are actually CO2 impoverished.

China emitted more greenhouse gases in 2019 than all of the world's other developed nations put together.  China released a greater volume of greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere in 2019 than all of the world's developed nations put together, a study has found.  The eastern superpower has tripled its emission levels since the 1990s, crossing the 14 gigatons threshold for the first time ever in 2019.  Emission estimates for 190 nations across the globe were calculated by experts from research firm Rhodium Group in tandem with Breakthrough Energy.

China Emits More Greenhouse Gas Than Developed Countries Combined:  Report.  China emitted more greenhouse gases (GHG) than the United States and all other developed countries combined in 2019, according to a report published on May 6 by New York-based research firm Rhodium Group.  The report found that China alone was responsible for over 27 percent of total global emissions, with the United States being a distant second at 11 percent.  India was ranked third with 6.6 percent, followed by the 27-country bloc of the European Union at 6.4 percent.  China's emission reached nearly 14.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2019, more than triple 1990 levels and a 25 percent increase over the past decade, according to the report.  Global emissions in 2019 topped 52 gigatons.

The Editor says...
[#1] What is a carbon dioxide equivalent?  What compound is exactly the same as carbon dioxide?  [#2] According to the article above, annual global emissions of carbon dioxide are 52 billion tons.  The CO2 content of the atmosphere is two trillion metric tons, which is 38 times as much CO2.  To reduce the scale, if there is a gallon of CO2 in the atmosphere, all the human activity in the world is adding two ounces per year.  Presumably, the trees and plants and grass grow more rapidly when there is more CO2 in the air, thus absorbing more of it.  There is no climate emergency or crisis.  Carbon dioxide is plant food — not a pollutant.

John Kerry Implies Net-Zero Emissions Goal Not Good Enough, Says We Need To 'Get Carbon Dioxide Out Of The Atmosphere'.  At the virtual Leaders' Climate Summit on Thursday, climate czar John Kerry made the claim that even if a goal of net-zero emissions is achieved, carbon dioxide will still need to be removed from the atmosphere.  Kerry spoke through a screen as the summit was held on a virtual format, saying, "Even if we get to net zero, we still have to get carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.  This is a bigger challenge than a lot of people have really grabbed onto yet."  Scientists have pointed to a rise in carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere as a force behind global warming.  That said, carbon dioxide also plays a crucial role in sustaining life on Earth because it keeps heat in the atmosphere and prevents the planet from becoming too cold.

The Editor says...
[#1] As I understand it, the CO2 content of the atmosphere increases as a reaction to global warming, and is not the cause of it.  Flies don't cause garbage.  [#2] John Kerry would know all about the role of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if he were not so poorly educated and badly misinformed.  [#3] There are about 2,250 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  Even if it were possible to remove one percent of the CO2 from the air, where would you put it?  [#4] It's a good thing Mr. Kerry isn't so worried about rising sea levels, or he might spend trillions of dollars trying to drain the oceans.

John Kerry wants "to remove CO2 from the atmosphere."  All of it?
John Kerry reports for duty in war on carbon dioxide.  Three months into the job, and already Joe Biden's climate czar, John Kerry, is making a fool of himself on the world stage. [...] Kerry comes off as a particularly ignorant boob, declaring war not on man-made carbon emissions anymore, (nor aerosol emissions, as had been done in the past) but on carbon dioxide itself, and a creepy plan to manipulate the atmosphere, whether we like it or not.  Too bad about the plants.  There were other problems with his speech, too, as Milloy and the Competitive Enterprise Institute note.

Climate 'Emergency'? Not So Fast.  We are both scientists who can attest that the research literature does not support the claim of a climate emergency.  Nor will there be one.  None of the lurid predictions — dangerously accelerating sea-level rise, increasingly extreme weather, more deadly forest fires, unprecedented warming, etc. — are any more accurate than the fire-and-brimstone sermons used to stoke fanaticism in medieval crusaders.  True believers assert that this emergency can be averted only by eliminating greenhouse-gas emissions.  Greenhouse gases include ubiquitous water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, and above all, carbon dioxide, a gas released when fossil fuels are burned to power transportation, generate electricity, and are used to manufacture amenities of modern life.  Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere let sunlight warm the earth's surface.  But they absorb some of the heat radiation from the surface and atmosphere that would otherwise cool more efficiently by escaping directly to space.  Greenhouse gases — and clouds — keep the earth's surface temperature several tens of degrees Celsius warmer than it would be without them.  So far, climate crusaders have refrained from vilifying water vapor and clouds, which make the largest contribution to greenhouse warming of the earth.  Carbon dioxide, demonized as "carbon pollution," is an improbable villain.  Green plants use the energy of sunlight to manufacture sugar and other organic molecules of life from carbon dioxide and water molecules.  A byproduct of photosynthesis is the oxygen of our atmosphere.  Each human exhales about two pounds of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide every day.

Patrick Moore and the Agenda of Fear.  Politically motivated climate alarmists are using fear to gain control of human behavior and environmental resources and undermine free, prosperous societies. [...] [Dr. Patrick] Moore asserts that CO2 level should be celebrated as a critical life force:  for 150 million years, CO2 level had been declining, and a rise in CO2 had had markedly beneficial effects on the growth of food crops, trees, and many wild environments because higher CO2 levels result in less water loss and cause plants to become more efficient in their use of water.  As for "global warming," he presents two counterpoints: life flourished during warmer as opposed to colder times; and in the past 50 million years, the Earth has in fact been cooling steadily, and is colder than it has been during most of life's existence.  The serious problem isn't CO2, it is the environmentalists' push for wind and solar energy, the maligning of the most economical source of reliable energy, and the jeopardizing of poor populations impacted by carbon reduction programs.

Not sure if they mean carbon dioxide, of they really mean carbon.
Twice as much carbon [is] flowing from land to ocean than previously thought.  Every year 600-900 million tons of carbon flow through rivers to the ocean either as particles or in dissolved form.  Researchers have known for a long time that this does not represent the total amount of carbon that gets transported from the land to the ocean.  But the remaining contributors mostly from coastal ecosystems, such as carbon-rich mangrove forests, and from groundwater discharge into the ocean have been notoriously difficult to measure.

In the last decade, 89% of new CO2 output came from China and India.  We're being told on a daily basis that CO2 emissions need to drop in order to avoid a future climate disaster.  We're also being told that we're not doing nearly enough.  In fact, globally we're not seeing any reduction in CO2 emissions.  If you look at the decade leading up to 2018 those emissions went up about 12%.  But there's a very big caveat to those numbers.  Nearly all of the increase, just shy of 90%, is coming from just two countries.

Global Bodies Went Off the Rails When They Scrapped Ozone, Targeted Carbon Dioxide.  Some of us old timers who grew up in Southern California recall the inversion layers of particles in the valleys that trapped smog.  We later learned that the haze we saw (which was then called 'smog') was ozone, created primarily from vehicle emissions.  That was "bad" ozone.  There also was naturally occurring (good) ozone, generated by the sun's reactions with naturally emitted hydrocarbons (e.g. pine trees) that one sees over the Great Smoky Mountains.  Ozone is important, since its layer in the stratosphere protects us from intense UV radiation that is associated with skin cancer. [...] What I want to do now, is show that it's still the ozone-depleting chemicals, rather than the now-vaunted carbon dioxide, as what's most critical to what happens with climate. [...] I do not think that I am the only "scientist" that believes that carbon dioxide's slight rise in atmospheric concentration has extremely little to do with "climate change."  The international bodies took their eye off the ball when they quit focusing on ozone.

How do you know anything about climate change?  We are no longer being governed; we're being ruled.  To be governed is to voluntarily put people in charge of the day-to-day management of services we need to function as an orderly society.  Contrarily, to be ruled is to be subjected to the arbitrary power of those who have put themselves in positions of unchallenged authority. [...] The environmental lobby is probably the most active and powerful influence in the federal government, spending countless millions to sway legislators to implement laws against fossil fuel use.  Meanwhile, China and other developing nations are contributing huge amounts of pollution into the atmosphere with impunity.  China, the world's largest contributor of CO2 emissions, is now emitting over 10 billion metric tons into the atmosphere (about twice that of the U.S.), mainly from burning coal, needed to supply Chinese electricity.

Carbon cycle model shows nature controls CO2 level.  The belief that human CO2 has caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750 contradicts data and physics.  The observed CO2 level exceeded total human CO2 emissions before 1950, proving this belief is false.  A new carbon cycle model that uses natural carbon cycle data to calculate a true human carbon cycle shows human CO2 caused only 25% of the CO2 increase and natural CO2 caused 75%, and if human CO2 emissions were to stop, the human-caused increase would fall by half in 20 years, showing nature dominates the CO2 increase and human CO2 and is not a climate emergency.

The Great Zero Carbon Criminal Conspiracy.  The globalist Davos World Economic Forum is proclaiming the necessity of reaching a worldwide goal of "net zero carbon" by 2050.  This for most sounds far in the future and hence largely ignored.  Yet transformations underway from Germany to the USA, to countless other economies, are setting the stage for creation of what in the 1970's was called the New International Economic Order.  In reality it is a blueprint for a global technocratic totalitarian corporativism, one that promises huge unemployment, deindustrialization and economic collapse by design.

CO2 Stats.  [Scroll down]  Please note that the US reduced its carbon footprint from 6.13 billion tons in 2007 to 5.28 billion tons in 2019.  Meanwhile, China increased its footprint from 6.86 billion tons in 2019 to 10.17 billion tons in 2019.  In the same timeframe, global output rose from 31.29 billion tons to 36.44 billion tons.  In 2007, the US accounted for 19.6% of the total global carbon footprint.  In 2019, the US accounted for only 14.5% of the total global footprint.  How much money are we willing to spend to reduce our 14.5% and falling percentage of carbon emissions?  What would it cost to cut that by half in 10 years?

Burying carbon dioxide is a dumb, dumb idea.  We have busied ourselves in a race between technology and man-caused tragedy.  Huge amounts of money and effort are being spent to develop an approach to address man-caused global warming.  One of the many approaches to address the alleged impending doom is the cutting-edge technology of "let's just bury it" by carbon sequestration.  Carbon sequestration technology is already quite well established.  This technology is the ongoing sequestration of carbon by plants, living then dying.  As one of many examples, here in my home state of Pennsylvania, we call that spring and fall.  Capturing CO2 emissions and pumping them into the ground is gaining in popularity on the established plant technology as a mitigation measure.  Consistent with the illogical, feel-good approach of the purveyors of man-caused global warming, the quiet secret is that the primary use of CO2 injection currently is to help mobilize oil and gas in underground hydrocarbon reservoirs to increase production.

How Much Damage To America Can Biden Do With His Energy Plan?  In truth, there's only one thing we can say for certain about [Joe] Biden's plans for energy, which is that they will have no effect whatsoever on the earth's climate, at least none that can be measured.  Even if you believe that human CO2 emissions are having a catastrophic effect on the climate (they aren't), and even if you believe that the U.S. can somehow achieve drastic reductions in its piece of those emissions (it can't), the fact remains that the U.S. provides only about 14% of world emissions.  Meanwhile, ongoing increases in emissions from developing countries will continue to swamp any modest decreases that the U.S. might hope to achieve.  Since the generally-used base year of 1990, while U.S. and European CO2 emissions have remained steady or declined modestly, global emissions have gone from about 22 Gt to 38 Gt per year.  Those huge increases come from the developing world, and global emissions are going to go right on increasing as places like China, India and Africa bring electricity, air conditioning and automobiles to their citizens.  If you think that those places agreed in the Paris Agreement to reduce their emissions, you are wrong — they did not; nor did they agree to stop ongoing increases.

Based on computer models, of course:
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero still won't stop global warming, study says.  Even if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to zero, global temperatures may continue to rise for centuries afterward, according to a scientific study published Thursday [11/12/2020].  "The world is already past a point of no return for global warming," the study authors report in the British journal Scientific Reports.  The only way to stop the warming, they say, is that "enormous amounts of carbon dioxide have to be extracted from the atmosphere."  The burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to increase and sea levels to rise.

The Editor says...
[#1] The article immediately above appears in USA Today, which leans to the left, in the same way that Ted Cruz leans to the right.  The "study" cited in the article is based on yet another computer model.  If you place any trust in computer models of the weather beyond the next three days, you are in for a disappointment.  [#2] The sun causes global temperatures to increase or decrease, due to its variable output.  [#3] There are many natural — unstoppale — sources of carbon dioxide and methane.  [#4] The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor.  The overwhelming majority of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor.  [#5] The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15×10^18 kg.  The carbon dioxide content is .04 percent, which would be 2.06×10^15 kg.  That's two trillion metric tons of CO2.  To reduce that amount by one tenth of one percent would require the extraction and sequestration of two billion tons of CO2.  Where would it be stored?  What country has enough spare energy (i.e., electric power) to operate the machinery to remove that much CO2 from the atmosphere?  [#6] Carbon dioxide is plant food.  All the trees and vegetation in the world depend on it.  As the plants and trees grow, they remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  Crops grow better when there is more CO2 in the air.  Even if colossal amounts of surplus wealth and electricity were available, the extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere is a fool's errand.

There's Never Been a More Important Time to Choose Wisely.  [Scroll down]  Consequently, intellectuals also have a huge personal stake and fierce resistance to risking their exalted status by testing their theories.  This dishonest approach is found in everything from alarmist global warming theory to paper face mask mandates.  Proponents presume the conclusions.  No debate permitted.  Progressives say CO2 emissions will devastatingly heat the planet, and wearing face masks will stop transmission of microscopic virus.  Even when testing these suppositions demonstrates CO2 is an essential food to grow crops and harmless in historic atmospheric concentrations far greater than today's; even when rigorous scientific testing repeatedly demonstrates face masks' utter ineffectiveness to prevent spreading viruses, intellectuals remain unpersuaded.  They know better, they say.  Not only do they reject testing, but they demonize anyone who suggests that their theories should be tested.

Why CO2 Can't Warm the Planet.  Greenhouse warming theory depends on at least nine assumptions that appear to be mistaken.  Greenhouse warming theory has never been shown to be physically possible by experiment, a cornerstone of the scientific method.  Greenhouse warming theory is rapidly becoming the most expensive mistake ever made in the history of science, economically, politically, and environmentally.

Let's Be Serious, More C02 Isn't Making the Earth 'Uninhabitable'.  Former Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman and Princeton University economist Alan Blinder recently wrote the following in the Wall Street Journal: "cumulative CO2 emissions heat up the atmosphere, causing climate changes of all sorts — most of them bad.  Because this huge negative externality has been allowed to run rampant, we are gradually making the Earth an inhospitable place for humans."  Increasing CO2 emissions have been "making the Earth an inhospitable place for humans?"  Really?  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data show that over the last one hundred years, CO2 emissions and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere indeed have both sharply increased.  And NASA data show that since 1920, our planet's temperature has risen by 1.25 degrees Celsius.  But the data also show that the increase in CO2 omissions and the rising temperature have not been "making the Earth an inhospitable place for humans."

Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Cause Global Warming.  America is under attack.  Our freedom and liberty is at risk.  The goal is to displace capitalism with socialism.  The mechanism is a very elaborate, ongoing, and evil plot to vastly restrict our energy supplies.  In so doing America's political will be destroyed and our beloved country will find itself joining with the European's and other countries in pursuit of a single worldwide government under UN control with a vastly reduced world population; a population no greater than a tenth of today's.  The scheme to accomplish this is based on the very simple harmless, odorless, chemical called carbon dioxide (CO2).  Yes carbon dioxide.  The very chemical all animals exhale with each breath.  The basis of all life forms on Earth.  The greatest deception ever created by mankind is the notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming now simply called climate change.  Without any empirical, demonstrable evidence whatsoever, the media has all but convinced our citizens, along with a significant portion of our politicians, that climate change is real, and is an existential threat to our continued life on Earth.  The proposed cure for this nonexistent "crisis" is the vast reduction of the use of fossil fuels and their replacement with unworkable "green or renewable" power schemes.

How Does Our CO2 Escape?  The increase of CO2 into the atmosphere due to fossil fuel is exceeding the measured accumulation.  A part of this excess CO2 is dissipating into the ocean and other CO2-sinks.  The dissipation rate can be derived from reliable data.  The CO2 flows are modeled using a physics decay formula, which fits the data between 1880 and 2020.

Clean Energy Via Legislative Diktat.  [Scroll down]  Carbon dioxide has been deemed a pollutant via legislative diktat.  Accordingly, embedded in this legislation is language which prevents the Virginia State Corporation Commission from approving "any investor-owned utility to own, operate, or construct any electric generating unit that emits carbon as a byproduct of combusting fuel to generate electricity" until the state legislature has had a chance to review a report from the Air Pollution Control Board.  Also embedded are escape clauses allowing fossil-fuel energy just in case the 100 per cent carbon-free dream mandate fails in the real world. [...] Lost in this green crusade is the fact that carbon dioxide is an essential trace gas upon which plants depend for life.  Each one of us exhales carbon dioxide at an approximate four percent concentration with each breath, as we are carbon-based life forms.  Do not embarrass these legislators by asking how much the climate will be saved by this "Clean Economy Act", however it might be measured against an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 400 ppm.

The Coronavirus Crisis Exposes Faulty Climate Models.  During the Coronavirus crisis, human CO2 emissions have dropped sharply, and, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global emissions will drop by 8% in 2020.  However, so far, there is no sign of slowing growth of CO2 in the atmosphere.  The crisis may, therefore, falsify one of the basic assumptions of the climate models, namely that our carbon emissions are what is causing the CO2 level in the atmosphere to rise.

The Scientific Case for Vacating the EPA's Carbon Dioxide Endangerment Finding.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2009 "Endangerment Finding" from carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases grants the agency a legal mandate that can have profound and far-reaching effects.  The Finding is based largely on a Technical Support Document that relies heavily upon other mandated reports, the so-called National Assessments of global climate change impacts on the United States.  The extant Assessments at the time of the Endangerment Finding suffered from serious flaws.  We document that using the climate models for the first Assessment, from 2000, provided less quantitative guidance than tables of random numbers — and that the chief scientist for that work knew of this problem.  All prospective climate impacts in the Endangerment Finding are generated by computer models that, with one exception, made systematic and dramatic errors over the climatically critical tropics.  Best scientific practice would be to emphasize the working model, which has less warming in it than all of the others.  Instead, the EPA relied upon a community of wrong models.

Is Atmospheric CO2 Declining from the Covid Economic Collapse?  The bottom line of this blog is this:  CO2 levels are not falling, and it is difficult to see much impact on the rate of rise.  And it will be a good opportunity to talk about some aspects of the variation of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Do we need to blow up the economy to stop climate change?  Something interesting is happening to greenhouse gas emissions thanks to the coronavirus pandemic:  They are plummeting.  The world is seeing the lowest oil demand relative to supply perhaps ever, leading to oil futures contracts selling for negative values at several points.  The International Energy Agency estimates that this year world carbon dioxide output will fall by a whopping 8 percent.  If that pans out, it would be the largest drop ever recorded — some six times larger than the fall during the 2008 global financial crisis.  That rate of decline is also approximately what would be necessary to achieve the goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, if maintained for the rest of the decade.  Thus the coronavirus lockdown is showing us roughly the scale of what is needed to avoid extreme climate change effects — but an extremely clumsy way of achieving it.

The Editor says...
The article above is very misleading, because it only addresses reductions in man-made carbon dioxide emissions.  Natural sources of carbon dioxide contribute far more, and carbon dioxide isn't the major "greenhouse gas" anyway.  Water vapor is by far the primary greenhouse gas.

My Long Goodbye to S Fred Singer.  [Scroll down]  Attempts to mitigate CO2 — which is not a pollutant — are pointless, very expensive and completely ineffective.  They'll have no effect on the climate and in fact will have little effect on the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Besides, "a moderate warming trend" will have "beneficial effects for humanity and wildlife."  Brilliantly simple.

Okay, millions of cars are now off the streets.  Did that change anything?
Is the COVID-19 Economic Downturn Affecting Atmospheric CO2?  Some global warming alarmists are celebrating the current economic downturn as just what is needed to avert climate catastrophe.  I've seen a couple estimates that China's manufacturing and commerce might have seen up at 40% reduction recently.  The current global crisis will be a test of just how much economic pain is required to substantially reduce CO2 emissions (assuming there is no reasonably affordable and practical replacement for fossil fuels).

Gov. Jay Inslee's low-carbon fuel standard faces tough road ahead in Washington state.  Gov. Jay Inslee's campaign to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions from the state's transportation fuels, a high-profile goal throughout his two terms in office, faces a difficult road as the Washington state Legislature heads into the final two weeks of its session.  Legislation passed by the House of Representatives calls for a 20% reduction of the carbon intensity of these fuels by 2035 over 2017.

The Editor says...
I know what carbon is, and carbon dioxide is not carbon.  But what is carbon intensity?

Climate Change: The Defense of CO2.  In the Court of Public Opinion Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has already been convicted of being an evil villain.  CO2 — more specifically man-made CO2 — has been found guilty of "being the main cause of substantial, unusual, global warming."  But its case was appealed, and a new trial has just been ordered!  Basically, there were two legal grounds for the appeal:  a) the arguments against CO2 were circumstantial and/or inaccurate, and b) in the first go-around, CO2 was not allowed to put on an adequate legal defense.  The new defenders have outlined their case below.  You assess the evidence presented here, and then you decide whether CO2 is guilty as charged — or has been framed.  [PDF]

Donald Trump Saves the Planet, Leads World in Lowering CO2 Emissions.  A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that tracks carbon emissions worldwide dropped great news for the United States under the leadership of Donald Trump on Tuesday.  "The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis — a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt.  US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period."

U.S. leads all countries in reduction of CO2 emissions since leaving Paris climate accord.  Despite shrieks of terror from the left about how President Donald Trump's presidency threatens the existence of Earth and thus mankind, the fact is that under his leadership, America continues to lead the world in total emissions decline.  "The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis — a fall of 140 [million tons], or 2.9%, to 4.8 gigatons]," the Paris-based International Energy Agency revealed in a report Tuesday [2/11/2020].

The Editor says...
The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15×10^18 kg.  The carbon dioxide content is .04 percent, which would be 2.06×10^15 kg.  The energy-related CO2 emissions of the United States is 4.8 gigatons per year, and assuming that refers to metric tons of 1000 kg each, that would be 4.8×10^12 kg.  Therefore the United States, the most productive country in the world, increases the CO2 content of the atmosphere by less than one quarter of one percent every year.  That would be a problem if CO2 went into the atmosphere and stayed there, but fortunately the trees and grass and other plants use CO2 for food — in the long term, probably as fast as we can produce it.  Carbon dioxide is generated by natural processes, and absorbed by others.*

Did NASA know back in 1958 our Sun and not CO2 was causing climate change?  It is undeniable, climate change is real, however, Liberals, the establishment, most of the world leaders and leading media outlets want us to believe the reason behind climate change is the fault of human beings using fossil fuels and our high use of CO2, Carbon Dioxide.  They claim Carbon dioxide absorbs more sunlight passing through it than oxygen or nitrogen, and therefore becomes hotter, much like a black substance like tar becomes hotter than a white one like concrete.  This has the effect of increasing the overall temperature of the Earth.  [A]s we add more carbon dioxide to the air, the temperature will continue to rise.  Actually, the records of temperature and CO2 over the past 650,000 years indicate that Earth's temperature always rises first, followed by a rise in Carbon Dioxide.  Published papers, clearly show it is always temperature which rises first by at least several hundred years and then the carbon dioxide responds.

Climate Science does about-face, dials back 'worst-case scenario'.  A comment published last week in Nature, a leading scientific journal, has thrown a monkey wrench into hundreds of studies and media stories that previously predicted dire climate consequences in the future due to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere.  The consequences were predicted by a computer model called Representative Carbon Pathways (RCP), and the worst-case scenario model, RCP8.5, had been cited more than 2,500 times in scientific journals and in hundreds of media stories as the primary need for "urgent action" on climate.  Predictions from the RCP8.5 model suggested maximum global temperature increases of nearly 6°C (10.8°F) by the year 2100, shown in Figure 1.

Scapegoat CO2.  Dr. Markus O. Häring has shown that while carbon dioxide has the greenhouse effect attributed to it, it is first and foremost an indispensable component for all life on Earth.  At the moment this vital gas was designated a "pollutant", respectable scientific debate on the CO2 question was effectively abandoned.  On the basis of this false pretext, measures have been justified that lead to other environmental burdens instead of well thought-out solutions.  This book points the way back to a prudent, reasoned environmental policy, without doomsday scenarios and without the sorts of medieval-style indulgences that only serve to satisfy particular interests.

The decade that blew up energy predictions — USA energy boom, CO2 emissions drop defied predictions!  Chart shows U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions since 2010.

100 scientific papers:  CO2 has minuscule effect on climate.  Within the past few years, more than 50 papers have been added to a compilation of scientific studies that refute the primary claim of climate-change activists that CO2 causes global warming.  The papers compiled by the NoTricksZone website, now numbering 106, find that CO2 has a minuscule effect on climate.

10 Things Climate Alarmists Don't Want You to Be Thankful For.  [#10] Global greening:  Vegetation growth has increased across the earth thanks to carbon dioxide.

Clearing the Air on Climate Change.  [Scroll down]  The presumed primary human sources of global warming are "greenhouse" gases — primarily CO2, but also methane and other gases.  CO2 emissions have been mostly driven by energy production.  The world's largest producer (by far) of greenhouse gases, accounting for approximately 26.83 percent of all emissions, is China.  The United States produces about 14.36 percent, and the EU about 9.66 percent. [...] With the U.S. only producing about 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, what, exactly, is the $5 to $16 trillion that most of the leading Democratic presidential candidates want us to spend over the next decade to fight global warming really going to be buying us?  We're not going to get to zero emissions and still preserve life as we know it (such as a reliable 24/7 power grid and being able to consume meat and dairy products).  But even if we can reduce our 14 percent by 90 percent, what would that actually mean in terms of global temperature, and would the presumed benefits be worth anywhere near the financial cost (let alone reduced living standards and personal freedom)?

The Editor says...
The primary greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor, which comes from the oceans and the lakes, and can never be stopped, no matter how many laws are passed.  The warming of the earth is the direct result of sunlight (obviously) and the output power of the Sun is not constant.  There is nothing you can do about that, either.  So the Earth may warm a little or cool a little over the remainder of your lifetime, and in either case, you just have to deal with it.

Carbon Dioxide and the Global Warming Hoax.  Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant as the Supreme Court has ruled, but is necessary for life on the planet.  Carbon Dioxide (CO2) plus water (H2O) during the process of photosynthesis in plants produces the oxygen we need to breathe and the food we eat.  The following are facts concerning the relationship of global warming and CO2 content:  The earth has been warming for 300 years with a 1.3 degree increase since 1906.  Most of that occurred prior to 1940 when CO2 started to increase.  1934 was the hottest year on record.  During the past 3000 years the earth has been warmer than now with no catastrophic effects.  Increasing levels of CO2 have not contributed to global warming.  CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas with water vapor being the major greenhouse gas.

11 Empty Climate Claims.  Claim [#11]: Carbon pollution is a health hazard.  Fact:  Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an odorless invisible trace gas that is plant food and it is essential to life on the planet.  It is not a pollutant.

The rebellion against reason.  There are at least 17 major extinctions recorded in Earth's archives.  They are revealed by discontinuities in surface outcrops, and in drill logs and core samples taken from deep drilling, sea sediment sampling, lake strata, tree rings, stalactite rings and ice cores.  There is zero evidence in Earth's archives of an extinction event caused by high levels of carbon dioxide or by gradual global warming.  In fact we see the reverse — warm eras like the modern warming are followed closely by higher levels of carbon dioxide, which encourages plants and supports abundant life on Earth.

Carbon Dioxide Known Only Since 1930.  We do not know how much carbon dioxide was in Earth's atmosphere prior to the 1930s.  Devices to measure carbon dioxide went through a difficult, slow, irregular development. [...] We cannot measure carbon dioxide content of the Earth's past from air pockets in ice core samples.  First, gases can diffuse through solid walls.  Buy a helium balloon.  A week later the balloon will no longer be floating but on the ground.  The helium gas diffuses out through the walls.  We know that gas does not stay unchanged even in a closed container.  Second, over thousands of years, gases in the ice core will be changed by non-organic chemical reactions or by microscopic plant life like algae or microbes.  As the weight of accumulating layers presses from above, gases will be forced into the ice core.

Ex-NOAA Climatologist And Russian Physicists Find Human Contribution To Warming 0.0°C to 0.02°C.  Two more additions to the steadily accumulating evidence CO2 plays an insignificant to negligible role in climate change have recently been published in the scientific literature. [...] Dr. Rex J. Fleming, a former NOAA climate scientist who earned both his Master's and Ph.D in meteorology, [...] has now published an expanded version of his 2018 paper in a Springer© book entitled The Rise and Fall of the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change.  He reaches the same conclusion:  CO2 has "no role" in the process of influencing climate.

Climate Changing for the Better.  CO2 is incredibly good for plant growth.  Plants see significant improvement in growth with higher CO2 levels.  Greenhouses commonly increase CO2 levels to 1,500 ppm and the temperature to 80 F or higher.  For comparison, atmospheric CO2 levels are a bit above 400 ppm, and the average surface temperature on earth in 59 F.  CO2 also increases photosynthesis. [...] NASA satellites confirm the earth is greening.  Each year, 2 million square miles of green leafy area is added to the world.  The earth's green area has grown over 5% since the early 2000s.  CO2 is also beneficial in that it increases fresh-water efficiency.  With increased CO2 levels, plants can produce the same with less water, or produce more with the same amount of water.  Plants become more efficient at photosynthesis, which means less water released into the atmosphere, and more moisture retention on land.  Higher temperatures due to a warming planet means a longer growing season.

Time to Put an End to the Climate Cult.  The climate cult has gotten out of hand.  It now threatens to prevail in politics by convincing the ignorant that the science is settled.  Anybody who has a basic understanding of the science knows that it is not settled.  A number of inconvenient facts seriously undermine the idea that catastrophic global warming caused by humans is about to overwhelm us.  Here are three of them:
  [#1]   Emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are causing far less heating than the climate models have been predicting.
  [#2]   There is no scientifically reputable method for measuring the human contribution to carbon dioxide emissions relative to emissions from natural sources.
  [#3]   Measured sea level rise in recent decades is insufficient to account for the alarmist forecasts about the amount of rise by the end of the century.
As long as the general public is unaware of realities such as these, the cultists will continue to proselytize using emotional appeals about saving the world and moralistic shaming of any who disagree.

Ice-pack of lies.  [Scroll down]  Once case in point concerns carbon dioxide levels that have risen from 280 to 410 parts per million since the mid-19th century.  These levels are historically low.  At various times for millions of years plants and animals have happily lived and thrived in levels between 1,500 and 2,000 parts per million; over four times the carbon dioxide levels of today.  Climate events in the last 15,000 years have been as dramatic and rapid as any seen today.  As such, those changes totally disprove the panic stories spread by activists.

A Short List Of Facts Global Warming Alarmists Don't Want To Face.  Less than 5% of carbon dioxide emissions are produced by man.  Web searches turn up what seems like an endless list of stories and blog posts reporting that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have reached or exceeded 415 parts per million.  This has been almost universally treated as the tip of an imminent disaster, as man has pushed greenhouse gas emissions beyond a dangerous threshold.  But has he?  The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "agrees today's annual human carbon dioxide emissions are 4.5 ppm (parts per million) per year and nature's carbon dioxide emissions are 98 ppm per year," says climate scientist Ed Berry.  "Yet, the IPCC claims human emissions have caused all the increase in carbon dioxide since 1750, which is 30% of today's total.  "How can human carbon dioxide, which is less than 5% of natural carbon dioxide, cause 30% of today's atmospheric carbon dioxide?  It can't."

Climate Solution? Trees.  CO2 is plant food, which is why the Earth is getting greener as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases.  This is a negative feedback, since the more plant life, the more CO2 gets absorbed.  Planting more trees has long been offered as a potential solution to CO2-induced global warming, and the Clear Energy Alliance notes a new study that argues planting large numbers of trees can neutralize man-made CO2 at an infinitesimal fraction of the cost of crazy, unworkable schemes like the Green New Deal.

CO2 and the Supreme Power of sovereignty.  Sir William Blackstone defines sovereignty as "supreme power."  This power is unitary.  It cannot be shared or limited in any way.  Thus, "quasi sovereignty" cannot exist.  The Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (2007) that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act.  The result of that 5-4 ruling was that the EPA could be sued by the states for not controlling CO2 emissions.  The states, according to the court, have "quasi-sovereignty." [...] "Quasi" means "pseudo", "mock", "wannabe" or "virtual".  The states thus have the quasi sovereignty to accept the rules set down by the fully sovereign national government.  These rules are set by the nine lawyers collectively referred to as SCOTUS.

Human CO2 Emissions have little Effect on Atmospheric CO2.  On July 4, 2019, the International Journal of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences published my scientific paper, "Human CO2 Emissions have little Effect on Atmospheric CO2."  Because it is easy to read even for non-scientists, I encourage you to download the free PDF of my paper [elsew]here:  My paper's 9000 plus words and 17 figures explain much more about why human CO2 does not change climate than I can explain in this short article.  If you do not understand the few math equations in my paper, just read the English and you will still understand my paper.

The 'Carbon Emissions' Deception:  No, Carbon Dioxide Is Not a Pollutant.  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. [...] 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?"

90 Scientists:  Global Warming is a Total Hoax.  The view that CO2 is a pollutant is the single biggest lie of the entire environmental movement.  CO2 is not a pollutant, it is plant food.  It is, as these scientists say, "indispensable for life on our planet."  Plants absorb CO2 and use it to grow.  They also release oxygen into the atmosphere, which is a nice thing if you like to breathe.  If you run a greenhouse and you want to turbo-charge plant growth, you can do it by injecting CO2 into the greenhouse.  Side by side videos of plants in an environment with normal CO2 levels and plants in an environment with highly elevated levels of CO2 show an astounding difference in the rate of growth.  In fact, an area the size of the United States has greened up around the world as the CO2 concentration has increased.  CO2 is not our enemy.  CO2 is our friend.

25 Simple Bullet Points Proving CO2 Does Not Cause Global Warming.  [#2] IPCC's very existence relies on public belief in manmade or 'anthropogenic' global warming (AGW) by CO2 emissions. [...] [#4] 'Climate change denier' & 'global warming denier' are despicable & dishonest terms for 'AGW doubters'.  No educated person disputes global warming, as thermometers measured 1°C rise from 1850 to 2016 (with pauses).  [#5] The 'Greenhouse Hypothesis', on which IPCC's belief in AGW is based, is that atmospheric gases trap heat.  But this old (19th century) notion is merely an idea, not a hypothesis, because it is untestable, impossible to prove in a laboratory as no experimental container can imitate Earth's uncontained, well-mixed atmosphere.

Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere.  Climate scientists presume that the carbon cycle has come out of balance due to the increasing anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuel combustion and land use change.  This is made responsible for the rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations over recent years, and it is estimated that the removal of the additional emissions from the atmosphere will take a few hundred thousand years.  Since this goes along with an increasing greenhouse effect and a further global warming, a better understanding of the carbon cycle is of great importance for all future climate change predictions.

Thawing permafrost [is] releasing more carbon than previously thought.  The problem of thawing permafrost is worse than climate scientists thought.  New research suggests previous studies have underestimated the rate at which thawing permafrost is releasing carbon into the atmosphere.  Thawing permafrost is one of the many negative feedback loops caused by global warming.  As temperatures rise, more and more frozen tundra melts, releasing previously trapped carbon into the atmosphere and accelerating climate change.

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon.  If the ground is thawing, it's not permafrost.  Summer is warmer than winter, so some areas thaw at this time of year.  Global temperatures are not rising enough to thaw areas that had not thawed in previous summers.  The quantity of "trapped carbon [dioxide]," if indeed it is greater than zero, is unlikely to have any measurable effect on anything.  A flash flood at an Alka-Seltzer warehouse would have far more impact.

Disentangling the Renewable Energy Scam.  [The generation of] Electricity is responsible for 28% of U.S. CO2 emissions.  The rest is from transportation, heating, and industrial processes.  Yet the emphasis on reducing CO2 is focused on the electricity sector.  The U.S. is responsible for 14% of world CO2 emissions, and our electricity generation creates less than 4% of world emissions.  All the effort being put into U.S. renewable electricity will have no important effect on global warming, assuming that global warming is even real.  The real source of CO2 emissions is China and India among others.

The world is getting greener.  Why does no one want to know?  Global greening is the name given to a gradual, but large, increase in green vegetation on the planet over the past three decades.  The climate change lobby is keen to ensure that if you hear about it at all, you hear that it is a minor thing, dwarfed by the dangers of global warming.  Actually, it could be the other way round:  greening is a bigger effect than warming.

A fool and his money are soon parted.
Bill Gates and Big Oil back this company that's trying to solve climate change by sucking CO2 out of the air.  In Squamish, British Columbia, there's a company that wants to stop climate change by sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.  It's called Carbon Engineering, and it uses a combination of giant fans and complex chemical processes to remove carbon dioxide from the air in a procedure known as Direct Air Capture.  Direct Air Capture isn't new, but Carbon Engineering says its technology has advanced enough for it to finally make financial sense.

The Editor says...
[#1] If you take all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, all plant life will die, and then you will, too.  [#1A] If you take a lot of the CO2 out of the atmosphere, crops and trees won't thrive as well as they are now.  [#2] If you begin to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, how will you know when the CO2 content is just right?  Are we going to vote on it?  Does Bill Gates own the atmosphere?  [#3] The mass of the atmosphere is 5.1480×10^18 kg, or about 11.35 billion billion pounds.  The carbon dioxide content is 0.04 percent, or about 4.5 million billion pounds, or 2,250 billion tons.  If you remove a ton of CO2 from the air every second, you would have to take in 2500 tons of air per second.  That's 62 million cubic feet of air intake per second.  That will not happen.  Then, after 32 years (one billion seconds), you will have spent a great deal of money on energy costs, and assuming none of that energy will have been generated by burning hydrocarbons, you will have reduced the CO2 in the atmosphere by less than 0.05 percent.  In the meantime, natural sources of CO2 will have contributed far more than you have taken out, and thousands of additional coal-fired power plants will have been constructed in China and India.

Human CO2 Emissions Have Little Effect on Atmospheric CO2.  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees human CO2 is only 5 percent and natural CO2 is 95 percent of the CO2 inflow into the atmosphere.  The ratio of human to natural CO2 in the atmosphere must equal the ratio of the inflows.  Yet IPCC claims human CO2 has caused all the rise in atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm, which is now 130 ppm or 32 percent of today's atmospheric CO2.  To cause the human 5 percent to become 32 percent in the atmosphere, the IPCC model treats human and natural CO2 differently, which is impossible because the molecules are identical.  IPCC's Bern model artificially traps human CO2 in the atmosphere while it lets natural CO2 flow freely out of the atmosphere.  By contrast, a simple Physics Model treats all CO2 molecules the same, as it should, and shows how CO2 flows through the atmosphere and produces a balance level where outflow equals inflow.  Thereafter, if inflow is constant, level remains constant.

The CO2 Hockey Stick.  [Scroll down]  There are two conflicting stories.  It's a "he said, she said" situation.  A further piece of information is the Bomb Test Curve:  [Chart]  There is a mathematical description in TFC, Chapter 13.  Suffice to say here that we can conclude that residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 10 years and that less than 20 percent of recent increases in atmospheric CO2 are anthropogenic in origin, the rest comes out of the deep ocean in regions of upwelling.  It follows that the ice core graph indicates that either there has been a dramatic recent change in deep ocean circulation or there is something wrong with the ice core proxy CO2 methodology and the stomata data is correct.

Carbon dioxide is already absorbing almost all it can.  Here's why it's possible that doubling CO2 won't make much difference.  The carbon that's already up in the atmosphere absorbs most of the light it can.  CO2 only "soaks up" its favorite wavelengths of light, and it's close to saturation point.  It manages to grab a bit more light from wavelengths that are close to its favorite bands, but it can't do much more, because there are not many left-over photons at the right wavelengths.

Cycles, not carbon dioxide, control climate.  What is the role of carbon dioxide in climate?  Al Gore did a great job to dramatize the recurring cycles of glaciation and carbon dioxide in his widely acclaimed work of science fiction.  But he missed two "inconvenient truths."  First, the ice cores show that in the glacial spring-time the temperature rose before the CO2 levels rose.  Therefore the rising CO2 cannot be a cause of the warming — it is a result of CO2 being expelled from the warming oceans.  Second, at the top of every summer-time in the glacial cycle, the high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were totally unable to prevent the cooling into the next cycle of ice.  CO2 levels fell later as the cooling oceans absorbed more CO2.  We are already in the autumn of the current glacial cycle and nothing man can do will change that.  Global temperatures today are lower than they were in Roman and Medieval times.  They will still fluctuate with the effects of daily, lunar, seasonal, yearly and sun-spot cycles, but the long-term trend of maximum and minimum temperatures will continue drifting downwards.

EPA's Obama-era "endangerment finding" fails IQA requirements.  The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has filed a formal petition asking that the Obama administration EPA's 2009 Endangerment Finding that plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide represents a dangerous public health and safety "pollutant" finally be subjected to a proper "high level" peer review as required by the U.S. Information Quality Act (IQA).  The IQA requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue guidance to all federal agencies to ensure the "quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity" of information disseminated to the public.  It also requires those agencies to establish administrative mechanisms that allow affected persons to seek correction of information that doesn't comply with the OMB guidance, including failures to undergo independent objective scientific peer review processes.

Getting to the Bottom of EPA Climate Fraud.  In December 2009, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency issued its Endangerment Finding (EF) — decreeing that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other "greenhouse gases" (GHGs) endanger the health and welfare of Americans.  In the process, EPA ignored the incredible economic, health and welfare benefits of fossil fuels — and the fact that (even at just 0.04% of the atmosphere) carbon dioxide is the miracle molecule that enables plants to grow and makes nearly all live on Earth possible.  EPA turned CO2 into a "dangerous pollutant" and ruled that fossil fuels must be eradicated.  The agency subsequently used its EF to justify tens of billions of dollars in climate research, anti-fossil fuel regulations, and wind and solar subsidies; President Obama's signing of the Paris climate treaty; and proposals to spend trillions of dollars a year on Green New Deal (GND) programs.  And yet, despite multiple demands that this be done, there has never been any formal, public review of the EF conclusion or of the secretive process EPA employed to ensure the result of its "analysis" could only be "endangerment" — and no awkward questions or public hearings would get in the way.

Conservatives Must Stand Up to Climate Change Bullying.  [Scroll down]  In contrast to carbon, which is a solid, CO2 is an odorless, colorless gas.  It is crucial for plant photosynthesis and so required for life.  That's why the CO2 concentrations inside commercial greenhouses are often kept up to 1,500 parts per million (ppm), a level at which plants grow far more efficiently than at the 410 ppm in the outside atmosphere.  We should not spend a single cent trying to reduce the air's CO2 content.  And of course, climate change is real.  So is continental drift.  But no sensible person would conclude that humans are the master controller of either.

Temperatures fail to respond to highest CO2 levels of past 3 million years.  Climate alarmists are pushing a storyline this month that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are higher now than at any time in the past 3 million years.  The last time carbon dioxide levels were this high, "sea levels were as much as 65 feet higher than they are now, Greenland was mostly green and Antarctica had trees," USA Today ominously warns.  CNN, The Weather Channel, and many other media sources are making the same claims.  In reality, the claims support the mountains of existing evidence that the Earth's climate is not very sensitive to atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.

Carbon is not a synonym for carbon dioxide.  From the very day that Al Gore signed his name to the well known book, An Inconvenient Truth, the general population was told that carbon emissions were going to destroy our planet.  Gore, more or less, coined the term "carbon footprint" (while always hiding the enormity of his own footprint).  Gore and his cohorts were never actually talking about carbon.  They were talking about carbon dioxide.  Initially they understood that most people recognize that they exhale carbon dioxide and plants absorb it in order to live.  Not a dark thought.  So in a universally evil desire to scare the populace, they seized on using the term carbon as a synonym for carbon dioxide knowing it would conjure up visions of soot, lamp black and coal dust none of which were warm and fuzzy.  Carbon is a solid.  Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas, which while containing a single atom of carbon, bears no other resemblance to elemental carbon.

Fake Climate Science and Scientists.  Real science — and real scientists — seek to understand natural phenomena and processes.  They pose hypotheses that they think best explain what they have witnessed, then test them against actual evidence, observations and experimental data. [...] The last thing fake/alarmist climate scientists want is a full-throated debate with real climate scientists — a debate that forces them to defend their doomsday assertions, methodologies, data manipulation — and claims that solar and other powerful natural forces are minuscule or irrelevant compared to manmade carbon dioxide that constitutes less that 0.02% of Earth's atmosphere (natural CO2 adds another 0.02%).

Green Luddites Are Coming for Your House, Car, and Freedom.  Like so much coming from the corporate Left in America, probably the most dangerous aspect of this column is the blithe presumption that its premises are beyond debate.  The climate will change catastrophically, and emissions from burning fossil fuel are the culprit.  Low-density housing is the reason fossil fuel emissions remain too high.  Public transportation is a good thing.  Just hold on.  Stop right there.  Emissions of CO2 may not change the climate very much at all, and the cost of precipitously curtailing them condemns billions of people around the world to prolonged poverty and misery.  And in any case, high-density housing is creating more CO2 emissions, because existing roads cannot handle the increased traffic.  And no, public transportation is not always a good thing.

Curt Stager, Global Warming, and Political Science.  I was rather surprised to see the Adirondack Almanac piece by Curt Stager, for several reasons. [...] It's unfortunate that Curt did not publicly acknowledge that we have HUGE gaps of knowledge in our understanding of climate.  For example, the AGW matter appears to rests on a very basic equation:  the global CO2 balance.  On one side are "CO2 Sources" which are either natural or man-made.  On the other side are "CO2 Sinks" which are mostly natural.  When the Sources exceed the Sinks, we have a resultant net CO2 increase.  One of several problems is that as much as 30% of the Sinks side of the equation is not well understood.  How accurate can computer models be when there is such a substantial unknown involved?  Traditional Scientists are very clear about exactly what we know and don't know.  Political scientists glaze over the unknowns.

Global Cooling:  The Real Climate Threat.  CO2 is just one of many factors that influence global temperatures.  Its role in recent warming is far from dominant.  Indeed, there is poor correlation between CO2 emissions and global temperature.  Between 2000 and 2018, global temperature showed no significant increase despite a steep increase in carbon dioxide emissions from anthropogenic sources.  The same was the case between the years 1940 and 1970.  When carbon dioxide concentration increases at a constant and steady rate and temperature doesn't follow the pattern, we can be certain that carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of global temperature.

Why Do Progressives Reject Policies That Would Achieve Their Aims?  The solution championed by the warmists comprises various schemes to drastically reduce or eliminate energy derived from carbon.  But everyone admits that the reductions, even if achieved, would not be enough to stop the alleged catastrophic warming, but would certainly devastate the economy.  Meanwhile, the real solutions for progressives to get what they want lies with the free market that increases global wealth.  The scandal of alarmist climate change, of course, is that the policy prescriptions are useless for slowing warming.

The Total Futility Of Trying To Save The Planet By Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  In trendy progressive states here in the U.S., we know how we are going to solve "climate change."  We are going to slash our "greenhouse gas" emissions.  Here in New York City, we're going to reduce our GHG emissions by 80% by 2050.  If you don't believe it, you can just ask Mayor de Blasio.  New York State?  Same goal, 80% by 2050.  California also has a goal of reducing GHG emissions 80% by 2050.  Surely, this will solve the problem.  New York and California seem to think that they are big stuff in the world.  After all, who is more important than we wealthy coastal U.S. elites?  But unfortunately, on a global scale, we don't really have enough population to count for much.  As usual, when it's time to do the arithmetic, the progressives fall on their faces.

Climate Science, Red in Tooth and Claw.  There is usually some real science buried in all the hype.  For example, it is reasonable to expect that some global warming might be caused by adding CO2 to the atmosphere.  What is probably a modest effect has been twisted and exaggerated into a doomsday scenario that demands that we save the planet.  The good effects of CO2 that are well known and that are solid science are ignored.  Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere makes plants grow better with less water.  Greenhouse-operators use CO2-generators in their greenhouses.  CO2 is greening deserts.  How often to you hear about these benefits of CO2?

Researchers say Native American genocide changed the climate.  Researchers at University College in London have published a paper theorizing that the slaughter of Native Americans by whites in the 15th and 16th centuries led to climate change often referred to as "The Little Ice Age."  Temperatures plummeted, the researchers say, after the death of so many indigenous people that the land they were tilling was "reforested," thus leading to an increase in trees and vegetation, which means less CO2 was being pumped into the atmosphere.

The Editor says...
"An increase in trees and vegetation" would not cause any CO2 source to "pump" less CO2 into the atmosphere.  In the 16th century, there were no internal combustion engines, but natural sources of CO2 were around, just as they are today:  Termites, volcanos, swamps, and animals.  An increase in the number of trees might lead to the absorption of more CO2, but in this case, only a relatively small amount.  The forests in North America are only a small fraction of the forests worldwide.  The fraction of the North American forests cut down by the Indians is insignificant.  Nice try.  Next!

Don't Join The Media Freak Out Over Recent Jump In CO2 Emissions — It Won't Last.  For the first time in years, U.S. carbon dioxide output rose last year, a new report says.  The jump has set off alarms in all the predictable media quarters.  Relax.  It's a great sign for the economy, and will mean nothing long term for the environment.

Climate Change:  The Poetry of Dreams and the Prose of Reality.  [Scroll down]  Moreover, the supporters might be amazed to learn that only 0.04 percent of Earth's atmosphere is carbon dioxide, which is part of the air we breathe.  Plants make themselves from it and, as every sixth-grader in China or Russia knows, by way of photosynthesis they produce oxygen.  Therefore, if not for CO2 there would not be O2 and subsequently no life on Earth.  There is no solid evidence CO2 is having an impact on the Earth's temperature one way or the other and no amount of scientific falsehood can make it so.  The inconvenient truth is that the climate change movement has nothing to do with climate and everything with making money, ideology, and degrading America's industrial capabilities.

Disastrous California wildfires emitted as much carbon dioxide as a year's worth of electricity.  The calamitous 2018 California wildfire season have already unleashed greenhouse gases equivalent to the amount generated by providing the state with electricity for an entire year, according to newly released federal data.  An analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey released Friday [11/30/2018] found that 68 million tons of carbon dioxide were emitted from this year's blazes in the Golden State, the worst wildfire season in recorded state history.

New U.S. Climate Report a 'Scientific Embarrassment'.  Earth's climate warmed steeply by about 0.5C from about 1915 to 1945 when human-produced CO2 emissions were minimal.  Worldwide CO2 emissions increased quickly after World War II, yet the Earth cooled between 1945 and 1977 by about 0.25 deg C (0.45 F).  Supporters of the dangerous man-made climate hypothesis are unable to give an adequate explanation for this temperature drop while emissions were increasing rapidly.

The Left Favors Global Warming.  China — one of those "developing world" countries [John] Kerry alluded to — is actually the biggest problem.  If man-caused warming is real — a big if, to be sure, to any clear-thinking, logical minded person — it's more China's fault than anyone's, due to their huge economy and unrestricted use of coal-fired power plants without pollution filters or any such modification.  They spew an enormous amount of pollution into the atmosphere every day and no one in the Democratic Party, the environmentalist movement, or the liberal mainstream media ever criticizes them.  Instead, their criticism is always directed at Republican businessmen.  President Obama played right into this — wittingly or unwittingly — when he completed an agreement with China that requires even further American emissions reductions while not requiring China to begin making significant cuts until 2030.

But What Will Take Its Place?  [Scroll down]  The real debate stems from an earlier controversy, at the beginning of the Obama era, when the EPA declared carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.  That "endangerment finding" was also widely challenged, because Congress never authorized the EPA to regulate the essential air we breathe as a "greenhouse gas." [...] [President Trump's] new EPA has, so far, made no effort to revisit the "endangerment finding."  That is problematic, because EPA probably cannot legally declare something to be a dangerous pollutant, but then decline to regulate it.  So the concern was that if EPA did not reverse the "endangerment finding," federal courts would eventually order a new "clean power plan" anyway.  That is why the EPA has released this new plan.  However, the new plan is nothing like the original, an outright attack on the very existence of the coal industry.  Instead, EPA now acknowledges that our most abundant and affordable energy source can be used without destroying anything.

Five cheap ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  As well as rapidly reducing the carbon dioxide that we humans are pumping into the atmosphere in huge amounts, recent scientific assessments of climate change have all suggested that cutting emissions alone will not be enough to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 or 2 degrees C.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others have all stated that extracting CO2 from the air will be needed if we are to bend the rising temperature curve before the end of this century.  These ideas are controversial with some seeing them as a distraction from the pressing business of limiting emissions of CO2.

The Editor says...
I doubt if it is possible to remove CO2 from the atmosphere faster than natural sources replace it.  And why would anyone attempt it?  CO2 is plant food.  The people coming up with ways to sequester CO2 are some of the same people who claim the world is running out of food.  They should be looking for ways to make crops grow faster and better, and reducing CO2 in the atmosphere will not help.

Huh? Carbon Dioxide Emissions Raise Risk of Satellite Collisions.  [Scroll down]  As Martin Mlynczak, a senior scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., recently described it, the buildup of carbon dioxide emissions aloft is gradually cooling a layer of the upper atmosphere where satellites frequently orbit.  The good news is that the cooling will make the air there less dense, and that could prolong the life of existing satellites.  The bad news is that it will preserve rapidly accumulating space junk that might otherwise sink into the lower atmosphere and burn up.

U.S. CO2 Levels Drop Again — So Why Aren't Green Groups Rejoicing?  Once more, science provides bad news for global warming alarmists.  U.S. CO2 levels again declined during 2017, despite overall global output again rising.  Credit U.S. fracking and the natural gas boom.  But don't worry:  the hysteria won't end.

An Inconvenient Truth:  Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Falling Under Trump.  Environmental data for 2017 are pouring in, and the results might not be what you'd expect.  In the United States, where President Trump has promised to unshackle the coal industry and to abandon an international climate change treaty, greenhouse-gas emissions fell last year and are expected to continue falling.  In Europe, where political leaders consider climate change an urgent priority, emissions rose last year.

The Editor says...
The volcanos and termites and cows don't care who the politicians are.  They will keep producing carbon dioxide day after day, no matter what laws are enacted.

Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks.  EPA has prepared the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks since the early 1990s.  This annual report provides a comprehensive accounting of total greenhouse gas emissions for all man-made sources in the United States.  The gases covered by the Inventory include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and nitrogen trifluoride.  The Inventory also calculates carbon dioxide emissions that are removed from the atmosphere by "sinks," e.g., through the uptake of carbon and storage in forests, vegetation, and soils.

The Editor says...
The EPA's Inventory appears to include natural CO2 sinks, but ignore natural CO2 sources.  It also appears to ignore the role of water vapor as the dominant greenhouse gas.  I'm told by a reliable source that the complete report includes natural sources of greenhouse gases, but the long version is spread out over 655 pages.

Two CO2 climate change myths.  CO2 does not "trap heat" in the atmosphere and the increase in CO2 is not a buildup of our emissions.  In fact these are two pseudoscientific myths that appear frequently in alarmist press reports and teaching materials.  Neither one is true.  The science is quite different.  It is actually pretty complex, which is why the climate change science is so widely debated.  CO2 both adds heat to the atmosphere and removes it, so it certainly does not trap it there.  CO2 is a secondary greenhouse gas (GHG), with water vapor being the primary GHG.

Does the Greenhouse Gas CO2 cool the climate?  Physicists who have examined our counter-intuitive hypothesis, all agree with the science — albeit somewhat reluctantly.  Such is the power of group-think that even experts, with some exception, find the idea that CO2 might cool the climate difficult to accept.

On Climate Change, Please Address the Science, Not the Politics.  Despite the excited proclamations of climate activists, increasing carbon dioxide levels poses no direct hazard to human health.  Carbon dioxide concentrations in submarines can reach levels well above 10,000 ppm, 25 times current atmospheric levels, with no harmful effects on the crew.

Beware EPA 'Social Cost of Carbon' Models.  Right at the start we should note an important distinction.  Carbon is an element; carbon dioxide a compound.  Carbon is a solid; carbon dioxide a gas.  Carbon — in the form, e.g., of fly ash, dust, fine particulate matter, can harm health; carbon dioxide is harmless except at very high concentrations (above 10,000 parts per million — versus ordinary atmospheric concentration of 400 ppm) and even then only after long, uninterrupted exposure.  Unlike carbon, carbon dioxide is odorless, colorless, and, except under conditions just described, nontoxic — indeed, indispensable to photosynthesis and so to all life.  "Carbon" makes people think of black soot, smoke, smoggy skies; "carbon dioxide" doesn't.  That's why proponents of reducing carbon dioxide emissions call them carbon emissions instead.  The term is deceptive and plays on ignorance and fear. [...] Potential positive effects of increased carbon dioxide emissions are often dismissed out of hand.

The Climate Change Doomsday Just Got Canceled.  [A] study, published on Thursday [1/18/2018], finds that if CO2 in the atmosphere doubled, global temperatures would climb at most by 3.4 degrees Celsius.  That's far below what the UN has been saying for decades, namely that temperatures would rise as much as 4.5 degrees, and possibly up to 6 degrees.  Basically, the scientists involved in the Nature study found that the planet is less sensitive to changes in CO2 levels than had been previously believed.  That means projected temperature increases are too high.  Of course this is just one study, but it supports the contention climate skeptics have been making for years — that the computer models used to predict future warming were exaggerating the impact of CO2, evidenced in part by the fact that the planet hasn't been warming as much as those models say it should.

Claim: Microwave[ oven]s are as damaging to the environment as cars.  Microwaves are as damaging to the environment as cars and users must be taught how to cook more efficiently, scientists say.  The ovens are responsible for 7.7 million tons of the carbon dioxide pumped out from the EU each year — the equivalent of 6.8 million cars.  Researchers say they are fueling global warming with consumers overcooking food to blame.  Microwaves account for the largest percentage of sales of all types of oven in the EU, with numbers set to reach 135 million by 2020.  But scientists at the University of Manchester — the first to assess the environmental impact — say efforts to cut energy consumption should focus on manufacturers offering better education on microwave use.

The Editor says...
To be alarmed by this report, as the authors probably intended, one must first concede that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.  It is not.  If the discussion must continue past this point, first consider how many additional kilowatt-hours would be consumed by the average household in a year if there were no microwave ovens and the only alternative (other than cold food) was a full-size conventional oven.  One must also consider the use of 6.8 million cars to be a bad thing.  But that would mean there were at least 6.8 million people moving from one place to another without having to wait for a government-funded train or bus to take them somewhere.  If freedom comes at a cost, and the only cost is a little more carbon dioxide in the air, that's a win-win situation.

What would happen if atmospheric CO2 concentration dropped by half?  Answer:  Mass starvation.  Through photosynthesis, plants convert CO2 and water into the food that supports all life on earth.  The benefits to plants from increased atmospheric CO2 include:  increased growth, more flowers and fruit, better water-use efficiency, and better resistance to environmental stressors such as plant pathogens, macro and micronutrient excesses or deficiencies, high soil salinity, high/low air temperature, and high/low air temperature.

The Disastrous Economic Impact Of CO2 Reduction Policies.  Global warming uses pseudoscience to achieve a socialist political agenda.  It was chosen because it was a global threat that required global governance.  It was created through the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), sponsored and organized by Maurice Strong.  It is the originator of what is broadly called the Green Agenda, an economy based on eliminating CO2 and shifting to alternate energies through Agenda 21.  It failed everywhere it was tried, with Germany being the largest and latest to scramble for their energy and economic lives.

Trump's First Year vs.  Obama's Eight Years.  Here are President Obama's main accomplishments over eight years:  [#3] The Paris Climate Accord:  This transferred a massive amount of money and power from the U.S. private sector to its government and in turn transferred money from the U.S. to other countries.  The policy is based on the belief that climate change/global warming exists and is the greatest threat to the world.  So does Iran sponsor terrorists because of climate change?  Does North Korea build nuclear weapons because of climate change?  Does Russia take over more territory because of climate change?  Do refugees from Syria and other countries escape because of climate change?  CO2 is a clear, innocuous, non-polluting gas that allows plants to thrive and the billions of people to be fed.  The reason Obama and other people want to regulate it is to have government control.  But this accord certainly did not have its goal to make the U.S. stronger.

Global Warming:  Fake News from the Start.  President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change because it is a bad deal for America.  He could have made the decision simply because the science is false, but most of the public have been brainwashed into believing it is correct and wouldn't understand the reason.  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and indeed the leaders of many western democracies, though thankfully not the U.S., support the Agreement and are completely unaware of the gross deficiencies in the science.  If they did, they wouldn't be forcing a carbon dioxide (CO2) tax, on their citizens.  Trudeau and other leaders show how little they know, or how little they assume the public know, by calling it a 'carbon tax.'  But CO2 is a gas, while carbon is a solid.  By calling the gas carbon, Trudeau and others encourage people to think of it as something 'dirty', like graphite or soot, which really are carbon.  Calling CO2 by its proper name would help the public remember that it is actually an invisible, odorless gas essential to plant photosynthesis.

Core of climate science is in the real-world data.  The Government continues to flounder with directionless and inconsistent energy policies, inviting much public commentary, but the science these days scarcely gets a mention.  As we have seen in social policy, the strategy of the left is first to shut down debate and delegitimise any dissent from the position adopted by the left-leaning elements of the media, academia, bureaucracy, the environmental movement and renewable-energy interests.  Lacking the capacity to distinguish science from pseudo-science, the Coalition under Howard effectively acquiesced to the totalitarian-left idea that the science on global warming was settled.  It dared not question the assertion that carbon dioxide was causing dangerous global warming for fear that it would be loudly denounced and ridiculed as being in denial about the harmful effects that our emissions of carbon dioxide were supposed to be having on the climate.  In doing so, the Coalition allowed the totalitarian left to define the terms of the debate.  But, let us do the impermissible and look at the science behind the question of whether carbon dioxide is causing dangerous global warming.

All the News You Are Glad You Missed.  [Scroll down]  China will not agree to stop the increase in its [CO2] emissions until 2030, until then their emissions will continue to rise.  Germany's emissions are also rising due to its increased reliance on coal-fired generating stations — because Merkel shut down its nuclear industry.  And Germany gives away 45 percent of its permits to pollute at no charge to industries that threaten to pull up stakes.  Macron may be about to follow Germany's path to increased pollution.  He has promised to cut France's reliance on nuclear power for its electricity from 70 percent to 50 percent, prompting the group Energy for Humanity to write, "Any reduction in France's nuclear generation will increase fossil fuel generation and pollution, given the low capacity factors and intermittency of solar and wind.  Germany is a case in point."  And Trudeau has approved expansion of Canada's fossil fuel infrastructure, to the consternation of his nation's environmentalists.

Study: we have the global warming physical process backwards.  Upsetting that energy balance are rising levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), that increasingly absorb some of the outgoing longwave radiation and trap it in the atmosphere.  Energy accumulates in the climate system, and warming occurs.  But in a paper out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, MIT researchers show that this canonical view of global warming is only half the story.  In computer modeling of Earth's climate under elevating CO2 concentrations, the greenhouse gas effect does indeed lead to global warming.  Yet something puzzling happens:  While one would expect the longwave radiation that escapes into space to decline with increasing CO2, the amount actually begins to rise.  At the same time, the atmosphere absorbs more and more incoming solar radiation; it's this enhanced shortwave absorption that ultimately sustains global warming.

U of Canberra Expert:  Doubling Atmospheric CO2 Would Increase "Heating By Less Than 0.01°C".  Recently Kenneth Richard posted a flurry of papers showing that the CO2 climate sensitivity estimate has been trending sharply downward over the years, which means CO2's claimed effect on warming has been highly exaggerated.  Now another opinion has come to light, further supporting the notion that the recent rise in CO2 in fact is having very little impact on our climate.  Software engineer Dr. Dai Davies has experimental and theoretical (quantum mechanics) experience in gas phase, and he believes a doubling of CO2 will have "no significant role" in atmospheric thermodynamics.

NASA satellite spots cause of unprecedented spike in atmospheric CO2.  Since the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have been steadily increasing, but 2015 and 2016 saw an unprecedented spike.  A NASA study has now analyzed data gathered by the atmosphere-monitoring satellite, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), over more than two years and pinpointed the cause: the El Nino weather effect caused certain tropical regions to release far more CO2 than they normally would.  Although there's been some huge efforts to reduce the amount of CO2 produced through human activity, the amount of the gas pumped into the atmosphere has still increased by an average of 2 parts per million (about 4 gigatons of carbon) annually, in recent years.  But 2015 and 2016 broke the trend with the largest spikes on record:  up to 3 parts per million, amounting to 6.3 gigatons of carbon [dioxide].  Emissions from human activity stayed roughly the same in those years, so where was it all coming from?  The climate cycle El Nino was a prime suspect, but it wasn't clear exactly how.

CO2 is not — and has never been a poison.  Each of our exhalations, each of our breaths, emits an astronomical quantity of CO2 proportionate to that in the atmosphere (some >40,000 ppm); and it is very clear that the air we expire does not kill anyone standing in front of us.  What must be understood, besides, is that CO2 is the elementary food of plants.  Without CO2 there would be no plants, and without plants there would be no oxygen and therefore no humans. [...] Plants need CO2, water, and daylight.  These are the mechanisms of photosynthesis, to generate the sugars that will provide them with staple food and building blocks.  That fundamental fact of botany is one of the primary reasons why anyone who is sincerely committed to the preservation of the "natural world" should abstain from demonizing CO2.  Over the last 30 years, there has been a gradual increase in the CO2 level.  But what is also observed is that despite deforestation, the planet's vegetation has grown by about 20 percent.  This expansion of vegetation on the planet, nature lovers largely owe it to the increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Why human CO2 does not change the climate.  How can human carbon dioxide, which is only 5 percent of natural carbon dioxide, add 30 percent to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide?  It can't.  This paper derives a Model that shows how human and natural carbon dioxide emissions independently change the equilibrium level of atmospheric carbon dioxide.  This Model should replace the IPCC's invalid Bern model.  The Model shows the ratio of human to natural carbon dioxide in the atmosphere equals the ratio of their inflows, independent of residence time.  The model shows, contrary to IPCC claims, that human emissions do not continually add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but rather cause a flow of carbon dioxide through the atmosphere.  The flow adds a constant equilibrium level, not a continuing increasing level, of carbon dioxide.

The New York Times Embraces Fake Science, Fake Engineering, and Fake Economics.  The globe is not warming in the face of rapidly increasing CO2 levels, giving lie to the theory that CO2 will create a catastrophe, or create any problem at all.  It is beyond question that increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere enhances agricultural productivity and greens deserts.  Plants are hungry for CO2 and don't need as much water if they have more CO2.

The Great Climate Hoax Challenged by 31,000 Scientists.  [Scroll down]  The reality is that the concept of man-made Climate Change actually opposes the tree-hugger's desires, because the false science of man-made Climate Change aims to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the very gas plant life requires to survive.  Carbon dioxide is an essential molecule of life, not a dangerous pollutant that needs to be eradicated from the atmosphere.  In short, the Climate Change hoax has nothing to do with saving the planet, and everything to do with the collectivist desire of allowing the global elite leftists to ration energy and redistribute the wealth of more prosperous nations through energy confiscation.  Thankfully, President Trump broke the U.S. free from the Paris Climate Accord.  Unlike the leftist Democrats, Trump understands that removing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide would actually hurt the planet, taking away the compound that plants need to thrive.  The above mentioned petition and its accompanying research dispel the myth that projected carbon dioxide levels are going to cause a catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and the disruption of climate.  The evidence is actually in favor of greenhouse gases, which are beneficial to plant and animal environments on Earth.

'Carbon-sucking' devices necessary by 2030 to stop global warming, scientists say.  Scientists are warning we need "carbon-sucking" technologies by 2030 in order to prevent global temperature increases.  In the fight to curtail global warming, scientists say geoengineering — large-scale manipulation of carbon dioxide and solar radiation to lessen their effect on the planet — is absolutely necessary.

FBI Back In Reno After Burglars Elude Security And Raid Las Vegas Shooters Home.  The FBI has beefed up security in Reno, Nevada, after a group of burglars broke into the heavily guarded home of Las Vegas mass shooter, Stephen Paddock over the weekend.  According to authorities, a number of unidentified individuals descended on Paddock's home in the Del Webb retirement community just outside Reno, bypassing both state and federal law enforcement who were assigned to protect the property.  Local law enforcement says it's not clear how the group got into the home, which is supposed to be under round-the-clock surveillance, and they do not have any suspects — but they also believe nothing was taken from inside the home, as the home was left completely undamaged.

The Editor says...
Sounds like a professional was involved here.  In and out without a trace, at one of the hottest crime scenes in America today.  There must have been something in the house that was worth the risk.  Nothing was taken, they say.  Ri-i-i-ight.  Why not just deny that the burglary happened at all?

Climate scientists reveal their ignorance about CO2 emissions and mitigation.  Climate scientists don't usually propose anything specific to 'tackle climate change' other than, well, doing something.  Because according to them nothing is being done, or at least nothing was being done until very recently.  (Apparently, in climate scientists' minds the $4 trillion invested in renewable electricity between 2000 and 2016, and hundreds of billions invested in non-electric renewable energy, count as nothing).  While some may interpret this lack of detail as a sign that they don't want to politicize the issue, those of us who follow the debate know many climate scientists don't exactly make a big effort to stay apolitical.  Thus in this article I put forward another hypothesis:  climate scientists are clueless about energy and the economy.

Alarm as study reveals world's tropical forests are huge carbon [dioxide] emission source.  The world's tropical forests are so degraded they have become a source rather than a sink of carbon emissions, according to a new study that highlights the urgent need to protect and restore the Amazon and similar regions.  Researchers found that forest areas in South America, Africa and Asia — which have until recently played a key role in absorbing greenhouse gases — are now releasing 425 teragrams of carbon annually, which is more than all the traffic in the United States.

Solar Panel Fraud.  Beyond all of this solar power promotion, you may have been victimized by the propaganda about the harm being done to the planet because "burning fossil fuels pollutes the atmosphere."  The culprit, say the propagandists, is carbon dioxide that causes global warming (or its new label, climate change).  But carbon dioxide is food for plants.  It isn't bad; it's hugely beneficial.  As for it affecting the atmosphere, climate scientist Dr. Willie Soon says the amount of carbon dioxide produced nationally by burning fossil fuels is equivalent to adding two more attendees to the 100,000 fans packed into a football stadium.  In other words, carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil, or natural gas is of little consequence — good or bad.

Nashville Mayor's Plan to Reduce CO2 Emissions will Increase Energy Costs.  [Scroll down]  Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says Livable Nashville will result in higher energy costs and economic decline.  "Other states, like New York, California, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, that have reduced emissions are now struggling economically with high energy prices," Ebell said.  "Energy-intensive industries in Nashville will relocate as the city tries to reduce emissions, driving up electric rates and other prices."  Marc Morano, founder of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow's Climate Depot website, says the mayor's plan will harm residents based on a superstitious belief the city's actions can control the weather.

Study gives first proof that the Earth has a natural thermostat.  New data provides the first proof that the Earth has a natural thermostat which enables the planet to recover from extremes of climate change — but the recovery timescales are significant.  This work is presented today at the Goldschmidt conference in Paris, and has just been published in the peer-reviewed journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters.  The idea of a natural temperature thermostat was first proposed in 1981, but until now no-one has been able to provide data to show that the recovery from the hot and cold temperature fluctuations were associated with a specific mechanism.  Now a group of British scientists has shown that recovery from global cooling events is associated with changes in the rate of weathering of rocks, which is the main mechanism of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.  In weathering, rocks are dissolved by rain and river water; the process removes CO2 from the atmosphere, which is then transported to the seas by rivers to be locked up in carbon-rich rocks such as limestone.  The more weathering, the more CO2 is removed from the atmosphere.

Green Delusions and the Wind Bully.  Adding wind power to the U.S. grids makes no economic sense.  It just increases the cost of electricity and gains nothing unless you believe that limiting CO2 added to the atmosphere will prevent catastrophic global warming.  Increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere is highly beneficial for plants and agriculture.  Plants grow better with less water if there is more CO2.  Even if you believe in global warming, cutting back on U.S. emissions of CO2 is a waste of time because the heart of increasing CO2 emissions is in China.

The scoop that wasn't.  In this case, reporter Lisa Friedman buys into the Sky-Us-Falling scenario despite more than four decades of predictions of gloom and doom proving false.  Billions of people have not died of famine due to overpopulation or global cooling or global warming.  The world population has more than doubled over the last 50 years (now topping 7.5 billion) and people are healthier, more prosperous, and freer than ever before.  Predictions also proved wrong that we would be overwhelmed by actual pollution (not this fairy tale about carbon dioxide, which is a nutrient for plants).  The air is so clear in Poca, West Virginia, that you hardly notice the large coal-fired power plant across the river.

Agenda Behind Global Warming Alarmism.  There is plenty of other evidence that CO2 is trivial to climate change.  Water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas, providing 96 to 98% of any greenhouse effect.  CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas and comprises only 0.04% of the atmosphere — and 97% of CO2 is produced by nature, not mankind.  Volcanoes, swamps, rice paddies, fallen leaves, even insects and bacteria produce CO2 as well as methane, another greenhouse gas.  Termites alone emit far more CO2 than all the factories and automobiles in the world (See Science Nov. 5, 1982.)  Natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined.  If we could eliminate not only all human use of fossil fuels but all natural sources of greenhouse gases as well, 96% of any greenhouse effect would still remain, because of water vapor.  Carbon dioxide produces only tiny changes in atmospheric temperature; however, all computer models projecting "runaway" global warming are based on the small warming from CO2 being amplified by water vapor.  But such an amplification has never occurred even with much higher levels of CO2.  At the time of the dinosaurs, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere was 3 to 5 times what it is today, but there was no runaway global warming.

Former NASA Chief Scientist:  America is "Under Siege" from Climate Disinformers.  The science is NOT unequivocal that we face a climate emergency.  Using the IPCC's own climate figures, there is a real possibility anthropogenic CO2 is not a big deal.  Calling people who point this out purveyors of "fake news" is pure climate alarmism.  As for what happens after the year 2100, frankly that is their problem.  By the year 2100 humanity will know whether CO2 is causing climate problems — and will have the energy supply options and advanced engineering capabilities to deal with any eventuality.

If the world follows A K Dart's lead, we can all stop worrying about carbon dioxide.
If the World Follows US' Lead, We Can Reduce Emissions Without the Paris Accords.  One of the silliest arguments made by some Paris Accord supporters is that pulling out of the accord would weaken the U.S.' global leadership because more than 140 countries, including North Korea signed on to it.  Seriously?  I'd like to ask them why the United States wants to follow the lead of North Korea on any matter.  Truth be told, we should always do the exact opposite of whatever North Korea is doing.

The case for nixing the Paris Agreement.  Each human exhales about two pounds of CO2 a day from simply being alive.  Living creatures, humans, animals and plants are largely made of carbon.  Carbon dioxide is essential to the growth of plants.  By the standards of geological history, plants have been coping with a CO2 famine for several tens of millions of years.  Satellites already show dramatic greening of the Earth as CO2 levels begin recovery toward their historical norms.  These were measured in thousands of parts per million (ppm), not today's puny 400 ppm.  CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas, but much less important than the major greenhouse gas, water vapor (H2O) and clouds.  Observations show that doubling CO2 will warm the Earth's surface by around 1 degree Celsius.  At the current rate of increase of CO2, it will take more than a century to double.  Twice as much CO2 and a modest 1 degree Celsius warming would benefit the world in many ways, extending growing seasons for agriculture, increasing crop yields, and lessening human mortality, which increases in cold weather.  And modest warming means that there will also be no dangerous increase in sea levels.

A path forward after the Paris climate agreement.  [Scroll down]  So, even if Hillary Clinton had beaten Mr. Trump and had kept the United States in the treaty, and even if every single national leader on the planet (and their successors) had unflinchingly stood by every single treaty promise for year after year, regardless of economic downturn or political crisis, the Paris Treaty would have left 99 percent of the problem in place.  Before Mr. Trump axed the treaty, many environmentalists quietly acknowledged this.  They praised the agreement regardless, because of the political value of world leaders focusing on climate change and because they believed that much larger carbon-cutting promises would come later.  That foolhardy assumption flew in the face of history.

Paris Can Wait — It Was A Bad Deal.  Supporters of the Paris climate deal present a false choice.  You either (a) believe in the scientific consensus about climate change (in which case, you support Paris), or (b) you are a denier.  But they are missing a third option, which is that (c) this is simply a bad deal in terms of the cost-benefit analysis.  Why is it a bad deal?  There are no consistent standards for participation.  Countries unilaterally decided what voluntary and non-binding commitment they wanted to pledge. [...] Here's where the deal really falls apart.  According to another study, the Paris deal would shave about 0.2 degrees off warming by 2100.  You heard me right.  Assuming everything works perfectly according to plan, we could plausibly be trading 6.5 million jobs for a 0.2-degree payoff.  But remember, there is no enforcement mechanism.

Dear Mr. President:  Please Exit Paris.  Exit Paris isn't about the environment.  It's about letting us utilize our fossil fuel energy to create jobs, rebuild our economy, and Make America Great Again.  It's about avoiding immense transfer payments from the USA to foreign governments, bureaucrats and parties unaccountable to Trump-voting taxpayers.  Worse, even if the USA Remains, and the repulsive payments flow, Paris offers no help in removing real air pollutants.  Carbon dioxide isn't one of them, by the way:  it's plant food, not poison.

Study Confirms That CO2 Is Not a Pollutant.  Possibly the most tyrannical ruling ever issued by the Supreme Court was the 2007 declaration that the emission of carbon dioxide can be regulated by the federal government under the Clean Air Act.  This decree potentially subjects literally all human and even animal activity — including breathing — to federal micromanagement through the notoriously autocratic EPA.  Joseph Stalin could not have asked for more total control.  Meanwhile, scientists remind us that the ruling was based on lies; CO2 is not a pollutant, as a new study confirms.

New Study Calls EPA's Labeling Of CO2 A Pollutant 'Totally False'.  A new study published by seasoned researchers takes aim at the heart of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to issue regulations to curb carbon dioxide emissions.  The study claims to have "proven that it is all but certain that EPA's basic claim that CO2 is a pollutant is totally false," according to a press statement put out by Drs. Jim Wallace, John Christy and Joe D'Aleo.  Wallace, Christy and D'Aleo — a statistician, a climatologist and meteorologist, respectively — released a study claiming to invalidate EPA's 2009 endangerment finding, which allowed the agency to regulate CO2 as a pollutant.

On the Existence of a "Tropical Hot Spot" & The Validity of EPA's CO2 Endangerment Finding.  A just released peer reviewed Climate Science Research Report has proven that it is all but certain that EPA's basic claim that CO2 is a pollutant is totally false.  All research was done pro bono.  This research failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 14 temperature data sets that were analyzed.  The tropospheric and surface temperature data measurements that were analyzed were taken by many different entities using balloons, satellites, buoys and various land based techniques.  Needless to say, if regardless of data source, the analysis results are the same, the analysis findings should be considered highly credible.

Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere.  Climate scientists presume that the carbon cycle has come out of balance due to the increasing anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuel combustion and land use change.  This is made responsible for the rapidly increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations over recent years, and it is estimated that the removal of the additional emissions from the atmosphere will take a few hundred thousand years.  Since this goes along with an increasing greenhouse effect and a further global warming, a better understanding of the carbon cycle is of great importance for all future climate change predictions.  We have critically scrutinized this cycle and present an alternative concept, for which the uptake of CO2 by natural sinks scales proportional with the CO2 concentration.  In addition, we consider temperature dependent natural emission and absorption rates, by which the paleoclimatic CO2 variations and the actual CO2 growth rate can well be explained.  The anthropogenic contribution to the actual CO2 concentration is found to be 4.3%, its fraction to the CO2 increase over the Industrial Era is 15% and the average residence time 4 years.

State of the Climate: 10 years after Al Gore declared a 'planetary emergency' — top 10 reasons Gore was wrong.  [#3] Despite all the self-congratulatory international conferences and pseudo-agreements, the world has done nothing to "fight global warming."  Mr. Gore cannot claim that his deadline has been extended because some governments have forced their citizens to cut carbon dioxide emissions.  CO2 levels keep climbing and now exceed 401 parts per million in the atmosphere.  It is simply not the dangerous greenhouse gas we've repeatedly been told it is.

Scott Pruitt Is Absolutely Right About Carbon Dioxide.  Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but it is not the most powerful greenhouse gas, by a long shot.  Water vapor is far more effective at trapping heat and releasing it back to the atmosphere, primarily because it absorbs a lot more radiation in the infrared spectrum, which is released as heat.  That's why all of the climate theories that project runaway global warming use water vapor to juice up the relatively small impact of carbon dioxide itself.  They posit a "feedback loop" in which carbon dioxide increases temperatures, which increases the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which increases temperatures even more.  These models need a more powerful greenhouse gas to magnify the effect of carbon dioxide.

Burn Coal or Die.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide is an essential plant food.  No CO2 equals no plants equals no life.  Period.  Even at today's 400 ppm, plants are relatively starved for CO2 and need, [Patrick] Moore says, an optimum level of 2000 ppm.

Democrats' Real Global Warming Fraud Revealed.  Fortunately, high-tech research has finally sorted out the "mystery factor" in our recent climate changes — and it's mostly not CO2.  Even redoubling carbon dioxide, by itself, would raise earth's temperature only 1.1 degree.  That's significant, but not dangerous.  CERN, the world's top particle physics laboratory, just found that our big, abrupt climate changes are produced by variations in the sun's activity.  That's the same sun the modelers had dismissed as "unchanging."

Demon Coal.  The CO2 released by burning coal is wonderful stuff.  Plants breathe CO2, and if there is more CO2 in the air, the plants breathe easy, grow faster, and need less water.  Greenhouse operators put CO2 generators in their greenhouses because more CO2 helps plants thrive.  Worldwide agriculture is going strong, partly because the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from about 0.03% to 0.04%.  The idea that "science" proves that CO2 is a demon is most plausible to people with limited exposure to down and dirty science.  Down and dirty science is at its dirtiest when it is seeking money or protecting its money.

China's Global Warming Hoax Exposed.  Even as China is busy blasting Donald Trump for not taking global warming seriously it's ramping up coal production and throwing its promised CO2 reductions out the window. [...] The real problem with these agreements isn't that China is cheating.  When the choice is between growing one's economy and fighting the phantom menace of "climate change," the answer is easy.  The problem is that Obama has been so willing and eager to strap a gigantic "clean energy" millstone around the economy's neck, killing growth, adding to the cost of energy, lowering standards of living — all for nothing.

The Phony War Against CO2.  [A] myth persists that is both unscientific and immoral to perpetuate: that the beneficial gas carbon dioxide ranks among hazardous pollutants.  It does not.  Unlike genuine pollutants, carbon dioxide (CO2) is an odorless, colorless gas.  Every human being exhales about two pounds of CO2 a day, along with a similar amount of water vapor.  CO2 is nontoxic to people and animals and is a vital nutrient to plants.  It is also a greenhouse gas which helps maintain earth at a habitable temperature.  Fear of excessive warming from more CO2 in the atmosphere, including that released from human activity, has caused some people to advocate substantial and expensive reductions in CO2 emissions.

2016 State of the Climate Report.  Scientists note that geologically speaking, the Earth is currently in a 'CO2 famine' and that the geologic record reveals that ice ages have occurred when CO2 was at 2000 ppm to as high as 8000 ppm.  In addition, peer-reviewed studies have documented that there have been temperatures similar to the present day on Earth when carbon dioxide was up to twenty times higher than today's levels.

Skeptics Deliver Consensus Busting 'State of the Climate Report' to UN Summit.  CO2 is not the tail that wags the dog.  CO2 is a trace essential gas, but without it life on earth would be impossible.  Carbon dioxide fertilizes algae, trees, and crops to provide food for humans and animals.  We inhale oxygen and exhale CO2.  Slightly higher atmospheric CO2 levels cannot possibly supplant the numerous complex and inter-connected forces that have always determined Earth's climate.  As University of London professor emeritus Philip Stott has noted:  "The fundamental point has always been this.  Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets."

Whoops, turns out concrete is actually a carbon sink.  From the "settled science" department and the University or California Irvine, comes this inconvenient fact.  For years we've been told by academics that cement is another nasty global warming contributor, because of CO2 released during production.  Now, not so much. [...] Cement manufacturing is among the most carbon-intensive industrial processes, but an international team of researchers has found that over time, the widely used building material reabsorbs much of the CO2 emitted when it was made.  "It sounds counterintuitive, but it's true," said Steven Davis, associate professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine.

Int'l. Study:  IPCC Doesn't Account for 1 Billion Tons of CO2 Absorbed Annually by Cement.  Cement, the ubiquitous material used to build roads, buildings and other infrastructure, absorbs about one billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, according to a new study published Monday [11/21/2016] in the journal Nature Geoscience.  But concrete carbonation is "not currently considered in emissions inventories" kept by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to the study's co-authors, an international team of researchers led by Professor Dabo Guan of the U.K.'s University of East Anglia.  The study found that cement's natural carbonation process not only offsets the fossil fuel emissions released during its production, it also "represents a large and growing net sink of CO2" that has not been taken into account by the IPCC.

Study: Does the World Need Climate Insurance?  No.  Many people refer to carbon dioxide (CO2) as a "pollutant;" in reality, CO2 gas is a natural part of the ecosystem — and essential to life on Earth.  CO2 levels are currently at record low levels compared with those that prevailed over most of the Earth's history.  The modest increases in CO2 levels that have occurred over the past century — thanks, in part, to the combustion of fossil fuels — have led to a pronounced and well-documented greening of the Earth.  Plants grow better and are more drought resistant with more CO2.  This greening has benefitted — and will continue to benefit — human society, particularly the world's poor, whose lives depend on productive agriculture.

Alarmist Scientists are Trying to Hide the Good News that the Planet is Getting Greener.  Alarmist scientists are trying to cover up the good news that rising CO2 levels are making the planet turn greener.  And that even includes one of the scientists who made the discovery in the first place.  The discovery was first announced in 2012 in a lecture by Professor Ryanga Myneni of the University of Boston.

World Leaders Try to Ban Another Greenhouse Gas.  Delegates are likely to take till the meeting's final day on Oct. 14 to hammer out the knotty details of an amendment to the protocol.  Ideally, the amendment will set the terms for a rapid phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the most common of which is the refrigerant HFC-134a, which has 1,430 times more warming potential than carbon dioxide (CO2) over 100 years[.]  The amendment would stop the manufacture of HFCs and then reduce their use over time.  "An ambitious amendment is the quickest and least expensive way to reduce the effects of climate change," says Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, who has been a mainstay at ozone negotiations since almost the beginning of the 1987 treaty.  He says a phasedown could prevent the equivalent of 100 to 200 billion tons of CO2 being released into the atmosphere by 2050.  That prevention could avert half a degree Celsius of warming by the end of the century.

The Editor says...
Weigh these options:  [#1] The elimination of air conditioning and refrigeration, versus [#2] One-half degree of global warming by the end of 2099, which may happen no matter what anybody (or everybody) does.  If any further elaboration is needed to help you make up you're mind, then you're wasting your time on this web site.

Global warming milestone as scientists warn Earth has passed carbon tipping point 'for good'.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached a historic threshold as levels remain above 400 parts per million through the end of September — the point in which values typically drop to their lowest.  Climate scientists now warn that it's 'almost impossible' that these numbers will fall next month, and likely won't dip below 400 ppm in the foreseeable future.  While there may be brief, daily events in which the levels fall short of this amount, monthly values are set to keep climbing as the 'rising half of the cycle' begins, when carbon dioxide could even break 410 ppm.

The Energy Absurdity of the Paris Climate Agreement.  There was much cheering when representatives of 195 nations agreed a new global climate deal in December last year in Paris.  Many environmental politicians had tears in their eyes as the international community agreed they would limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.  Yet many governments had no idea what would be necessary to achieve this objective when the first 170 government ministers, including Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks (SPD), signed the Paris climate agreement at the United Nations headquarters in New York in April.  After all, the agreement demands global "decarbonisation" — i.e. the end of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions.  This requirement is equivalent to the end of all combustion processes in engines, boilers and power plants — because they emit CO2.

Alaska: A CO2 Sink, Which is Growing Stronger.  Perennially frozen northern soils, known as permafrost, contain enormous amounts of carbon because the slow and cold chemistry of the Arctic makes them the repository of thousands of years of frozen plant remains.  Warming could cause this plant matter to break down, be decomposed by bacteria and emit ancient carbon to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and methane.  And the amounts of carbon involved are enormous — one common estimate is that there's more than twice as much carbon stored in northern permafrost as there is currently wafting about the planet's atmosphere.  Now, though, a major and surprising new report from the U.S. Geological Survey would appear to undercut, significantly, this worry, at least for one key northern region:  the U.S. state of Alaska.

Rebutting Climate Alarmism with Simple Facts.  CO2 possesses a major limitation as a greenhouse gas, and one that casts doubt on its ability to function as the sole agent of climate change.  As demonstrated in laboratory studies, CO2 exponentially loses heat-trapping capacity as its concentration increases.  This happens because, even in minuscule quantities, CO2 quickly becomes opaque to a certain spectrum band of infrared radiation.  Essentially, CO2 rapidly absorbs all of the infrared radiation it can. [...] Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and it helps to maintain warmth in the atmosphere.  But as noted above, CO2's heat-trapping function is essentially saturated by the current level of 0.04%.  Furthermore, climate models actually project that most of the presumed "man-made" warming will come from an increase in atmospheric water vapor.  The principal idea of "anthropogenic global warming" (AGW) is that the small amount of additional warming contributed by CO2 (before it becomes saturated) will cause more water vapor to enter the atmosphere.  Since water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas of the atmosphere (and is responsible for roughly 80% of the "greenhouse effect"), this water vapor will create "positive feedback" for further warming.  Unfortunately, the AGW theory essentially disregards the cooling feedback caused by clouds (since atmospheric water vapor inevitably transitions to cloud cover.)  Clouds provide net cooling by reflecting solar radiation back into space, shading ground surfaces, and producing rain (which not only cools surface temperatures but also scrubs atmospheric CO2.)

Peer-Reviewed Study:  Positive Impact of Human CO2 Emissions.  The combustion of fossil fuels for energy to power human civilization has reversed the downward trend in CO2 and promises to bring it back to levels that are likely to foster a considerable increase in the growth rate and biomass of plants, including food crops and trees.  Human emissions of CO2 have restored a balance to the global carbon cycle, thereby ensuring the long-term continuation of life on Earth.  This extremely positive aspect of human CO2 emissions must be weighed against the unproven hypothesis that human CO2 emissions will cause a catastrophic warming of the climate in coming years.  The one-sided political treatment of CO2 as a pollutant that should be radically reduced must be corrected in light of the indisputable scientific evidence that it is essential to life on Earth.

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Cools the Earth.  [Scroll down]  When the ground is heated by the sun, the ground right below the surface is generally cooler than the top, and absorbs part of the surface heat.  Water, which makes up most of the Earth's surface, has a higher conductivity than the ground or air.  A part of the heat from the Earth's surface is conducted downward and absorbed by the ground and the water.  Thermodynamics explains this conduction of heat.  Determining the amount of the heat absorbed by the Earth is complicated — particularly with ground surface with all of its differences and things placed on the ground.  But this does not excuse scientists from completely ignoring it.  The Global Warmers completely ignore this conduction factor, and treat all of the heating of the Earth's surface as being reflected, conducted, and radiated back into the atmosphere.

Carbon Dioxide Feeds the World.  [Scroll down]  It's hard to condense a 1,110-page document into just a few key points, but foremost among our findings were, first, atmospheric carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  It is a nontoxic natural component of the atmosphere that long-term and short-term studies alike have shown to improve both plant growth and water-use efficiency as its atmospheric concentration rises.  Second, consistent with research on the impact of increasing carbon dioxide levels on plant productivity, the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration is causing a great greening of the Earth.  Third, a modest warming of the planet will actually result in fewer temperature-related human deaths, in strong contradiction of the opposite claim [made by] the world's climate alarmists.

Peer-Reviewed Study:  CO2 Cuts Could Impoverish the World.  The world's historic effort to reduce carbon emissions is likely to be a costly if not quixotic endeavor, according to one expert, whose recently published research warns that decarbonizing the globe could have devastating consequences on the world's way of life.  In a report published this week, the International Energy Agency issued a call for "concrete action" to match the ambitions of last year's landmark climate change agreement, which was recently ratified by nearly 200 countries.  The energy watchdog said the transition to a low-carbon future would require "massive changes in the energy system" to prevent the globe's temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius.  Yet the agency also put a steep price tag on efforts to combat climate change.  In order to decarbonize the power sector within the next 40 years, the world would have to invest at least $9 trillion — and an additional $6.4 trillion to make other industries more environmentally friendly.

The Editor says...
Environmentalists see the $15 trillion price tag and say, "We'd better get started right away."  Rational taxpayers, on the other hand, say, "Two degrees warmer?  Who's going to notice?"

Spot the problem:  Man-made emissions flat, but global CO2 hits record high.  Take the emissions figures with a pound of salt.  Carbon accounting is hopelessly inaccurate, China can't be trusted, and everything else is a guess.  How can we run a global market on figures so prone to corruption.  Is China artificially elevating figures now so they can make cheap "reductions" in future, or are they underestimating figures to reduce the pressure on them to sign up?  Could it be that they just can't account due to the sheer difficulty of it in such a vast and varied economy?

The Nuclear Reaction.  In 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) called for a reduction of 32 percent in the 2005 levels of carbon dioxide emissions. [...] The EPA guidelines were not written with global warming in mind.  Nuclear power is already the greatest source of clean electricity in the United States and could largely eliminate fossil fuels by 2030.  The guidelines seem designed to increase the use of solar and wind energy in the United States, though they will also increase the use of greenhouse gas (GHG)-emitting natural gas.  But wind and solar energy do not provide completely clean electricity.  They are variable renewable energy (VRE) sources, both low in concentration and intermittent.  It takes resources to collect and concentrate them, and even more resources to make them available on demand.

The return of pseudo-science.  [Scroll down]  Yes, pumping carbon dioxide into a greenhouse in the sunlight will cause it to warm, but the earth is far more complex than a greenhouse.  Remember how the global warming crowd told us we were going to have more tornadoes and Atlantic hurricanes?  We have actually had fewer tornadoes and a record low level of Atlantic hurricanes over the last decade.  I have been asking a basic question for some time:  What is the optimum level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?  No one talks about it because no one knows.

NASA: Carbon dioxide fertilization greening Earth, study finds.  From a quarter to half of Earth's vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.  An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet's vegetated regions.  The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.

Fred Singer Closing in on Fact:  CO2 Doesn't Affect Global Temperature.  I met [Dr S Fred] Singer at his University of Houston lecture hosted by Prof Larry Bell on February 6, 2012 and his several talks at the latest Heartland Institute ICCC, Las Vegas, July 7-9, 2014.  He has played an important role in disputing alarmist global warming claims for decades.  He has received many awards.  Singer reveals he assumes CO2 warms Earth because it is called a greenhouse gas, which does not make it so.  It is also green plant food, which does chemically make it a coolant.  Great confusion arises when a radiating gas, which cools the atmosphere, is incorrectly labeled a greenhouse gas and then warming is arbitrarily assigned to it, by virtue of the nomenclature change.  I discovered in 2012 introducing radiating gases like H2O and CO2 to the atmosphere actually cools the Earth slightly and had useful direct email exchanges with Singer on the matter.  Naturally I am pleased he has reached a similar conclusion, perhaps by another way.

The Model Atmosphere and Global Warming.  Water in all its phases — as invisible vapor in the atmosphere, as liquid in the vast oceans and condensed tiny droplets in clouds, as solid sheets of ice and crystals of snow — water is the ultimate regulator of climate on earth.  So-called greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane play a secondary role in climate control.  Yet the focus of research funding is on "carbon pollution," and largely only negative aspects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide are headlined in the popular and scientific press.  The actual measured benefits of increased carbon dioxide, with increased greening of the globe for instance, have been summarily dismissed or simply ignored.  As I have indicated in the past, most of my nearly 35 years of professional life as an air-pollution meteorologist has been involved with atmospheric modeling in one way or another.  And it's clear from experience that the complexity of the earth's climate is incredible.  Forecasting the future of such climate in meaningful detail is incredibly challenging.

Fighting Junk Science.  Global warming is an example of junk science where there is a kernel of scientific truth that has been abused and beaten into a junk science edifice supporting huge money flows.  There are good reasons for supposing that adding CO2 to the atmosphere might warm the Earth.  The evidence is that the warming effect of CO2 is slight and not necessarily bad.  (The Earth has failed to warm for over 18 years.)  It is clear that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has a massive positive effect on agriculture because plants have to work hard to absorb CO2.  Increased CO2 concentrations enable plants to grow faster, an incontrovertible scientific fact proved by many experiments.  Global warming is promoted by entrenched scientific bureaucracies and by the huge alternative energy industry.  Scientific organizations vigorously attack anyone who criticizes global warming junk science and thus threatens their members' paychecks.

Reassessing the Climate Role of Carbon Dioxide.  The authors evaluate the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "consensus" that the increase of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is of anthropogenic origin and is causing dangerous global warming, climate change, and climate disruption. They conclude that the data do not support that supposition.  Most of the currently accepted scientific interpretations are examined and the given impression that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide will increase the earth's surface and/or air temperature is questioned.  New insight is offered drawing a conclusion that no additional warming is possible due to the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Double The Atmospheric CO2?  According to the IPCC, there are not enough fossil fuel reserves (oil, gas, and coal) on the planet to double the atmospheric CO2 concentration from its current value.

So much for settled science.  Recent testimony by Professor John Christy demonstrated that the "climate theory" has been "falsified."  That theory is embodied in models relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Christy presented a comparison of more than 100 model runs by the IPCC's latest model and temperature data from weather balloons and satellites compiled by three different organizations.  The model greatly overestimated atmospheric warming.  If the model is wrong, so must be the theory that it represents.  There are two primary reasons why.  First, the warming potential of CO2 is non-linear, which means that the amount of warming from an increase in atmospheric concentrations is less than increases that preceded it.  Second, the actual warming that has taken place since the end of the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s is less than would be predicted by the increase in CO2 concentrations.

Study shows that increased atmospheric CO2 is greening the deserts.  A funny thing happened on the way to the warmists' nightmare:  the Earth's deserts have started to turn green.  The Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, may have ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, but the Earth's deserts metaphorically are filing a dissent.  On behalf of all carbon-based life forms  — which would be every living thing on the planet.

How Green Is Thy Planet?  Deciding which is the greatest single blunder of the climatistas is a difficult contest, because you have so much to choose from.  Aside from their dreadful leading spokesspecies (Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Leo di Caprio — Green Weenies all), perhaps the stupidest move was the decision to call carbon dioxide — the compound that humans exhale to the tune of about 800 lbs per person per year — a "pollutant."  Sure, it's a warming agent according to theory, but to call it a "pollutant" comparable to carbon monoxide is ludicrous.

What Do We Know About CO2 and Global Atmospheric Temperatures?  How much will the doubling of CO2 in the air warm the global temperature?  How do scientists take an accurate measurement of the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere?  Why can scientists better measure atmospheric temperatures from satellites than surface temperatures from ground thermometers?  Despite large uncertainties and many unknowns in Earth Science, scientists have a reasonable understanding of the answers to these questions.

Paris climate goals mean emissions need to drop below zero.  If governments are serious about the global warming targets they adopted in Paris, scientists say they have two options:  eliminating fossil fuels immediately or finding ways to undo their damage to the climate system in the future.  The first is politically impossible — the world is still hooked on using oil, coal and natural gas — which leaves the option of a major cleanup of the atmosphere later this century.

Bias alert!
If you drive an ordinary car to work, you're "hooked on oil," inasmuch as your car runs on gasoline, which is relatively inexpensive.  We are "hooked" on whatever works best, at the lowest cost.  That's just common sense.

Carbon Dioxide Reduction Policies Are Destructive And Immoral.  Islamic terrorists have maimed and murdered hundreds of people in Paris, dozens in Mali, thousands in Iraq and Syria.  The U.S. is next, they promise.  Unwelcome in Arab countries, Middle East refugees are streaming to Europe and America, where high tax rates, over-regulation and rising prices for unreliable renewable energy are fueling debt and impacting jobs, industries, economic growth, government revenues and efforts to accommodate the migrants.  But still President Obama insists that climate change poses the gravest threat to our planet, national security and future generations.  He led a 500-person entourage to Paris, joining 40,000 political leaders, bureaucrats, activists and journalists.  The president wants binding emission reductions, far beyond what his Environmental Protection Agency and other factors have already achieved in the U.S.

Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?  Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution says "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes ..."  However, the fastest growing taxes are those imposed by the regulatory agencies under control of the president, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), aided and abetted by our federal courts.  Government regulations add to the cost of business and living expenses.  Therefore, they are actually an indirect tax on human activity because they cause more expenditure of money due to the regulation.  This regulatory taxing authority is rapidly expanding without congressional consent by various federal agencies using "Social Cost of Carbon" (SCC) calculations to justify new federal regulations, and especially by the EPA.

Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?  Let's take a look at CO2, since the EPA's Clean Power Plan is designed to regulate the entire U.S. electric industry to reduce CO2 "pollution."  CO2 may be legally defined by the U.S. Supreme Court and EPA as a "pollutant," but it is certainly an odd one.  CO2 exists in a higher concentration in our lungs than in the air.  It is essential to the process of making beer, bread and wine, and as discussed in my [earlier] editorial, it is necessary for plant photosynthesis and is the key to all life on earth.  Any complete medical or physiological textbook will discuss that CO2 levels in the blood and lungs controls human respiration.  The common treatment for hyperventilation is to have someone breathe into a paper bag to increase CO2 levels in their body. [...] Thousands of experiments have shown that adding CO2 to the air increases the growth rate of nearly all plants and increases their ability to withstand drought due to lower water-loss rates at higher CO2 levels.  This is why commercial greenhouses use propane or natural gas CO2 generators to raise CO2 levels as high as 1,500 parts per million (ppm) in their greenhouses to achieve maximum growing potential for their plants, since it is an economic benefit to them.

5 Factual Errors In The NAACP's $5 Billion Demand For 'Climate Justice'.  [#1] The United States is responsible for 25 percent of global CO2 emissions.  According to a 2014 study by the European Union, the United States is responsible for 15 percent of the world's emissions, not 25 percent.  Carbon dioxide emissions have declined by roughly 10.4 percent in the United States in the last 5 years for which data was available, largely because clean burning natural gas is replacing dirtier coal power.  China is the largest emitter of carbon dioxide — responsible for 29 percent of carbon dioxide emissions — and India has long been responsible for the largest share of global emissions growth.  So CO2 reduction schemes in the United States are futile without global participation.

The Usual Suspect.  The idea that something unanticipated was happening to life in the oceans received more support when Johns Hopkins researchers recently discovered that "phytoplankton, micro-organisms that float, as opposed to swim, are rapidly thriving in the North Atlantic, suggesting an environmental shift that defies previous scientific predictions."  This is important because phytoplankton are the foundation of the food chain.  Like the microbes that created the rusticles, they were doing unexpectedly well.  Conventional wisdom held they should be dying.  For years the numbers of phytoplankton were thought to be in decline due to Global Warming.  "A 2010 study published in Nature reported that marine phytoplankton have declined substantially in the world's oceans over the past century."  But the Johns Hopkins study contradicted this claim.  Something — perhaps C02 — was revving up the plankton.

Similarities to Jim Jones and the Cult of Climate Change.  [Scroll down]  Nature generates much more CO2 than humans.  In 2014, [NASA] launched a satellite that measures CO2 levels globally.  The assumption was that most of the CO2 would come from the over-industrialized northern hemisphere.  They were surprised to learn it was coming from the rainforests of South America as well as Africa and China.

Here are five reasons why it is completely reasonable to conclude that man-made climate change is [nonsense].  [#2]  CO2 and other so-called "greenhouse gases" aka GHG's are measured in parts per million aka "ppm" — methane is measured in parts per billion!  CO2 has steadily doubled since the advent of the industrial age and temperatures have not; in fact they have fluctuated up and down.  This is dispositive.  In addition, CO2 is a weak conductor of temperature, whereas H2O is a strong conductor and much more plentiful than CO2.  Clouds and water vapor [affect] atmospheric temperatures more than CO2 and other so-called GHG's and they are not adequately accounted for in any climate change computer model because their actions are still too complex to be understood.

China's CO2 Charade Shows Who The Real Climate Deniers Are.  China apparently has been burning 17% more coal annually than it has claimed over the past 15 years.  And as a result, it's been emitting a billion tons more CO2 a year than it had admitted.  The New York Times points out that this difference alone is equal to what Germany's entire economy produces each year from burning fossil fuels.  In other words, if Germany shut down its entire economy, it wouldn't compensate for China's "error."  Anyone who's ever seen photos [...] of Chinese cities choked in smog could have guessed that they are probably not pursuing "clean energy" at the pace they claim.  But the fact that this vast undercount went on so long only points to a much larger problem with the entire climate change agenda.

Vladimir Putin Says the Climate Change Scare is a Fraud.  The American people, in poll after poll, rank climate at the very bottom of their long list of concerns, but Obama soldiers on. [...] We need more carbon dioxide, not less.  Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a necessary building block of life.

Three Cheers for Carbon Dioxide.  Carbon dioxide is plant food, one of the basic necessities for almost all life on Earth.  That enviros have tried to turn CO2 into a bogeyman verges on the bizarre.  In fact, increasing levels of CO2 have already been of great benefit to plants and humans. [...] The alarmists' models actually predict that there will be fewer extreme weather events, since the temperature differential between the poles and the equator will diminish.  Global warming shills never mention this, however, preferring to blame every storm, flood or drought on global warming that hasn't actually happened.

Carbon Dioxide: The good news.  Indur Goklany has done a careful job, collecting and documenting the evidence that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does far more good than harm.  To any unprejudiced person reading this account, the facts should be obvious:  that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide as a sustainer of wildlife and crop plants are enormously beneficial, that the possibly harmful climatic effects of carbon dioxide have been greatly exaggerated, and that the benefits clearly outweigh the possible damage.

Climate Fraud Implodes as Slight Order-of-Magnitude-Sized Math Error Discovered.  A mathematical discovery by Perth-based electrical engineer Dr David Evans may change everything about the climate debate, on the eve of the UN climate change conference in Paris next month.  A former climate modeller for the Government's Australian Greenhouse Office, with six degrees in applied mathematics, Dr Evans has unpacked the architecture of the basic climate model which underpins all climate science.  He has found that, while the underlying physics of the model is correct, it had been applied incorrectly.  He has fixed two errors and the new corrected model finds the climate's sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought.

Carbon Dioxide Feeds the World.  [Scroll down]  It's hard to condense a 1,110-page document into just a few key points, but foremost among our findings were, first, atmospheric carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  It is a nontoxic natural component of the atmosphere that long-term and short-term studies alike have shown to improve both plant growth and water-use efficiency as its atmospheric concentration rises.  Second, consistent with research on the impact of increasing carbon dioxide levels on plant productivity, the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration is causing a great greening of the Earth.  Third, a modest warming of the planet will actually result in fewer temperature-related human deaths, in strong contradiction of the opposite claim [made by] the world's climate alarmists.

Doubt and certainty in climate science.  The possibility that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide might be accumulating in the atmosphere first attracted serious attention in the 1930s, but it was not until the post-war expansion of science funding in the United States that it became a public issue.  Because it was thought that the oceans might hold as much as fifty times more CO2 than the atmosphere, and because the residence time of CO2 there was only a matter of conjecture, it was appropriate for the director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California — Roger Revelle — to suggest that a formal monitoring programme should be mounted without delay.  Accordingly, he found funds in 1958 to hire a young postdoc from CalTech — Charles Keeling — to establish CO2 monitoring stations during the upcoming International Geophysical Year, itself another of Revelle's good ideas.

Lies Progressives Tell Us: Climate Change.  [T]he Obama administration has issued through the EPA the Clean Power Plan, which will force restrictions on coal-fired electric plants.  These onerous regulations will drive up electricity costs and damage the economy, all to reduce over the next 15 years CO2 emissions by 32% from 2005 levels.  The greater purpose is to slow down the alleged apocalyptic effects of global warming.  Yet even if fully implemented, the EPA's plan would reduce global temperatures by a scant 0.018 degrees Celsius by 2100, a statistical rounding error.  But by dint of magical thinking, the EPA assures us that despite the negligible effect on warming, our noble example of damaging our economy for symbolic value will motivate China and India, the current drivers of CO2 increases, to follow our lead and damage their national and economic interests.

Obama's CO2 Deception.  On August 3rd President Obama made a speech detailing his plans to decarbonise the US electrical power generation sector.  While the legality of this move has been challenged in certain quarters, in this post I want to focus on the technical details and competence of the President and his advisors at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Let me begin by focussing on what the main target is:  to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030[.]

The Editor says...
It appears that carbon dioxide production in the U.S. hasn't been as low as Obama's target levels since before World War II — which would be easy to check, if you can find charts that go back that far.

Center for Biological Diversity petitions EPA to list CO2 as a 'toxic substance'.  From the "everybody breathes out poison" department.

Stop climate change by drinking Coca-Cola says Oz government.  Discussing carbon capture and storage, which currently has "failed technology" status nearly the whole world around, the government's Energy White Paper says:  "If the CO2 can be captured before it is released to the atmosphere it can either be utilised in other products or permanently stored in deep geological formations.  Australia has worked closely with other countries which rely heavily on fossil fuels to investigate opportunities to utilise CO2 in products such as carbonated drinks and plastics or to enhance the growth of oil-rich algae in solar bioreactors to produce biofuel."

The Editor says...
When you drink a carbonated beverage, how long do you think the CO2 gas will remain sequestered in your body?  Your gut is not a good place to store gas.  Homework question:  How many microseconds does it take a 1000-megawatt power plant to generate the amount of CO2 found in a can of the average carbonated beverage?

Let's Worry about a Real Threat.  [Scroll down]  Ironically, the evidence is overwhelming that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is highly beneficial.  CO2 makes crops grow better with less water.  A touch of global warming, all that we can possibly expect, is also beneficial, especially compared to global cooling.

The Four Known Scientific Ways Carbon Dioxide Cools Earth's Climate.  Here we develop the physics, chemistry and biology to quantify the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) on Earth's temperature.  There are five mechanisms and three different temperatures involved.  Four show a small cooling effect, one warms surface and cools upper atmosphere with no net bulk effect.  I am unaware of a rigorous mathematical description of the greenhouse gas theory that purports to do this and show a warming affect.  After decades of research attempts, promoters cannot reduce greenhouse gas theory (GHGT) to mathematics of science and engineering.

Where is All the CO2 Going?  It's perfectly reasonable that adding CO2 to the atmosphere could cause some warming, probably minor.  This perfectly reasonably supposition was turned into unreasonable dogma by certain scientific disciplines that sensed an opportunity.  They realized that if CO2 were inflated into the great Satan, it would be very beneficial for their careers.  Backwater scientists in the obscure specialty of atmospheric science became well-traveled celebrities by promoting the doomsday theory of global warming.  Radical environmentalists joined the catastrophic global warming chorus.  This worked pretty well during the 70's, 80's and 90's when the Earth was warming.  But then the warming stopped and now, after 18 years of no warming, the theory of catastrophic global warming is falling apart.  To keep the money flowing, the global warming promoters began promoting extreme weather and ocean acidification, two new and bad things that are supposed to happen if we continued burning fossil fuels.

The EPA Myth of "Clean Power".  There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science, and which threaten the economy. [...] Simply said, there is no need whatever to reduce CO2 emissions.  Carbon dioxide is not "a pollutant" as the EPA claims.  It is, along with oxygen for all living creatures, vital to the growth of all vegetation.  The more CO2 the better crops yields will occur, healthier forests, and greener lawns.  From a purely scientific point of view, it is absurd to reduce emissions.

22 Very Inconvenient Climate Truths.  [#1] The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO2 content of the air:  how could one say that the increase of the CO2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature?  [#2] 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable.  How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?  [#4] The lifetime of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC.  [#17] The temperatures have always driven the CO2 content of the air, never the reverse.  Nowadays the net increment of the CO2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly.

How High Costs Killed This Clean Coal Power Plant Project.  The Department of Energy pulled the plug on [a] $1.1 billion project in Illinois:  a "clean coal" power plant that would capture carbon dioxide and store it underground.  President George W. Bush proposed the carbon-free power plant in 2003 but shelved the project five years later because of cost overruns.  President Obama's Energy Department revived the plant in 2010.  Now, five years and $200 million later, the financing is being terminated because the project can't be completed by its September deadline.

The Editor says...
If it must be done at all, the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere can be done anywhere in the world.  This operation doesn't have to be performed in the power plant that generated CO2.  The idea of a CO2-scrubbing power plant is foolish from the outset.  Every blade of grass and every tree in the world is performing the same function at no cost.

Wheat Crops Grow Despite Climate Alarmists' Lies.  Environmentalists delivered a dire report this Christmas season:  Human-caused global warming is causing wheat harvests to fall.  The message was repeated uncritically by much of the mainstream media.  Had they bothered to check the facts, the media would have discovered climate alarmists were lying once again.  Wheat yields are rising dramatically in the U.S. and internationally — due in part, no doubt, to the fertilizing effect of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

Fun Facts About Carbon Dioxide.  Of the 186 billion tons of carbon from CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity.  Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.

What the mainstream media won't tell you about global warming.  [#3] Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant it's what you exhale and it is what "feeds" plants.  Without CO2 there would not be a single blade of grass or a redwood tree, nor would there be the animal life that depends on vegetation; wheat and rice, for example, as food.  Without CO2 mankind would get pretty hungry.  Even worse the global warming proponents keep talking about population control because they don't want more people around to exhale, [...] [#4] There is not ONE climate computer model that has accurately connected CO2 to climate change.  In fact CO2 is at its highest levels in 13,000 years and the earth hasn't warmed in almost 18 years.

Climate Alarmists Falsely Imply Carbon Dioxide Is Soot.  Since the beginning of the global warming scare, the alarmist lobby has proven quite skilled at building scary images.  A doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 200 to 400 parts per million (ppm) in a century sounds far more serious than going from 0.02 percent to 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, which is what has occurred, so they use ppm.  How much more frightening is hundreds of metric tons of carbon emissions?  People picture hundreds of tons of soot, dredging up images of 19th century London and choking air.  This is irrefutable fact:  It is absolutely impossible for carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere to divide itself naturally into carbon and oxygen.  Only plants do this.  In fact, they give the atmosphere some of its oxygen.  Contra the Supreme Court and the EPA, both of which are apparently scientifically incompetent, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

"Why has there been no global warming for the past decade?".  The temperature of the Earth's surface has not changed by more than 0.1C since the year 2000, and it may even have cooled slightly.  Most computer models predicted that the increase of CO2, from about 370 to 400ppm during that period, should have caused a warming of around 0.3C.  There are many possible reasons for the failure of the models, but one may be insufficient careful attention to important and often neglected details of how CO2 molecules really absorb and emit radiation in the Earth's atmosphere.

The Half Life of CO2 in Earth's Atmosphere.  Sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere can be modelled using a single exponential decay constant of 2.5% per annum.  There is no modelling need to introduce a multi time constant model such as the Bern Model.  The Bern model, favoured by the IPCC, uses four different time constants and combining these produces a decay curve that is not exponential but also matches atmosphere to emissions.  The fact that both single exponential decline and multi-time constant models of emissions can be made to fit atmospheric evolution of CO2 means that this approach does not provide proof of process.  Either or neither of these models may be correct.  But combined, both of these models do provide clues as to the rate of the CO2 sequestration processes.

New Research Finds Earth Even Less Sensitive To CO2 Than Thought.  Earlier this year, in a widely discussed report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, climate researcher Nic Lewis and science writer Marcel Crok put forward a new estimate of the Earth's climate sensitivity based on observational data, finding that it was much less alarming than suggested by computer simulations of the Earth's climate.  Now, Lewis and well known American climate science professor Judith Curry have updated the Lewis and Crok report estimates using the latest empirical data, a more sophisticated methodology and an approach to accounting for uncertainties that has been described by one independent reviewer as "state of the art".

CO2 Rise Increases Biodiversity, Crop Yields.  According to The Economist, The Heartland Institute is "the world's most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change."  On Wednesday [7/9/2014], several scientists gathered at the institute's 9th International Conference on Climate change to address a variety of issues including the biological effects of increased CO2 on the planet due to human activity.  Dr. Craig Idso, the founder, former president, and current chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, provided a plethora of information on exactly how CO2 affects the environment.  Global warming alarmists should be comforted that they have a lot more to be happy about and should not be fretting that global catastrophe is knocking at the door.

Gore's Latest '24 Hours of Reality' Promotes Tragic Mistake.  Scientists have repeatedly explained that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which are [Al] Gore's principal concern, are neither "carbon" nor "pollution."  Reporters on both sides of the debate understand this, of course, but give him a pass on the error.  They should no longer do this.  Carbon is a naturally occurring, non-toxic element found in all living things.  Everything from medicines to trees to oil to our own bodies and those of all other creatures are made of carbon compounds.  Pure carbon occurs in nature mainly in only two forms: graphite and diamonds.  Ignoring the oxygen atoms and calling CO2 merely "carbon" makes about as much sense as ignoring the oxygen in water (H2O) and calling it "hydrogen."  This is not just an academic point.  This is part of the way in which Gore distorts language to bolster concerns about human-caused climate change.

Termites emit ten times more CO2 than humans.  Global temperature has declined since 1998.  Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon dioxide has gone in the other direction, increasing 15 [to] 20%.  This divergence casts doubt on the validity of the greenhouse hypothesis, but that hasn't discouraged the global warming advocates.  They have long been ignoring far greater evidence that the basic assumption of greenhouse warming from increases in carbon dioxide is false.  Manmade emissions of carbon dioxide were not significant before worldwide industrialization began in the 1940s.  They have increased steadily since.  Over 80% of the 20th century's carbon dioxide increase occurred after 1940 — but most of the century's temperature increase occurred before 1940!  From 1940 until the mid-1970s, the climate also failed to behave according to the greenhouse hypothesis, as carbon dioxide was strongly increasing while global temperatures cooled.  This cooling led to countless scare stories in the media about a new ice age commencing.

Geoscientist explains why man-made CO2 is not the driver of global warming.  Dr. Ole Humlum, Professor of Geosciences at the University of Oslo, has published a summary and reply to comments on his groundbreaking paper demonstrating why man-made CO2 is not the driver of global warming. [...] 1. [Observations show] The temperature rise begins at sea level and spreads gradually to the land and atmosphere several months later.  This is contrary to the IPCC CO2 hypothesis that atmospheric CO2 controls land and ocean temperature.  2. The geographical distribution of a CO2 increase doesn't start at 30-50 degrees North latitude, which one would expect if the source were mainly created by the fossil fuel industry and transport in the Northern Hemisphere.  Instead, the increase of CO2 starts just south of the equator.  This is contrary to the IPCC hypothesis that use of fossil fuels is the primary cause of increased CO2 levels.

Common Sense "Carbon" Reductions Or Something.  So, right off the bat Obama discards any notion of science by terming it "carbon" and "carbon pollution", rather than the proper name of carbon dioxide.  There is a difference.  And CO2 is a trace gas necessary for life on earth.  It's cute that he dives right in to the meme of asthma being aggravated by anthropogenic climate change.  There is virtually no honest science on that, nor any honest science proving that the current rise in temps since 1850 has been caused by Mankind.

Supreme Court limits greenhouse gas regulations.  A divided Supreme Court blocked the Obama administration Monday [6/23/2014] from requiring permits for greenhouse gas emissions from new or modified industrial facilities, but the ruling won't prohibit other means of regulating the pollutant that causes global warming.  The court's conservative wing ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority by changing the emissions threshold for greenhouse gases in the Clean Air Act to regulate more stationary sources.  That action can only be taken by Congress, Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion said.

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not "the [only] pollutant that causes global warming."  In fact it is not a pollutant at all, and as you can read below, it makes only a very minor contribution to the greenhouse effect.

Simple climate model outperforms IPCC models, demonstrates climate effect of CO2 is miniscule.  Geoscience professors Dr. Ole Humlum and Dr. Jan-Erik Solheim have described a simple, empircal harmonic climate model that accurately explains global temperature observations since 1850, without incorporating any forcing from man-made CO2 or aerosols.  According to the authors, "What puzzles many is that this model does not have contributions from CO2 and aerosols."  "If we'd had a warming due to CO2, this should appear as a deviation from the simple harmonic model since 1950.  There are no signs of any additional heating due to CO2 as the IPCC claims in their reports, thus the assumed CO2 effects in IPCC climate models are exaggerated.  The net effect of CO2 is thus so modest that it can not be seen in this data."

Obama suggests his upcoming rule on coal plants will avert long-term health crisis.  President Obama on Saturday [5/31/2014] tried to bolster public support for new rules his administration will announce next week on coal-firing [sic] power plants, arguing their carbon emissions are a national health crisis — beyond hurting the economy and causing global warming.  "We don't have to choose between the health of our economy and the health of our children," Obama said in his weekly address.  "As president and as a parent, I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that's beyond fixing."  The cost of carbon pollution "can be measured in lost lives" and roughly "100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks will be avoided" in just the first year that the standards go into effect, Obama said in the address [...]

The Editor says...
Name one person who has had a heart attack this year because he or she lives near a coal-fired power plant.

Rising CO2 levels and a warming planet could be beneficial, claims study.  Even some of the world's most sceptical climate organisations now concede that humans might be causing the planet to warm.  But in a surprising move the Heartland Institute has published a paper claiming that the effects of pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere could in fact be beneficial.  The new report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) has provided the alternative view on the impacts of manmade climate change.

Paper finds lifetime of CO2 in atmosphere is only 5.4 years.  A paper presented at the Seventeenth Symposium On Thermophysical Properties finds that the lifetime and residence time of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere are only about 5.4 years, far less than assumed by the IPCC.

'World doing just fine; Global Warming is Good; CO2 is our friend' say Scientists.  The latest verdict is in on 'climate change' — and the news is good.  The planet is greening, the oceans are blooming, food production is up, animals are thriving and humans are doing better than ever:  and all thanks to CO2 and global warming.  So say the authors of the latest Climate Change Reconsidered report by the NIPCC — that's the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change, an independent research body funded by the Heartland Institute.

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts.
  •   Global climate models are unable to make accurate projections of climate even 10 years ahead, let alone the 100-year period that has been adopted by policy planners.  The output of such models should therefore not be used to guide public policy formulation.
  •   Neither the rate nor the magnitude of the reported late twentieth century surface warming (1979--2000) lay outside the range of normal natural variability, nor were they in any way unusual compared to earlier episodes in Earth's climatic history.
  •   Solar forcing of temperature change is likely more important than is currently recognized.
  •   No unambiguous evidence exists of dangerous interference in the global climate caused by human-related CO2 emissions.  In particular, the cryosphere is not melting at an enhanced rate; sea-level rise is not accelerating; and no systematic changes have been documented in evaporation or rainfall or in the magnitude or intensity of extreme meteorological events.
  •   Any human global climate signal is so small as to be nearly indiscernible against the background variability of the natural climate system.  Climate change is always occurring.

Nebraska Sues EPA over Power Plant CO2 Restrictions.  The State of Nebraska has filed a suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for overreaching restrictions on carbon emissions from coal-power plants.  Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning filed the suit January 15 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska.  Bruning and Nebraska state officials are challenging an EPA proposed rule that would cap carbon dioxide emissions at new power plants to 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of power generation.  Coal power plants would have to cut emissions by approximately 50 percent to meet the standards.  No current or expected technologies would enable coal power plants to meet such a standard and remain economically viable.

House GOP starts investigation on EPA power plant rules.  House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans initiated a probe Wednesday [3/12/2014] to determine who at the Environmental Protection Agency was responsible for crafting greenhouse gas emission rules for future power plants.  The GOP members want to zero in on a provision in the proposed rule that they say violated the Energy Policy Act of 2005, as it cited carbon capture and sequestration projects that received federal funding.  They said the act prevents the EPA from requiring new power plants to use that technology, which would be necessary to comply with the rule.

Water is the weather wild card.  The climatists claim that atmospheric carbon dioxide drives global warming.  But the past seventeen years of rising CO2 without rising global temperatures shows this is untrue.  So now they say that carbon dioxide causes wild weather.  This too is untrue.  Water covers over 70% of the globe, is about 50 times more abundant than CO2 in the atmosphere and it is a far more effective "greenhouse gas".

'Massive Seizure of Power': Climate scientists, economists challenge EPA.  A group of climate scientists and economists are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other stationary sources.  These critics see a "massive seizure of power" by the agency.  The scientists and economists, including the former chair of the EPA's Science Advisory Committee, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that the agency does not have the authority to permit greenhouse gases from stationary sources.  According to the group, such a permitting scheme is a "naked power grab of the most cynical sort."

A Few Easy Tests to Debunk Global Warming Hysteria.  [Scroll down]  Obviously some powerful negative feedback mechanism was moderating the temperature, and still is.  That is the bottom line:  negative feedback keeps the Earth's climate relatively stable despite large variations in solar flux and atmospheric composition.  Man may have some influence over the climate, but the effect is likely to be very small.  There is no cause for economy-disrupting control of carbon dioxide.  Be very suspicious of those who advocate, and carry out, such a policy.  They have something most unpleasant in mind.

'Massive Seizure of Power': Climate scientists, economists challenge EPA.  A group of climate scientists and economists are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other stationary sources.  These critics see a "massive seizure of power" by the agency.  The scientists and economists, including the former chair of the EPA's Science Advisory Committee, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that the agency does not have the authority to permit greenhouse gases from stationary sources.  According to the group, such a permitting scheme is a "naked power grab of the most cynical sort."

Global Warming Alarmism Denies Sound Science.  The peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters reported Earth is undergoing substantial greening as a result of higher carbon dioxide levels and more-favorable weather conditions.  Plant life is flourishing, and foliage is becoming more prevalent all across the globe as Earth warms, with the most impressive gains observed in arid regions bordering deserts.  The western United States is among the big winners, with many regions in the U.S. West experiencing 30 percent or greater increases in foliage during the past 30 years.

U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions Continue Dramatic Decline in 2013.  U.S. carbon dioxide emissions declined by 3.7 percent in 2013, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UK) reports.  The decline in U.S. emissions continues a dramatic drop in U.S. emissions this century, even as global emissions rapidly rise.  The new Tyndall Centre report says there is enough data regarding 2013 carbon dioxide emissions to accurately project emissions for the final two months of the year and for 2013 as a whole.  Global emissions will rise by 2.1 percent during 2013, powered mainly by a 5.9 percent increase in China and a 7.7 percent increase in India.

Fallacies about Global Warming.  The first question to be answered is whether the Earth is warming at all. [...] But even were warming to be demonstrated, and assuming a reasonable correlation between an increase in carbon dioxide and an increase in temperature, that does not mean that the former has driven the latter.  Good evidence exists from thousands of years ago that carbon dioxide levels rose only after the temperature increased, so why should we assume that the order is somehow reversed today?

Japan's new CO2 goal dismays U.N. climate conference.  China, the EU and environmentalists criticized Japan at U.N. climate talks on Friday [11/15/2013] for slashing its greenhouse gas emissions target after its nuclear power industry was shuttered by the Fukushima disaster.

The EPA Gets High on Greenhouse Gases.  The key event in the Environmental Protection Agency's campaign to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant came on April 2, 2007.  It was the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.  Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for a five-member majority, held that the EPA had a duty to decide whether greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles are contributing to "air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."  Six years later, the apocalyptic predictions about global warming have not been borne out, notwithstanding the dire rhetoric of Justice Stevens's opinion.  The earth's temperature has remained stable in the face of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Al Gore Strikes Out Again.  [Scroll down]  On the science, his project is riddled with mistakes.  For example, he says that a rise in carbon dioxide (CO2) causes dangerous global warming.  But the geologic record shows the exact opposite:  CO2 rises after the planet warms, mainly due to the oceans releasing CO2 held in solution at lower temperatures.  Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, consultant meteorologist and former research scientist with Environment Canada, adds, "The earth's climate has not warmed in 17 years according to the UK Met Office.  We may not see warming of the climate by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius in next 50 to 100 years."

Climate of Uncertainty.  Between 1998 and 2012 the global economy more than doubled in size — to some $71 trillion in GDP from $30 trillion.  That's the good news.  Over the same period the world pumped more than 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  That is supposedly the bad news.  Yet global surface temperatures have remained essentially flat.  That's the mystery:  If emitting CO2 into the atmosphere causes global warming, why hasn't the globe been warming?

What happens if sequestered CO2 is somehow released in a big cloud into a populated area?  Bhopal!
Rules that could 'kill'? Safety, cost concerns over EPA's new coal regs.  The EPA, by Friday, is expected to release a new proposal to set the first-ever carbon dioxide limits for new power plants.  To meet those emissions caps, power plants would likely have to use what is known as "carbon-capture technology," which involves burying the carbon underground.  The technology, which is still under development, remains expensive and not commercially available.  But there are lingering safety risks.

The Obama EPA's War on America.  Greenhouse gas emissions are primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), a gas vital to all life on Earth, the "food" that vegetation depends upon.  It plays no role whatever in a "global warming" that is not occurring.  It is emitted by the Earth's many active volcanoes and hot springs.  It is exhaled by humans and land animals.  It is the product of the combustion of hydrocarbons.  As it increased in the atmosphere, the Earth has entered a cooling — not a warming — spell since the late 1990s.  Its atmospheric concentration is a very tiny 0.039 percent by volume.  It is, however, the justification on which much of the EPA's enforcement activities are based.

An illustration that CO2 won't roast the Earth in a runaway tipping point.  ... because the Earth has experienced massive CO2 pulses and recovered before.

Earth's self regulation of Carbon Dioxide is remarkably stable.  Rising temperatures, influenced by natural events such as El Niño, have a corresponding increase in the release of carbon dioxide from tropical forest ecosystems, according to a new study out today.  The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a temperature anomaly of just 1°C (in near surface air temperatures in the tropics) leads to a 3.5-Petagram (billion tonnes of carbon) anomaly in the annual CO2 growth rate, on average.  This is the equivalent of 1/3 of the annual global emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation together.

Each ton of carbon we use creates thousands of dollars of wealth.
The Cost of Carbon Denial.  For the past several years, those seeking to strangle the world economy by denying it access to carbon have tried to gain support for their initiatives by inventing a concept called "the social cost of carbon."  According to this notion, the use of carbon imposes a cost on society through global warming, and therefore regulations to restrict the use of carbon create benefits that can be measured in dollar terms.  Pursuant to this strategy, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010 hired a crowd of consultants to generate estimates that would be useful for the cause.

The Deeply Secret Science of the EPA.  The EPA bolsters their case with drastic claims of all the people who will die if we don't eliminate the particular kind of pollution Ms. McCarthy is pushing on any particular day.  The EPA has gotten away with improbable claims about future deaths from whatever pollutant the EPA wants to ban.  Their unfounded regulations have been one of the most effective job killers of the past five years.  Carbon is not a pollutant, but one of the building blocks of life.  We are carbon life forms.  If we were to eliminate carbon from out atmosphere, we would eliminate all life.

Reduce U.S. Carbon Emissions To Zero, And The Temperature Decrease By 2100 Will Be Undetectable.  A year ago former Republican congressman Bob Inglis famously predicted the facts on global warming will "overwhelm" GOP resistance to climate change action, and alter the party's stance.  In response, he proposed a carbon tax.  Thanks to this, we provide you with a calculator that may overwhelm the entire notion.  It's our handy-dandy temperature savings calculator.

Pipe Dreams.  The West has an outdated idea of itself.  Europe still thinks it is the center of the universe and the Australian Greens may still conceive of themselves as defenders of the hottentots against the depradations of white imperialists.  When Australian Greens insist on the necessity of a cutback in "Greenhouse gases", of which Oz produces about 1%, they actually think they matter.  They don't matter [at all].

Court Mandates EPA Crack Down on New Emissions.  Should the federal government regulate emissions produced by dead trees?  A federal appeals court said yes, striking down the Environmental Protection Agency's attempt to delay regulation of biogenic carbon dioxide emissions from non-fossil fuel sources on Friday [7/12/2013].  The court affirmed the need for such emissions to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, negating the exemption made by the EPA for "biogenic carbon dioxide."

Peer-Reviewed Study Finds CO2 Not Responsible for Recent Global Warming.  Carbon dioxide emissions are not the primary factor driving recent global warming, a newly published peer-reviewed paper reports.  To the extent humans are enhancing the natural recovery from the Little Ice Age, CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) are the primary driver, according to University of Waterloo (Ontario) physics professor Qing-Bin Lu.

Mr. President, It's Not "Carbon Pollution" It's the "Elixir of Life!"  On June 25th, President Obama unveiled his plan to reduce what he refers to as "carbon pollution" — the emission of gaseous carbon dioxide into the air that primarily results from the burning of fossil fuels.  In discussing the rationale for his plan, the President claims that carbon dioxide, or CO2, "causes climate change and threatens public health" and that "cutting carbon pollution will help keep our air and water clean and protect our kids."  Unfortunately, President Obama's statements could not be further from the truth.

Beware! Media Will Support Obama's Climate Lies.  At the heart of the President's speech is his reference to "carbon pollution."  It has no scientific basis.  You will not read that in Wednesday's newspapers, nor hear it on radio and television unless you are tuned to conservative media.  The claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant is absurd insofar as it is, next to oxygen, the second most vital gas for life on planet Earth.  It is responsible for the growth of all vegetation, including crops vital to feeding humanity and the livestock on which they depend as a food source.

War on 'The Way We Live'.  First, did you know that our present atmosphere is actually carbon dioxide deficient?  Yes, according to the historical record there was only one other time when the planet's CO2 concentration and temperature were as low as they are today? [...] Second, Obama's call, and the [Detroit Free Press]'s endorsement, for reduced carbon dioxide levels is actually more of a threat to life on earth than CO2 increases.  That's because CO2 levels at 150 ppm or lower are not enough to support plant life [...]

Is Carbon Dioxide Guilty and Global Warming Settled Science?  If the much maligned CO2, a plant nutrient, is so bad for the planet, why do greenhouse growers buy CO2 generators to accelerate the growth and size of their plants?  The generators are made in the U.S. and run on propane and natural gas, turning fossil fuels into CO2.  A recent study showed that a slight rise in CO2 levels of the atmosphere has actually helped re-green deserts, accelerating the growth of trees, shrubs, and grasses which produce oxygen.

President Obama pivots to climate change.  "This Tuesday, I'll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go — a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change, and lead global efforts to fight it," Mr. Obama says.  "This is a serious challenge — but it's one uniquely suited to America's strengths."

The Editor says...
For once I would have to agree, since global warming has already been fixed by doing nothing, which is what many Americans do best.  Notice that Mr. Obama, like so many others who don't want to alienate the hoi polloi by using techical terms, says "carbon" when he really means "carbon dioxide."  Thus, he is calling carbon dioxide a pollutant, which (as shown many times on the remainder of this page) it is not.  Mr. Obama is repeating a lie, hoping that it will eventually turn into common knowledge.

The Effect of Elevated CO2 on Tomato Plant Lateral Root Growth .  Elevated CO2 increased both the number and length of the roots, and with more and longer lateral roots in a future CO2-enriched atmosphere, tomato plants (and likely other plants as well) should be better equipped to take up both major and micro nutrients from the soils in which they grow, making them both bigger and better and more apt to produce larger and more nutritious fruit ... and more of it.

Carbon Dioxide Does Not Cause Global Warming.  [Scroll down]  Many have drawn trend lines for the data on global temperature changes from 1998 to 2013, a period of a little over 15 years, that show a slight downward trend in global temperature for the past 15 years.  That could well be because the peak for 1998 was so high.  In any event, it is quite clear that the data show a definite downward trend during the past ten years, from 2003.  And during all of this time the CO2 was steadily increasing.  This is the exact opposite of what the global warming alarmists (charlatans masquerading as scientists) were telling us to try to get us to get behind the elimination of hydrocarbons (oil, gas and coal) as fuels for our vehicles and utilities.

Are Climate Scientists Wrong About Man's CO2 Emissions? .  The war against carbon dioxide is being waged with such vindictiveness, few have time to ask a material question:  Do temperature increases follow elevated CO2 levels or is it the other way around?

Amazon River exhales virtually all carbon taken up by rain forest.  The Amazon rain forest, popularly known as the lungs of the planet, inhales carbon dioxide as it exudes oxygen.  Plants use carbon dioxide from the air to grow parts that eventually fall to the ground to decompose or get washed away by the region's plentiful rainfall.  Until recently people believed much of the rain forest's carbon floated down the Amazon River and ended up deep in the ocean.  University of Washington research showed a decade ago that rivers exhale huge amounts of carbon dioxide — though left open the question of how that was possible, since bark and stems were thought to be too tough for river bacteria to digest.

So What, If Carbon Levels Hit 400ppm?  Spurred into action, green politicians duly pass green laws and impose green taxes that help impoverish us at a time of genuine economic hardship — all of which do precisely zip to help the environment.

Rising CO2 Levels May Not Make Earth Warmer, But Is Making It Greener.  Listening to the global warming alarmists, one would think that man-made CO2 emissions are threatening the globe.  But that's speculation.  Let's deal in reality.  And the reality, according to Australian research, is that in this era of higher carbon concentrations, plant life in dry regions has grown lush.  The greening of the deserts is due to the "fertilization effect" — the impact carbon dioxide has on plant life.

Greenhouse gases nearing highly dangerous levels, study finds.  Emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are growing at such a rate that the world will probably exceed a safe limit in average global temperatures by the end of the century and veer into a higher temperature zone that would profoundly damage economic growth and most other aspects of life, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency. [...] Average temperatures have risen by about 1 degree Celsius over the last 150 years or so, as mass industrialization spurred the increased combustion of fossil fuels.

The Editor says...
Yes, but most of the temperature increase in the 20th century occurred before 1940, and now that there are more automobiles on the road than ever before, global warming has stopped.  Also note that there were no world-wide temperature measurements until the late 20th century.  (If you went to your local weather bureau and found they were using a 150-year-old thermometer, would you have confidence in its accuracy?  If not, how can you put any confidence in an assertion about the increase in world-wide temperatures over the last 150 years?)  Moreover, note that the environmentalists can't point to a specific global average temperature and say it's just right.  All they care about is the increase (or decrease) per century.

Report: CO2 not responsible for global warming.  Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — not carbon emissions — are the real culprit behind global warming, claims a new study out of the University of Waterloo.  "Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC gases such as carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming.  But we have observed data going back to the Industrial Revolution that convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong," said Qing-Bin Lu, a science professor at the University of Waterloo and author of the study.

Study sees climate upside in greening arid regions.  Satellite data since the early 1980s have shown a flourishing of foliage worldwide, and scientists have suspected this change may be due partly to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas emitted by the burning of fossil fuels.

Bias alert!
Carbon dioxide is emitted by a lot more than just burning hydrocarbons and firewood.

In Defense of Carbon Dioxide.  Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide.  Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant.  That's simply not the case.  Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.

Guns Responsible for Global Warming.  [Scroll down]  But to liberals there's no problem here.  These are the same people who can claim that the global warming "problem" can be solved by closing coal-fired electric plants in the U.S. without even mentioning what's going on in China and India.  You have to conclude that whether it's gun control or global warming or whatever the left is most fervently pitching, facts don't matter:  emotions do.  And guns are a deep, emotional cultural issue for Americans.

Report: Carbon Emissions in US Lowest Since 1994.  Carbon emissions in the US were at their lowest level in 2012 since 1994, according to figures released by the US Energy Information Administration.  We did it without carbon trading scams, the EPA making carbon dioxide a poison, or obeying the dictates of the Kyoto climate Treaty.  We did it partly because of decreased economic activity as a result of the Obama recovery-that-isn't, but mostly because of good old fashioned market forces; competition between natural gas and coal.

CO2 Keeps Rising but Temperatures Refuse to Follow.  New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise but global temperatures are not following suit.  The new data undercut assertions that atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing a global warming crisis.  NOAA data show atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose 2.67 parts per million in 2012 to 395 ppm.  The jump was the second-highest since 1959, when scientists began measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Eco madness and how our future is going up in smoke.  [Scroll down]  Germany, which already has five times as many wind turbines as Britain, is now desperately building 20 new coal-fired stations in the hope of keeping its lights on.  The first, opened last September, is already generating 2,200 megawatts; nearly as much as the average output of all of Britain's wind farms combined.  China, already the world's largest CO2 emitter, is planning to build 363 more coal-fired power stations, without any heed of the vast amount of emissions they'll produce.  India is ready to build 455 new coal-fired power stations to fuel an economy growing so fast that it could soon overtake our own.

The minor significance of CO2:  CO2 is simply assumed to be the main climate forcing.  This is clearly illogical because at all time scales CO2 changes follow temperature changes.  Positive feedback from the other GHGs — notably water vapour and methane  [ — ]  is then added on to the effects of CO2 and attributed to it.  Obviously, in nature, the increase in CO2 and Humidity are both caused by rising temperatures.  It is also impossible to have a net positive feedback because systems with total positive feed back are not stable and simply run away to disaster.  We wouldn't be here to tell the tale if it were true.

Team of Ex-NASA Scientists Concludes No Imminent Threat from Man-Made CO2.  A group of 20 ex-NASA scientists have concluded that the science used to support the man-made climate change hypothesis is not settled and no convincing physical evidence exists to support catastrophic climate change forecasts.

How Should Washington Address Climate Change?  Despite all the talk of reducing U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, they're actually already at a 20-year low thanks in large part to the newly discovered reserves of natural gas, which burns with fewer carbon emissions than coal or oil.  Despite that domestic drop, global greenhouse-gas emissions are actually at an all-time high thanks in large part to the growing economics of China and India and their consumption of coal.

There is NO Significant Global Warming.  According to Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Global Warming with all its dire consequences is the result of the increase of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels to power our automobiles and airplanes, our electric power generating plants and our factories.  How much do you know about CO2?

More than 1,000 new coal plants planned worldwide, figures show.  World Resources Institute identifies 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India.

Fish Feces Sequester Carbon, Rogue Millionaire Poisons Pacific Ocean.  Does fish fecal matter fight global warming by carrying organic carbon to the bottom of the ocean where it is sequestered in sediment?  A new study claims that fish poo is under appreciated as a part of the natural carbon cycle and that it carries carbon to the ocean bottom much faster than dead zooplankton sink on their own.

Al Gore was Wrong About Carbon Dioxide.  Al Gore presented graphs in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" showing carbon dioxide (CO2) and temperature change from Antarctic Vostok ice core records as evidence that CO2 causes climate change.  But he got cause and effect reversed!  The record actually shows that the CO2 increase lagged the warming by about 800 years.  Temperature increases cause the oceans to expel CO2, increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere.

CO2 Versus Water.  CO2, water vapour and clouds have the most significant contributions to the greenhouse effect.  Various sources give conflicting estimates of the contributions of these components to the greenhouse effect.  The infrared absorption spectrum of atmospheric greenhouse gases is very complex.  In some regions absorption frequencies of various greenhouse gases overlap, so the contributions of each component do not add linearly.  Radiation at a particular frequency can be absorbed by either water vapour or CO2.

Myths and Facts about Global Warming.  Myth 4:  CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.  Fact:  Greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume.  They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount.  Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.039% of the atmosphere.  While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and  — in the end  — are thought to be responsible for 75% of the "Greenhouse effect".  At current concentrations, a 3% change of water vapour in the atmosphere would have the same effect as a 100% change in CO2.  Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention these important facts.

The Coming Environmental Battles.  With China, India and other developing countries massively increasing their greenhouse gas emissions, EPA's actions would do nothing to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels.  In fact, by 2013, China will emit twice as much carbon dioxide as the United States.  The EPA regs would, however, put government in charge of our entire economy, sharply increase energy prices for every business and household, kill millions of jobs, ensure that net tax revenues never materialize, and hurt poor families most.

Seismic risk of fracking has been wildly overstated.  Hydraulic fracturing to produce oil and gas has become closely associated in the public mind with the risk of triggering man-made earthquakes.  But the risk is not high and it is not confined to fracking.  There may be greater danger from geothermal energy production and pumping carbon dioxide underground as part of carbon capture and storage projects.

"Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide.  To say that that's a pollutant just boggles my mind.  What used to be science has turned into a cult. ... All the evidence I see is that the current warming of the climate is just like past warmings."

— William Happer, PhD.    
Former Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Energy    
Professor of Physics, Princeton University    
[Source]    

The Carbon Prayer.  It's not been a good year for the followers of 'man-made carbon dioxide as key driver of global temperature' theory.  Not least because the seemingly inexorable upward trend of global CO2 emissions (courtesy of the fast-industrializing nations) shows no signs of abating while global temperatures persist in flat-lining, even falling.  But hey, let's not let scientific fact interfere with a good computer-generated, speculative global scare story.

There is no global warming and no need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  The vast bulk of CO2 is natural.  The Earth produces 97% of the CO2 in the atmosphere.  The atmosphere is essentially and overwhelmingly water vapor.  CO2 plays no role in climate change.  Cap-and-Trade is a tax on energy use and Americans are constantly told that energy use in any form — coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear — is bad.  That's not just a lie, it is insane.

Carbon Dioxide:  The New Weapon of Mass Deception.  Surface temperature records from the climate research unit of the University of East Anglia show that global temperature fell from 1875 to 1910.  Temperature rose from 1911 to 1943.  Temperature fell again from 1944 to 1976.  Temperature rose from 1977 to 1998.  There has been no warming since 1998.  We are now in the 10th year of cooling.  While all these changes were happening carbon dioxide levels did nothing but go up.

New Mexico Governor-Elect Set to Battle Bureaucracy on CO2 Restrictions.  New Mexico Governor-elect Susana Martinez and the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board — an unelected part of the state bureaucracy whose members were all appointed by outgoing Governor Bill Richardson (D) — are poised for a monumental battle shortly after Martinez takes office January 1.

Another blow to warmist claims.  The theory that the minute amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere have an outsize influence on climate was dealt another serious blow by the publication in a peer-reviewed journal of a study showing that the climate about 460 million years ago was similar to that of today, even though atmospheric carbon dioxide was at least 4 or 5 times the level of today.

Clean Energy:  The Nuclear Solution.  First, it needs to be made clear that CO2 is not a pollutant.  It has a minuscule effect on Earth's temperature, and vegetation of all kinds depends on it.  The more the better.  Records from 30 of the world's most advanced economies show a positive correlation between CO2 emissions and increases in national income.  There's a similar correlation between per-person energy consumption and national income.  Of course, CO2 isn't the direct cause; the market economy causes the increase in energy use and emissions.  But wealthier economies emit less per unit of production than developing nations, which translates to a cleaner environment and an economy prepared to control pollution.

Climate Change 101:  Key Global Warming Facts.  [#1]  CO2 Increases Lag Temperature Increases. ... [Al Gore's] movie implies that more CO2 in the air produces higher temperatures.  But we've recently done more refined ice studies, which show the temperatures changed about 800 years before the CO2 levels.  More CO2 did not produce higher temperatures; instead, higher temperatures released more CO2 from the oceans into the atmosphere.

Warming and increased CO2 will be good for mankind.  "CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving 'pollutant' and 'poison' of their original meaning."

The Problems with Al Gore:  [Scroll down slowly]  The Earth's oceans contain more than fifty times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.  Carbon dioxide is more soluble in cold water.  As the oceans warm, they release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.  When the oceans cool, they absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  The science is no more complex than noting that a warm coke has more fizz than a cold one.  Temperature controls carbon dioxide, not the other way around.

Smoke and Mirrors in the Climate Science Game.  Besides the absurdity of the notion that humanity, at this stage in our development, could hope to "control climate change" of planet Earth, observant readers will ask:  how does anyone know that there is a consensus among climate scientists that our CO2 emissions are driving global climate, let alone that they are causing a crisis?  After all, climate was changing for billions of years before we arrived on the scene.  Are all the ancient natural climate drivers suddenly being eclipsed by human CO2 emissions?  No one knows for sure, although much recent research suggests it is highly improbable.

Cap-and-Trade:   A Scam Based on a Scam.  It is almost beyond comprehension that Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) will introduce the Cap-and-Trade Act on Wednesday, May 12th, for consideration by the Senate.  It is being passed off as a "climate bill" with provisions for more oil drilling, but it is an assault on reality, on science, on common sense, and on any future economic growth of the nation.

Whoops!  CO2 has almost nothing to do with global warming.  Dr [Roy] Spencer, formerly senior scientist for climate studies at NASA, now leads the US science team for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSRE) on NASA's Aqua satellite.  He co-developed the original satellite method for precise monitoring of global temperatures from Earth-orbiting satellites.  He's just the kind of egghead the IPCC claims to represent when it tells us the world is getting dangerously warmer, it's man's fault — the result of CO2 emissions — and it must be urgently addressed.  Except Dr Spencer doesn't agree with any of that.

Climate Change Agenda Exploits Incorrect Assumptions.  [Scroll down]  Exploitation of slow change and slow recoveries was built into claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Most notable was the proposition that human CO2 put into the atmosphere would remain there for over 100 years.  It is known as the residency time. ... In reality the residency time is between 5 and 6 years.  The idea also depends on the incorrect claim that CO2 increased from pre-industrial levels due solely to humans, but that's another story of deceptive science.

Fearlessly Independent:  An Interview with Ian Plimer.  The idea that global warming is caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide is always taken for granted as the default assumption, and if you don't agree with it, you have to explain yourself.  Let's reverse that presumption and put the burden of proof where it belongs:  is there, or has there ever been, any evidence that CO2 drives the climate?  Is this a theory that should ever have gotten off the ground?

Carbon storage premise 'totally erroneous'.  A research paper from American academics is threatening to blow a hole in growing political support for carbon capture and storage as a weapon against global warming.  The paper from Houston University says that governments wanting to use carbon sequestration have overestimated its value and says it would take a reservoir the size of a small US state to hold the carbon dioxide produced by one power station.

GAO Report:  Carbon Capture Increases Power Costs up to 80% .  A new Government Accountability Office report released today [7/16/2010] found that carbon capture and sequestration schemes favored by Democrats under their proposed cap and trade national energy tax boondoggle would increase electricity costs, reduce electricity output and increase water consumption.

Carbon Capture Projects Imperiled by Worst-Case Scenario: Energy.  The cloud of carbon dioxide that burst out of Lake Nyos in Cameroon and asphyxiated 1,700 people haunts the plans of oil and power companies to bury their greenhouse gases underground.  "It was shocking," said Minoru Kusakabe, a Japanese geochemist who makes regular trips to the site of the 1986 disaster near the border with Nigeria.  "The village was completely devastated, and people were in their homes dying."  While the source of the CO2 bubble was natural, originating from volcanic magma deep below the lake, the devastation shows how shifts in the Earth's crust can trigger worst-case scenarios for the energy industry...

The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory:  [Scroll down slowly]  NASA is stacking the cards, you see.  If they made it clear that every species of atmospheric gas gets heated mainly by conductive transfer, and that all heated bodies radiate light, then even a child could connect the dots:  "Oh.  So the whole atmosphere radiates heat to the earth and makes it warmer.  All of the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas."  Crash, boom, there goes the theory.  And there goes the abundant funding that this fear-promoting "science" attracts so well.  For what CO2 and water vapor emit is miniscule compared to the buzzing multitude of heated nitrogen, oxygen, and even argon, all of it radiating infrared too.

Global warming and the 'settled science' baloney.  To appreciate how unsettled global warming science really is, the book Unstoppable Global Warming, Every 1,500 Years, by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery is an indispensible and relentless handbook.  Published in 2007 and stuffed with over 500 references, it shatters almost every common global warming myth. ... In one of many startling conclusions in the book, Singer argues that increases in CO2 levels throughout recent geologic history, are the result of global warming not the cause.  Increases in global temperatures (for extraneous reasons) cause CO2 to outgas from the oceans, increasing its concentration in the atmosphere.  And there's much, much more debunking.

CO2 increase leads to faster tree growth.
Why are U.S. trees growing faster?  Trees in the U.S. are growing 2 to 4 times as fast as their long-term norm.  The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center at Edgewood MD says it is because of global warming, according to a recent press release.  Don't bet on that.

The CO2 Lie.  A major tenet of the global warming religion, straight from the Book of Gore, has been that the ability of the earth to handle increasing CO2 emissions is finite and that once the "tipping point" is reached, the earth will warm uncontrollably.  Well, another climate domino has fallen — the myth that man-made CO2 is leading to climate catastrophe.

A few questions for climate alarmists.  Even slashing carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 2005 levels would reduce projected global average temperatures in 2050 by barely 0.2 degrees F, according to a study that used the UN's own climate models.  That's because China, India and other developing countries are building new coal-fired power plants every week, even as the United States and Europe shackle their economies and send more jobs overseas.  How do you justify such destructive, punitive, meaningless legislation?

The Red Dragon's Carbon Footprint.  In the past few days there has been a common theme within the energy conversation:  China's carbon dioxide emissions are skyrocketing.

The EPA's Power Grab.  [Scroll down]  Carbon dioxide emissions are an energy use problem pure and simple, and not a byproduct problem like other forms of air pollution.  As Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, dissidents in the environmental movement, have written:  "Global warming is as different from smog in Los Angeles as nuclear war is from gang violence."  The only way to reduce CO2 emissions is to burn a lot less fossil fuel — ultimately almost none if the ambitious target of climate orthodoxy is to be met (an 80 percent reduction by the year 2050).

The Five Obama Fails.  Anthropogenic CO2 makes up about 3.2% of greenhouse gases.  New Zealand atmospheric scientist Augie Auer wrote that three-quarters of the earth is ocean, and 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is governed by water vapor.  "Of that remaining 5 percent, only about 3.6 percent is governed by CO2 and when you break it down even further, studies have shown that the anthropogenic (man-made) contribution to CO2 versus the natural is about 3.2 percent.  So if you multiply the total contribution 3.6% by the man-made portion of it, 3.2%, you find out that the anthropogenic contribution of CO2 to the global greenhouse effect is 0.115 percent ... It's minuscule ... it's nothing."

Boxer Says CO2 Leading Cause of Conflict Next 20 Years.  On Thursday [6/10/2010], Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) took to the floor of the Senate and claimed that carbon dioxide — that naturally occurring gas integral to life on this planet! — "will be over the next 20 years the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm's way".

The Editor says...
Get those bumper stickers ready:  "No blood for CO2!"

Carbon dioxide NOT causing a climate crisis, say scientists.  [Scroll down]  "Contrary to the common assumption that only 'outliers' and unqualified researchers disagree with the theory of carbon dioxide-induced climate disaster, The Register demonstrates that many leading experts contest this hypothesis", said Register endorser Dr. Tim Patterson, ICSC Chair and Professor of Earth Sciences at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada).  "Many in the Earth Sciences community in particular have trouble with the concept that today's climate change is in any way unusual or driven by human activity.  Climate has always changed, at times far faster than we are witnessing today, and it will continue to change no matter what we do."

The Climate Science Isn't Settled.  The main greenhouse substances in the earth's atmosphere are water vapor and high clouds.  Let's refer to these as major greenhouse substances to distinguish them from the anthropogenic minor substances.  Even a doubling of CO2 would only upset the original balance between incoming and outgoing radiation by about 2%.

December 7, 2009; Another Day of Infamy?  Bureaucracies are littered with and often controlled by Environmental Studies graduates with little or no science training.  They provide the data politicians use and they dominate the IPCC, especially the Summary for Policymakers.  Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator referred to controlling pollution in her public statement introducing the policy.  CO2 is not a pollutant and for the Administrator to call it such is a measure of ignorance of the science.  As a chemical engineer Jackson should be no better than most.  But this is not about science it is about control, especially of industry.

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds.  Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems.  In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

New study finds no rise in atmosphere share of CO2.  A study by Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, published in Geophysical Research Letters, finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

Four Colossal Holes in the Theory of Man-Made Global Warming.  One of the many revelations from Climategate is that behind-the-scenes, scientists who buy into man-made global warming are admitting what skeptics have been saying publicly for years now:  The globe has been cooling since 1998.  Again, if global warming has its bootlaces hitched to the amount of man-made greenhouse gasses that are being produced and those numbers are increasing, why hasn't the temperature gone up as well?  There's a simple answer:  Man-made greenhouse gasses are not a decisive factor in raising or lowering the temperature of the earth.

How Much Longer Before Climategate Explodes?  CO2 is a benign (actually beneficial) trace gas, which comprises around 0.03% of the earth's atmosphere.  Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), recently found that far from harming the world's oceans, elevated levels of CO2 help lobsters, crabs, shrimps, and other shellfish, grow thicker, stronger shells.  Plants require CO2 to perform photosynthesis, and would quickly die without it.  Far from being some "evil gas from hell," carbon dioxide is a life giving, vital part of the earth's ecology.

How is the government going to tax and regulate this?
Elevated Carbon Dioxide In School Traced To Students' Breath.  School officials are taking steps to ventilate Newfound Memorial Middle School after unusually high levels of carbon dioxide were detected.  Inspectors testing energy efficiency at the school made the discovery and determined that the source of the carbon dioxide is the students themselves.

Cleaning out the climate science cesspool.  [Scroll down]  There has been no statistically significant global warming for over a decade, despite steadily increasing CO2 levels — and for several years average annual global temperatures have actually declined.  Carbon dioxide plays only a minor role, many scientists say, and our climate is still controlled by periodic variations in the same natural forces that caused previous climate changes:  ocean currents and jet streams, water vapor and cloud cover, evaporation and precipitation, planetary alignments and the shape of the Earth's orbit, the tilt and wobble of Earth's axis, cosmic ray levels and especially solar energy output.

Greenhouse Gas Observatories Downwind from Erupting Volcanoes.  Problems in the collection of atmospheric CO2 data parallel other absurdities in the global warming fraud.  The Climategate scandal is exposing the massive and systematic fraud behind the fabrication of the worldwide temperature record necessary to make the case for global warming.  But what about the record of atmospheric CO2?

If no single factor can account for the climate system, why pick on CO2?  The answer is that CO2 is the best culprit because it fits in with their anti-industry and anti-capitalism bias and the WWF, and others, are happy to be handmaidens to doom despite the "unfortunate lack of comprehensive and well-resolved data".

Controlling climate?  More like controlling humans.  The proposed "solutions" to scientifically fading man-made global warming fears are set to alter American lifestyles and sovereignty in ways never before contemplated.  MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen has warned:  "'He who controls carbon controls life.  It is a bureaucrat's dream to control carbon dioxide."  Washington, D.C., and the U.N. are in a field of dreams right now as they envision one of the most massive expansions of controls on human individual freedom ever contemplated by governments.

Global Warming:  A Classic Case of Alarmism.  The IPCC blames human emissions of carbon dioxide for the last warming.  But by general consensus human emissions of carbon dioxide have only been large enough to be significant since 1940 — yet the warming trend was in place for well over a century before that.  And there was a cooling period from 1940 to 1975, despite human emissions of carbon dioxide.  And there has been no warming since 2001, despite record human emissions of carbon dioxide.

Global Warming 'Science'.  The problem with such seemingly serious assertions regarding CO2 is that, in spite of its increasing presence, it still remains just a trace gas in the atmosphere.  As of November 2007, the CO2 concentration in Earth's atmosphere was estimated at 0.0382% by volume, or 382 parts per million by volume.  Another problem is that natural production of CO2 from such sources as combustion of organic matter, natural decay of vegetation, volcanic emissions, and the natural respiration of all aerobic organisms dwarfs that produced by fossil fuel burning.  The U.S. Department of Energy has released estimates that nearly 97% of total CO2 emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth and that, because of the overwhelming presence of water vapor, manmade CO2 causes less than 0.12% of Earth's greenhouse effect.  To attribute so much power to affect the earth's climate to a man-made gas so minor in amount would appear to defy common sense.

Alarmism Is Underpinned by Fraud.  In the geological past, there have been six major ice ages.  During five of these six ice ages, the atmospheric carbon dioxide content was higher than at present.  It is clear that the colorless, odorless, non-poisonous gas called carbon dioxide did not drive past climates.  Carbon dioxide is plant food, not a pollutant.  Humans have adapted to live on ice sheets, deserts, mountains, tropics, and sea level.  History shows that humans and other organisms have thrived in warm times and suffered in cold times.

Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide.  The constancy of seasonal variations in CO2 and the lack of time delays between the hemispheres suggest that fossil fuel derived CO2 is almost totally absorbed locally in the year it is emitted.  This implies that natural variability of the climate is the prime cause of increasing CO2, not the emissions of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels.

EPA Poised to Declare CO2 a Public Danger.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will early next week, possibly as soon as Monday, officially declare carbon dioxide a public danger, a trigger that could mean regulation for emitters across the economy, according to several people close to the matter.  Such an "endangerment" decision is necessary for the EPA to move ahead early next year with new emission standards for cars.

Climategate:  A Willful Ignorance.  It is only willful ignorance that would keep a reporter or anyone else from knowing what has been known for years, that CO2 increases over the past 300,000 years have never caused temperature rise.  Indeed, the rise of CO2 always follows in the wake of a temperature increase.  What is so terribly wrong about the Copenhagen conference and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sponsoring it is that its own member scientists know that too.

Obama Gives China a Free Pass to Emit CO2.  The Copenhagen Conference ended in failure.  The "Copenhagen Accord," negotiated by a few of the participants at the end, is worth only the paper it will be printed on.  It is a possibly disastrous framework for future negotiations to take place in Bonn, Germany in mid-2010.  It suggests that the U.S. will once again pay most of the costs and get few of the benefits, if any.

Church bells to ring out warning on climate change.  The World Council of Churches on Thursday [11/12/2009] called on churches around the world to ring their bells 350 times during the Copenhagen climate change summit on December 13 as a call to action on global warming. ... "By sounding their bells or other instruments 350 times, participating churches will symbolise the 350 parts per million that mark the safe upper limit for CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere according to many scientists," it added.

The Editor says...
Please refer to the chart immediately below.  (Click to enlarge.)  The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has reached 440 ppm on a couple of relatively recent occasions, with no ill effects.  The arbitrary standard of 350 ppm has no merit.  And another thing — aren't these the same people who howl about the "separation of church and state" when the churches are used to promote conservative politics?

180 Years of Accurate Gas Analysis of Air by Chemical Methods.  [Scroll down]  It could be shown that between 1800 to 1961 more than 320 technical papers exist on the subject of air gas analysis containing verified data on atmospheric CO2 concentrations.  Callendar (engineer), Keeling (chemist) and IPCC do not evaluate these chemical methods though being standard in analytical chemistry, discredited these techniques and data and rejected most as faulty and highly inaccurate because not helpful proving their hypothesis of fuel burning induced rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse Gases at Highest Level Ever.  Greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere reached record highs in 2008, with carbon dioxide levels increasing faster than previously, the U.N. weather agency said Monday [11/23/2009].

The Editor says...
It is the policy of this web site to quote no more than one sentence from any Associated Press story, which is just as well because the story above, in my opinion, is a pack of lies.  In the second sentence, the reporter mentions that "detailed records" of greenhouse gas levels have been kept since 1998.  That's half true; measurements of carbon dioxide levels go back almost 200 years.  During the previous two centuries, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been much higher than they are now (see chart above), with no adverse effects.  Moreover, the writer doesn't even mention water vapor, which accounts for about 95 percent of the greenhouse effect.

CO2 driven global warming is not supported by the data.  CO2 — many seek to regulate it, legislate it, tax it, capture it, sequester it, cap it, trade it or otherwise control it.  And they who do would have us risk nothing less than worldwide economic destruction based on the theory that not doing so will inevitably lead to catastrophic global warming.  But one need only study the past two centuries of climate history to conclude that CO2 simply does not drive global warming.

NUMBY strikes Ohio.  Not Under My Back Yard — the phenomenon of citizens' groups organizing to stop the burial of carbon dioxide under their communities — succeeds again, this time in Ohio's Darke County, where Citizens Against Carbon Sequestration successfully fought off a proposed $92.6-million carbon storage plan.  Their 14-month protest effort involved yard signs, public meetings and a prayer rally.

Biomass fuel switch questioned.  Ice core samples from which temperature and atmospheric CO2 have been determined for the past 450,000 years refute CO2 causation of increased temperature in two ways. ... First, analysis shows that temperature increase PRECEDED CO2 increase by an average of 800 years.  Warming of the world's oceans led to the slow release of some of the huge amount of dissolved CO2, which is less soluble in warmer seawater.  Second, the eventual decrease in temperature also occurred first, i.e., cooling started while CO2 was still high!

Who is speaking for the plants?  All climate policy is designed to reduce atmospheric CO2, but that is not what the plants would vote for.  Plant producers have added CO2 to enclosed growing environments for 100 years to enhance growth.  Extensive research shows the beneficial effects including a significant increase in biomass including roots, size of the plant and yields.  Another benefit is a reduction in the amount of water used.  As CO2 levels increase the stomata (pores on the leaf) partially close thus moisture loss (transpiration) is reduced.  The current atmospheric CO2 level is reportedly 380 ppm.  Plant growth slows at 220 ppm and stops at 150 ppm.  Most plants grow 2 to 3 times faster in 1200 to 1500 ppm, but the optimum range is 800 to 1000 ppm.  This means plants are malnourished under current conditions.

Cap and Trade Primer:
Eight reasons why cap and trade harms the economy and reduces jobs.  The most popular way to regulate carbon dioxide emissions is through a cap and trade program.  President Obama and many policymakers support some form of this regulatory policy. ... These proposals are very, very costly and economically damaging.  If enacted, last year's flagship cap and trade proposal, the Lieberman-Warner bill, would increase the cost of gasoline by anywhere from 60 percent to 144 percent and increase the cost of electricity by 77 to 129 percent.

Scientist:  Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Cause Global Warming.  Leighton Steward is on Capitol Hill this week armed with studies and his book Fire, Ice and Paradise in a bid to show senators working on the energy bill that the carbon dioxide cap-and-trade scheme could actually hurt the environment by reducing CO2 levels.  "I'm trying to kill the whole thing," he says.  "We are tilting at windmills."  He is meeting with several GOP lawmakers and has plans to meet with some Democrats later this week.

Earth in Carbon Dioxide Famine, Says Scientist.  Fears of man-made global warming are "mistaken," and far from suffering from too much carbon dioxide, as the daily headlines proclaim, our Earth is actually in the midst of a "CO2 famine."  So says Will Happer. ... Np, Dr. Will Happer is not a celebrity.  He is merely a physicist of considerable renown who happens to agree with many of the world's other leading scientists that the current panic over climate change is a lot of "hysterics about carbon footprints."

EPA Expected to Declare Carbon Dioxide a Dangerous Pollutant.  Don't exhale.  That advice may need heeding if the Environmental Protection Agency declares carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases dangerous pollutants, a move — expected in the next couple weeks — that would require the federal government to impose new rules limiting emissions.  But some skeptics say regulating carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, may be a difficult task, especially since people emit carbon dioxide with every breath.

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Maybe there is no greenhouse effect after all.

Physicist:  CO2 Retains Heat For Only 0.0001 Seconds, Warming 'Not Possible'.  Mainstream climate science claims CO2 molecules "slow down the rate of heat loss from the surface" as a blanket does.  And yet the rate at which a CO2 molecule retains or slows down heat loss is, at most, a negligible 0.0001 of a second.  A CO2 concentration of 300 ppm versus 400 ppm will, therefore, have no detectable impact.  SkepticalScience, a blog spearheaded by climate science "consensus" advocate John Cook, is widely considered the explanatory guidebook for the anthropogenic global warming movement.  The blog claims CO2 molecules, with a representation of four parts in 10,000 in the atmosphere (or 400 parts per million, or ppm), collectively function as a blanket does in slowing down the rate at which the human body cools.

Did you know there's no such thing as a greenhouse gas?  In a real-world earthbound greenhouse — we all know what they look like even though there aren't many in existence anymore — the sun's short-wave infrared light penetrates through the glass roof, warming up what's inside the greenhouse:  air, plants, soil, etc.  As the things inside the greenhouse absorb the short-wave infrared, they convert it into heat — long-wave infrared.  This long-wave infrared, instead of readily penetrating glass on the way out, is partially blocked; greenhouse glass is said to be opaque to long-wave infrared.  Inside heat can escape from a greenhouse more readily if the temperature between inside and outside air increases.  However, the mechanism — convection — by which the greenhouse cools under such circumstances is altogether different from what the sun does to heat up the greenhouse. [...] Not so with the so-called "greenhouse" gasses, among them water vapor, methane (CH4) and, most controversially, carbon dioxide (CO2).

Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics.  The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea the authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861 and Arrhenius 1896, but which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism by which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system.  According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist.

Greenhouse Theory Disproved a Century Ago.  The claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) can increase air temperatures by "trapping" infrared radiation (IR) ignores the fact that in 1909 physicist R.W. Wood disproved the popular 19th Century thesis that greenhouses stayed warm by trapping IR.  Unfortunately, many people who claim to be scientists are unaware of Wood's experiment which was originally published in the Philosophical magazine, 1909, vol 17, p319-320.

Why Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.  The importance of this submission lies in the fact that the EPA needs to rapidly come to the conclusion that any and all hype about mankind's carbon dioxide emissions is based on the incorrect application of science.  Carbon dioxide has a nil effect on the global climate and does not cause climate change in any way, shape or form.  This submission will go against all the established interpretations, including those of many skeptical scientists, yet is based entirely upon the proper application of scientific principles, especially those of observation based evidence...

Rethinking the "greenhouse effect".  It is widely believed that without the greenhouse effect our planet's near-surface temperature would be about -18° Celsius, so we have greenhouse gases to thank for an average of +15° instead.  Water vapor, carbon dioxide and other such gases all combine to raise the air's temperature 33 degrees.  But is this true?  Actually, all we're going on is (1) that our atmosphere is much warmer than radiant energy calculations predict, and (2) that the air contains trace gases that react to infrared.  So we have assumed that these two things must be related.

Greenhouse Effect Poppycock.  What animates global warming concerns more than anything is the imaginary greenhouse effect and an equally imaginary law of physics called "radiative equilibrium".  Energy out must equal energy in, this "law" says.  Which does sound plausible on the face of it.  In this view, however, if the light emitted by a heated object is suppressed in some way, its radiant energy will increase past the level of radiant input until it breaks through the barrier... in obedience to this "law".  This notion originates from a long-ago misconception about how glass greenhouses work, thus the family name this "effect" goes by.

Update on the Greenhouse Effect Poppycock — Deception is near-total.  If glass lets visible wavelengths of sunlight in but doesn't let invisible long-wavelengths (infrared) out, thus raising the temperature inside, then glass thermometers have been misleading us for centuries.  According to the theory, glass thermometers necessarily register an extra "greenhouse effect," not the true temperature. ... Dissenters should have just stuck with the evidence:  there is no sign of CO2-caused warming at all.

Carbon Dioxide:  The Houdini of Gases.  How long does carbon dioxide linger in the air?  This is actually an important question, a question of so-called residence time.  Studies compiled by geologist Tom Segalstad rather convincingly show that earth's biological and chemical processes recycle CO2 within a decade, meaning that a CO2 molecule you're exhaling at the moment is bound to be captured by a plant or a rock or the ocean just a few years from now.  Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other authorities insist that carbon dioxide generally remains in the air for up to 200 years.

Heat Stored by Greenhouse Gases.  When investigating the propagation of energy, we must take into account the science of thermodynamics which allows us to predict the trajectory of the process; and the science of heat transfer to know the modes by which energy is propagated from one system to other systems.  We say that heat is not the same as temperature because heat is energy in transit.  Heat can exist in rotational, vibrational and translational motions of the particles of a system, whereas temperature is the measurement of the average of the kinetic energy of the particles of a substance.  The average of the molecular kinetic energy depends on the translational motion of the particles of a system.

Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics.  The relationship between so-called greenhouse gases and atmospheric temperature is not yet well understood.  So far, climatologists have hardly participated in serious scientific discussion of the basic energetic mechanisms of the atmosphere.  Some of them, however, appear to be starting to realise that their greenhouse paradigm is fundamentally flawed, and already preparing to withdraw their theories about the climatic effects of CO2 and other trace gases.

On the Phenomenon of Atmospheric Backradiation.  The phenomenon of "atmospheric backradiation" is presently advanced as an explanation of thermal conditions on Earth, and as the basis of some statements about climate change.  However, scientific evaluation in strict accord with the laws of physics and mathematics suggests that "atmospheric backradiation" is physical nonsense.

The sun heats the earth — period.  After all is said and done, it will be found that carbon dioxide does not and can not affect either the global temperature or climate change.  Carbon dioxide has no climate forcing effect and is not a greenhouse gas and, for that matter, neither is water vapour.

Politics and Greenhouse Gases.  Advocates and sympathetic politicians claiming that man-made global warming from use of carbon-based energy sources mandates international controls on economically prosperous nations were already worried that their victory is slipping.  Now another blow has been struck against the basic "science" used to support their case.  Following an extensive theoretical analysis, two German physicists have determined that the term greenhouse gas is a misnomer and that the greenhouse effect appears to violate basic laws of physics.

The "Greenhouse Effect" Hypothesis.  The "greenhouse effect" hypothesis of CO2 is based on the claim that Oxygen and Nitrogen do not absorb infrared radiation.  Only "greenhouse gases" absorb infrared according to this hypothesis.  It has been necessary to falsely claim that Oxygen and Nitrogen are transparent to infrared radiation in order to demonise CO2 and other gases and blame them for causing atmospheric warming.  All gases absorb and re-emit infrared radiation.  The fallacy of CO2 "greenhouse effect" is the keystone of AGW fraud.

Shattering the Greenhouse Effect.  A recommended essay by Swedish climatologist Dr. Hans Jelbring offers a high school through advanced level debunking of the so-called 'greenhouse effect.'  Dr. Jelbring finds that basic scientific principles demonstrate that global temperatures are not controlled by human emissions of 'greenhouse gases' and the 'greenhouse effect' is explainable using only the physics of pressure, gravity, volume, and the adiabatic lapse rate.

CO2 as a radiation valve contravenes the laws of thermodynamics.  "Heat-trapping gases," you hear, and "Radiation goes in but can't get out."  Well then, what is every explanation of the greenhouse effect pointing at but a radiation valve?  Since heat rays are prevented from exiting to space, it is claimed, they have nowhere else to go but back to the earth which, by absorbing them, becomes warmer. ... Simple as it is, though, no scientist in the world is able to construct a model that exhibits any radiative gain because the theory's tenets (called "the basic science") are not valid.  On a theoretical basis alone, conservation of energy (the First Law) forbids a model like this from working.

Fossil Fuel is Nuclear Waste.  To prop up claims of the mythical abilities of atmospheric carbon dioxide to determine climate conditions, the warmists fashioned a radiant energy balance sheet.  To avoid long term heating or cooling the energy inflows must match the outflows.  Just one problem, one heat source is completely ignored.  The AGW balance sheet shows ONLY solar input.  The 259 trillion cubic miles of molten rock that forms our planet is not melted, or maintained at present temperature by solar electromagnetic radiation.  This planet is internally warmed by fission of the 700,000 cubic miles of fissionable material burning in our mantle.

A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?  We've been told that the earth's surface is quite a bit warmer than calculations predict.  Theory has it that heat-trapping "greenhouse gases" account for a 33° Celsius disparity.  But it turns out that our airless moon is also quite a bit warmer than predicted.  Might something be wrong with the prediction method itself, then?

An opposing viewpoint:
Skeptical Arguments that Don't Hold Water:  [#1] There Is No Greenhouse Effect.  Despite the fact that downwelling IR from the sky can be measured, and amounts to a level (~300 W/m²) that can be scarcely be ignored; the neglect of which would totally screw up weather forecast model runs if it was not included; and would lead to VERY cold nights if it didn't exist; and can be easily measured directly with a handheld IR thermometer pointed at the sky (because an IR thermometer measures the IR-induced temperature change of the surface of a thermopile, QED)...  Please stop the "no greenhouse effect" stuff.  It's making us skeptics look bad.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart

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Politics of Climate Science:  Selective Research, Ignored Facts.  [Water] covers much more of the surface than land, makes it unique from the other planets, and without it life as we know it would not exist.  Search for water is a constant theme in space exploration.  Despite all this what we actually need is more knowledge about water and its functions on Earth, especially with regard to weather and climate.  All the emphasis is on temperature, but what happens to precipitation is far more important for plants and agriculture.  Precipitation is mentioned in claims of increased droughts with global warming, but it's a scare tactic and illogical.  Warmer temperatures mean more moisture in the air with more precipitation potential, not less.

Reducing Vehicle Travel Won't Make Much Dent in Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  A highly publicized July report by the Urban Land Institute, titled Moving Cooler, also called for policies reducing the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by people in their cars.  The reductions would be forced by highly intrusive land use policies allowing for only minor expansion of roadway capacity and forcing almost all new development to be within existing urban footprints.  It would employ such radical strategies as forcing people to pay $400 per year to park their cars in front of their own homes.

The Editor says...
Allow me to simplify this issue:  Leftist politicians want to raise taxes and restrict your freedoms in order to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Group sues to force greenhouse gas regulation.  An environmental group is suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to force the agency to regulate emissions of gases blamed for global warming.  Public Citizen's lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday [10/6/2009] in Travis County District Court, accuses the regulatory agency of violating the state's Clean Air Act by refusing to issue standards for controlling the emissions of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants.

The Editor says...
The state of Texas has not, as far as I know, declared CO2 to be a pollutant.

Humans and Their CO2 Save the Planet!  Carbon dioxide is first and foremost a plant food.  In fact, plants take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use the energy from sunlight to combine the CO2 with water to yield glucose, the simplest sugar molecule.  Carbon dioxide is also the source of all organic — this word just means "contains carbon" — molecules synthesized by plants. Without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there would be no organic molecules synthesized by plants.  The less carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the fewer organic molecules synthesized by plants.  All animals depend on plants to synthesize essential organic molecules.  Without the organic molecules synthesized by plants, the animal world could not exist.  Without plants, there would be no biosphere.

I like trees, but not tree-huggers.  No, I am not a tree-hugger, and I will not become one; it's a dignity thing on both sides.  I am nevertheless well-disposed to trees, and have been for as long as I can remember.  This is among my motives for opposing environmentalists, currently demanding the reduction of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.  Trees live on carbon dioxide, and it is the hypocritical friend who flatters while he plots to choke you.

The Empirical President.  China, which has already passed the United States as the world's chief emitter of CO2, is adding 100 gigawatts of coal-fired electricity per year.  That amounts to another U.S.A.'s worth of coal consumption every three years.  The rest of the developing world is rushing to do the same.  Brazil, Indonesia, India, and South Africa are burning coal because it is cheap and plentiful.  And no one is even asking them to refrain because to do so is to ask them to remain poor.

Al Gore and Friends Create Climate of McCarthyism.  Indeed, nobody emits CO2 for fun.  CO2 emissions result from other, generally beneficial acts, such as burning coal to keep warm, burning kerosene to cook, or burning petrol to transport people.  The benefits of fossil fuels must be weighed against the costs of global warming.  Gore and Hansen want a moratorium on coal-fired power plants, but neglect the fact that the hundreds of new power plants that will be opened in China and India in the coming years could lift a billion people out of poverty.

Higher Carbon Dioxide Levels Benefit Sea Stars.  Warmer water and elevated carbon dioxide levels help sea stars grow faster, reports a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The finding adds to a growing number of studies showing higher carbon dioxide levels are beneficial to marine life and do not cause harmful ocean acidification, as claimed by global warming alarmists.

A Primer on Global Warming: Dispelling CO2 Myths.  The scientific facts clearly show carbon dioxide is a good thing, not something we should fear.  CO2 is not a pollutant.  On the contrary, carbon dioxide makes crops and forests grow faster.  Satellite mapping shows the Earth has become about 6 percent greener overall in the past two decades, with forests expanding into arid regions.  The Amazon rain forest was the biggest gainer, with two tons of additional biomass per acre per year.  Certainly climate change does not help every region equally, but careful studies predict overall benefits — fewer storms, more rain, better crop yields, longer growing seasons, milder winters, and lower heating costs in colder climates.  The news is certainly not bad and on balance may be rather good.

EPA Rules CO2 a Danger, Prepares to Regulate.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the finding "confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations," while EPA's ruling said evidence human activities cause global warming is "compelling and overwhelming," according to an EPA press statement.  In addition to carbon dioxide (CO2), the ruling applies to methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

The regulation of essential elements of life.  The EPA is now considering designating CO2 a dangerous pollutant.  The regulation of essential elements of life by our government scares me.  It should scare us all.  I am devastated by the notion that our own government founded on freedom would regulate and control the most fundamental aspects of life on earth. ... We generally have too much water where we don't need it and too little where we do.  Are you planning to regulate water also? ... Carbon dioxide is just as essential to life as water and oxygen.  Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than oxygen or water.

Lovely Organic Oil.  Let's examine a few things we know about carbon.  It is the basic building block of all life (no wonder the EPA wants to control this).  It is the byproduct of various processes such as breathing and burning.  It is essential for plant growth.  The optimal level of carbon in the air is unknown, but its relative amount of the airs composition is very small.  So when carbon is emitted it is absorbed by other parts of the environment in a seemingly endless cyclical process.

Climate, Water, Carbon Dioxide, and the Sun.  Without our atmosphere the Earth would be a frozen ice ball at about -18°C.  Natural greenhouse due to atmospheric blanket raises the temperature by about 33°C and at least 2/3 of this warming is attributed to the greenhouse impact of water vapor.  It is the water vapor that is by far the most important greenhouse gas.  CO2 and the other greenhouse gases play only a subordinate role in the overall temperature amplification:  in nature as well as in the climate models.

Spending billions on a non-existent problem.  The term "greenhouse gas emissions" is either deliberately misleading or indicates complete ignorance of the science, or both.  What they really mean is CO2, yet it is less than 4% of greenhouse gases and the human portion a fraction of that.  Why do they want it reduced?  It is not a pollutant and not causing global warming or climate change.  Reducing it is completely unnecessary and harmful for the plants and will cost trillions.

All life on planet depends on CO2.  The 2007 IPCC Report claimed with over 90% certainty that human produced CO2 is almost the sole cause of global warming.  But the evidence shows this can't be true; temperature changes before CO2 in every record of any duration for any time period; CO2 variability does not correlate with temperature at any point in the last 600 million years; atmospheric CO2 levels are currently at the lowest level in that period; in the 20th century most warming occurred before 1940 when human production of CO2 was very small; human production of CO2 increased the most after 1940 but global temperatures declined to 1985; from 2000 global temperatures declined while CO2 levels increased; and any reduction in CO2 threatens plant life, oxygen production and therefore all life on the planet.

The Great Government CO2 Power Grab.  The inevitable has happened.  The Obama government has declared CO2 — a nutrient required by plants to live, and a gas exhaled with your every breath — a pollutant.  Let there be rejoicing in the ranks of activists.  Do what we say!  Now, when I say that what occurred was "inevitable" it means that there was nothing anybody could have done to stop the government from doing what it lusted to do.  No facts would have stopped them, no arguments, no evidence, no sober quantifications of uncertainty.  This was going to happen as soon as Obama was elected.  Control is what was wanted and control is what was had.

Terms of Endangerment.  The White House is currently reviewing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "endangerment finding" that as a matter of law CO2 is a pollutant that threatens the public's health and must therefore be subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.  Such a rulemaking would let the EPA impose the ossified command-and-control regulatory approach of the 1970s, even if Democrats never get around to passing a cap-and-tax bill, says the Wall Street Journal.

Rep. Barton: Even Democrats Divided on Climate Change.  [Scroll down]  Under Obama, the EPA has issued an endangerment finding saying that carbon dioxide is a hazard to public health.  "Of course, they've not really given any explicit examples of that, because they can't," Barton says.  "There's never been anybody who's been treated in an emergency room for CO2 poisoning.  It doesn't cause asthma; it doesn't cause your eyes to water; it doesn't cause cancer."  Barton says the average healthy adult exhales between four-tenths of a ton and seven-tenths of a ton of CO2 a year.

Truths and Myths About Carbon Dioxide, Scientific Consensus, and Climate Models.  Without greenhouse warming, the earth would be much too cold to sustain its current abundance of life.  However, at least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds.  Carbon dioxide is a bit player.  There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration will be a small increase of the earth's temperature — on the order of one degree.  Additional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can.

CO2 And You.  While a bill that's intended to cut carbon dioxide emissions wends its way through Congress, an arm of the legislative branch is warning that doing so will have nasty economic consequences.

When Expenses Outweigh Benefits.  Should the Environmental Protection Agency place limits on carbon dioxide emissions, the costs to the oil industry, its customers and consumers in general will be stiff.  Fighting global warming is not cheap.

Protect us from the EPA.  One man's meat may be another man's poison, but the Environmental Protection Agency has taken the idea to an absurdity.  EPA has just sent a proposal to the White House that would classify carbon dioxide as a health hazard.  But if there wasn't carbon dioxide around, there would be no plants.  And, for that matter, neither would there be any people or pets if we weren't allowed to exhale.

Green hysteria shackles our economic growth.  I am surprised so many people in Europe, the US and elsewhere have come to support policies underpinned by hysteria over global warming, particularly cap-and-trade legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions and subsidies for "green" energy sources.  I am convinced this is a misguided strategy — not only because of the uncertainty about the dangers that global warming might pose, but also because of the certainty of the damage that policies aimed at mitigation will cause.

In praise of Carbon:  There is no scientific theory linking carbon dioxide to the "runaway" global warming that is the basis of the calamitous predictions.  The contribution of the gas to the making of a comfortable planet by the greenhouse effect is well understood, modest and self-limiting.  It is only turned into a terror by computer models.  These are worthless; depending as they do on extensive guesswork about the ill-understood mechanisms and interactions involved in climate, and involving so many tunable parameters and feedback factors that they could produce any desired result by appropriate tweaking.  A quarter of a century ago, before science came under firm bureaucratic control, such models would have been laughed out of court.

Negligible Global Effect of Greenhouse-gas Emission Limits in Pennsylvania.  In this report, we provide a review of Pennsylvania's climate history and show that there is little observational evidence of unusual long-term climate changes taking place that could be linked to anthropogenic "global warming" — despite the frequent prognostications to the contrary, often accompanied by doom and gloom scenarios.  Instead of rising temperatures, the state's annual average temperature has remained relatively unchanged over the past century.

Eight Fallacies about Global Warming:  The reality is that there is no clear evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide have any measurable effect on temperatures.  Such a claim rests on climate models of unproven accuracy and on lines of physical argument that expressly exclude consideration of other known important drivers of climate change. ... At its most basic, if scientists cannot be sure that temperatures are today rising, nor establish that the gentle late 20th century warming was caused by CO2 emissions, then it is nonsense to propose that expensive controls are needed on human carbon dioxide emissions.

Clown Cars.  In exchange for lower emissions of CO2, which is a pollutant based on politics, not reality, and is such a weak greenhouse gas that man's puny contribution can't possibly have any effect on climate, we'll have more death on the roads.  Is this the trade-off that the country should be willing to accept?  Do we really want more of these minis and micros being knocked around and crushed by bigger automobiles?  Are we willing to see these cars lose deadly battles with utility poles, guard rails and concrete walls?

Cap-and-trade — 'Largest tax increase of all time'.  Is the carbon dioxide that humans exhale a public danger?  Yes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  The EPA has released an endangerment finding on carbon dioxide.  The finding will allow the gas to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, something the Act was not intended to do when it was enacted over 30 years ago.  Aggressive cap-and-trade measures are being debated on Capitol Hill and, if enacted, are rumored to rake in trillions of dollars for the federal government and raise the cost of living for Americans by thousands of dollars.

Your EPA Mafia At Work.  I am increasingly of the opinion that the main goal of the Obama administration through CO2 regulation, exploding deficits, punishing taxation, and any other means at their disposal is the destruction of the economy and the complete control of impoverished Americans.  This is an administration that exists to impose an Orwellian socialist utopia when the smoke clears.  When it comes to CO2, Obama, all of his so-called science advisors, and the Environmental Protection Agency are all lying.  A criminal fraud is being perpetrated.

EPA:  Greenhouse gases threat to human health.  Declaring that greenhouse gases are a significant threat to human health, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed listing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a policy the Bush administration rejected.  The White House acknowledged that the EPA had transmitted its proposed finding on global warming to the Office of Management and Budget, but provided no details.

An obvious power grab:
EPA:  Global Warming Threatens Public Health, Welfare.  The Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposal to the White House on Friday [3/20/2009] finding that global warming is endangering the public's health and welfare, according to several sources, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the nation's economy and environment.

EPA moving toward carbon regulation.  Taking another step toward regulating emissions of greenhouse gases, the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency is declaring that global warming poses a threat to public health.

CO2 Fairytales in Global Warming.  Of course we know now that CO2 was rolled out as the "poster child" nemesis against the environment.  It was meant to get us hysterical enough to plead with our politicians to exact a tax on our carbon footprints so that we can save the planet earth.  But it's turning out that the CO2 "poster child" has significant problems.  Despite the fact that Carbon is a part of the CO2 molecule, the atmospheric science of CO2 directly contradicts what the AGW alarmists are trying to sell us.  Promoting CO2 as the environmental monkey on our back is absolutely ludicrous.  CO2 is friend to all life, not a foe.

EPA Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide for First Time.  The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, The New York Times reported on Wednesday [2/18/2009], citing senior Obama administration officials.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has asked her staff to review the latest scientific evidence and prepare documentation for a finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health and welfare, the newspaper said.  There is wide expectation that Jackson will act by April 2, the second anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that found that EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse pollution under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

Stop the CO2 Madness!  Carbon dioxide is not a "pollutant" as the Supreme Court has ruled.  How can the Earth's second most vital gas, other than oxygen, be a pollutant?  Not one single piece of vegetation on Earth could exist without CO2.  Without vegetation, no animal life including our own could exist on Earth.  The notion that the EPA would regulate it is preposterous.  It is absurd.  It is criminal.  It is immoral.  It has no basis whatever in the actual science of the world's climate.  It is based on a massive, global hoax masterminded by the United Nations and carried out by charlatans such as Al Gore and NASA's James Hansen. ... The assertion that human beings and/or industrial activity have any effect on [Earth's] atmosphere is an instrument of fascism.

Administration Selling Environmentalist Window Insurance.  The greens demanded that EPA classify carbon dioxide — the overwhelming majority of which is produced by Mother Nature — an "endangerment" to human health and the environment, at least when it comes from U.S. automobile tailpipes.  The reasoning, of course, was that U.S. cars cause "global warming."  It does not matter that, since the Court ruled, planetary cooling has accelerated even as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise steadly.  Browner's excuse is also lame because the Court did not order the Agency to regulate GHGs under the Clean Air Act, but rather made clear that EPA can simply ground a reason for not doing so in the statute.  One obvious such reason is that even eliminating all U.S. vehicles would have no climatic impact.

Carbon is the World's Best Friend.  Carbon dioxide is not the dreaded greenhouse gas that the global warmers crack it up to be.  It is in fact the most important airborne fertiliser in the world and without it there would be no green plants at all.  In fact, a doubling of the levels of this gas in the atmosphere would bring about a marked rise in plant production — good news for everyone, especially those malnourished millions who can't afford chemical fertilisers.

Climate Fears Distort U.S. Energy Policies.  There is no question that the exaggerated concern about global warming is distorting energy policy in the United States, and indeed throughout the world.  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, most of the media, and almost all politicians have demonized carbon dioxide as a pollutant whose emissions have to be reduced.  It is significant that proponents of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) have largely ignored natural climate influences, principally from changes in solar activity.  Yet the evidence is overwhelming that such natural factors control the climate and that the greenhouse effect from rising carbon dioxide, while certainly present, is insignificant and as yet undetectable.

Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas:  The internal combustion engine and gasoline were awful polluters when they were first invented.  And, both gasoline and automobile engines continued to leave a layer of smog behind right up through the 1960's.  Then science and engineering came to the environmental rescue.  Better exhaust and ignition systems, catalytic converters, fuel injectors, better engineering throughout the engine and reformulated gasoline have all contributed to a huge reduction in the exhaust emissions from today's cars.  Their goal then was to only exhaust carbon dioxide and water vapor, two gases widely accepted as natural and totally harmless.  Anyone old enough to remember the pall of smog that used to hang over all our cities knows how much improvement there has been.  So the environmentalists, in their battle against fossil fuels and automobiles had a very good point forty years ago, but now they have to focus almost entirely on the once harmless carbon dioxide.  And, that is the rub.  Carbon dioxide is not an environmental problem; they just want you now to think it is.

Calling Carbon Dioxide A Pollutant Doesn't Make It A Pollutant.  It is becoming increasingly fashionable to maintain that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, one that should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Warning:  Breathing causes global warming.  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson opened Pandora's box recently by agreeing to reconsider a Bush administration decision that excluded carbon dioxide from the list of pollutants the agency regulates under the Clean Air Act.  Human beings and animals exhale the carbon dioxide that plants use in photosynthesis.  A byproduct of photosynthesis is normally oxygen breathed by human beings and animals.  So to even consider classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant is, to put it mildly, quite a stretch.

The Saturated Greenhouse Effect:  Considering that we are told "the science is settled", one would think that the strength of the greenhouse effect (GHE) on Earth would be calculated based on atmospheric physics.  That is, the computer models of the atmosphere would incorporate the physics of how the greenhouse effect works, so that by inputing some measured physical properties, the atmospheric gases, the models would determine the strength of the greenhouse effect and the surface temperatures.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.

If greenhouse gases are bad, how come rising CO2 levels increase agricultural productivity?  Plenty of evidence from numerous studies indicates that the Earth has far more capacity to absorb greenhouse gases than the IPCC gives it credit for, many times more, and that additional CO2 will actually be beneficial to farming, both in the quantity and the quality of crops that can be raised.

Carbon Dioxide Levels Are a Blessing, Not a Problem.  For centuries, bloodletting was an accepted medical procedure administered by physicians to treat patients for most illnesses.  In today's world, we find it almost inconceivable that such a practice was condoned by entire populations.  Similarly, the claim that increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is causing "global warming" has been accepted as "fact" in many countries worldwide.  This belief has no more scientific foundation than the bloodletting of past generations.

The Plain Truth about Glorious Carbon Dioxide.  If any of the nitwits babbling about CO2 and global warming ever went to any of the several dozen excellent websites that provide accurate scientific data and analysis, they would cease from their abusive manipulation of the public and perhaps find honest work.  To begin at the beginning; at the heart of the global warming hoax is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  While it purports to represent the views of thousands of scientists, it does not.

Satanic Gas:  Carbon is the sixth element in the periodic table.  It is unique among the elements in the vast number and variety of compounds it can form.  With hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements, it forms a very large number of compounds.  There are close to ten million known carbon compounds, many thousands of which are vital to organic and life processes.  Carbon is essential for life.  [And yet] carbon is now being demonised by the media and by ministers of the Crown.

The Climate-Change Reformation.  Al Gore — outdone only by L. Ron Hubbard in his ability to weave science fiction into a religion — is reforming the climate change faith, and turning it toward the discussion of energy independence and American financial viability.  The truth, alas, has proved too inconvenient to ignore.  Among non-partisan researchers, there is now little doubt that human-generated carbon dioxide makes only an insignificant contribution to climate change.

EPA Proposes CO2 Regulations, Seeks Comments from Public.  The [Supreme] Court ruled the Clean Air Act (CAA) authorizes EPA to regulate automotive greenhouse gas emissions if and only if EPA determines they cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be expected to endanger public health or welfare.  While the case specifically addressed automotive greenhouse gas emissions, the Court's reasoning could be extended to stationary sources such as power plants.

Greenhouse Gas Reporting:  Frequently Asked Questions.  The U.S. Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program was established by Section 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 to provide a means for organizations and individuals who have reduced their emissions to record their accomplishments.

The Great Global Warming Swindle.  CO2 is a very small gas in the atmosphere.  It is vital of course — without it we wouldn't be here.  But it's small.  It's not at all the most important greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gases themselves, and the 'greenhouse effect', form only one small part of the earth's climate system (and not a very well understood part either).  There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature on any significant timescale, except where you find, in ice core data, CO2 levels being influenced by temperature levels (there's a time lag between the two phenomena).  Even global warmers admit that, for CO2 to make any difference, there would need to be some mechanism to amplify its effect in the atmosphere.  No such amplifier has been shown to exist.

Carbon Garden:  To listen to Gore and the legion of global warming alarmists, carbon dioxide is our greatest enemy.  Not extremist Islamic jihadis.  Not widespread economic collapse caused by hyperregulation of the world's economic leader, the U.S.  Not global protectionism.  Not a planet starved of energy.  Yet it's carbon dioxide concentrations, not empty gases spewed by self-important busybodies, that are making the Earth bloom.  CO2 levels are at their highest since humans began keeping records.  The increased CO2 is fertilizing plants with needed carbon, making them grow bigger and faster.

In praise of CO2:  Planet Earth is on a roll!  GPP is way up.  NPP is way up.  To the surprise of those who have been bearish on the planet, the data shows global production has been steadily climbing to record levels, ones not seen since these measurements began.  GPP is Gross Primary Production, a measure of the daily output of the global biosphere — the amount of new plant matter on land.  NPP is Net Primary Production, an annual tally of the globe's production.  Biomass is booming.  The planet is the greenest it's been in decades, perhaps in centuries.

'Medieval Environmentalists' attack CO2 in their efforts to derail civilization.  Why are carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, particularly the relatively small amount emitted by human activity, the sole focus of most climate change debates?  In scientific circles, CO2 is referred to as a 'trace gas' that, for hundreds of thousands of years, has remained at or below five ten-thousandths of the atmosphere by volume.  Even among the so-called 'greenhouse gases' (GHG), CO2 accounts for less that 4%, with water vapour being by far the most significant GHG.  CO2 is clearly a miniscule component of the massive mechanisms that create climate and cause climate change.

Truth Stripped Naked.  A new study accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Letters debunks the greenies' climate hysteria and the political pretext for draconian restrictions on our economy that have become so popular with environmentalists and grandstanding politicians. …Climatology pioneer Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the department of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, said the new study shows "you can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide."

This global-warming fraud is designed to reduce our standard of living.  I read with interest Sen. John Kerry's and Teresa Heinz Kerry's "Too much hot air on global warming." … But the Kerrys say nothing about reducing emissions from the number-one source in Washington state.  Mount St. Helens, by itself, puts out thousands of times more CO2 than all the autos in the nation combined!

Alleviate world hunger produce more clean carbon dioxide.  Far from being a pollutant, man along with every animal on land, fish in the sea, and bird in the air is totally dependent on atmospheric carbon dioxide for his food supply.  Some politicians complain that the United States with only 3% of the world population uses 25% of the energy.  But the clean carbon dioxide which we produce is increasing food production everywhere on earth.

Global Warming Heresy:  Manmade carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 5 percent of the total; the rest are from natural sources such as volcanoes, dying vegetation and animals.  Annually, volcanoes alone produce more carbon dioxide than all of mankind's activities.  Oceans are responsible for most greenhouse gases. ... The bottom line is, the bulk of scientific evidence shows that what we've been told by environmentalists is pure bunk.

In Science, Ignorance is not Bliss.  NASA's Aqua satellite is showing that water vapor, the dominant greenhouse gas, works to offset the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2).  This information, contrary to the assumption used in all the warming models, is ignored by global warming alarmists.

"The Sky is Falling ... Again!"  That's right, the radical environmentalists with nothing better to do, august representatives of academia and your cozy little fuzz ball politicians, have ginned up a new crisis.  This time it is the ocean. … According to the all-wise pundits, man-made CO2 is rising into the upper atmosphere and is causing global warming.  That's somewhat interesting in that CO2 is heavier than air and should sink, not rise.

Unbearable Legislation:  America's energy infrastructure will be crippled, and for what?  China is building two coal-fired power plants a week and plans to build 97 airports in the next 12 years.  Even if the United States reduces its carbon emissions to zero, global emissions are still likely to increase.  If greenhouse gases are truly causing problems for the polar bear, U.S. legislative action will do nothing to protect it.

San Francisco Regulators Seek Greenhouse Fee.  San Francisco-area air quality regulators are proposing to charge a fee to most businesses based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit.  The fee — 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide — would affect everything from oil refineries to power plants and would include landfills, factories, and small businesses such as restaurants and bakeries.

The Myth of Vanishing CO2 Emissions:  Environmental activists and some politicians are now promoting the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent or more by mid-century.  CEO William O'Keefe and President Jeff Kueter, both of the George C. Marshall Institute, investigate whether this proposition is achievable and what this would cost Americans.

Zealotry over global warming could damage our Earth far more than climate change.  Carbon dioxide, like water vapour and oxygen, is not only completely harmless but is an essential element in our life support system.  Not only do we exhale carbon dioxide every time we breathe, but plants need to absorb carbon dioxide in order to survive.  Without carbon dioxide, there would be no plant life on the planet.  And without plant life, there would be no human life either.

When Your Only Tool is Coercion, Every Problem Looks Like Too Much Freedom.  The entire purpose of [North Carolina's Climate Action Plan Advisory Group] was to find ways in which the citizens of the state could be forced to modify their behavior in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. … The interesting — and undisputed — fact is that these restrictions will not result in an overall reduction in global temperatures, even if the whole world adopts them.  Yet CAPAG refused to take this into consideration during its deliberations.

Earth Day Is a Holiday For Liars.  I have followed the apocalyptic claims and the legislated mandates of the environmental movement since the 1970s and their single unifying factor has been the lies told to achieve various elements the Green agenda. … There is no scientific justification for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Carbon dioxide represents a miniscule 0.038% of the Earth's atmosphere and increases in CO2 always follow climate change.  It does not initiate it.  The Greens are lying.

Environmentalists Oppose New CO2 Scrubber Idea.  Scientists at Columbia University are developing a carbon dioxide (CO2) scrubber device that removes one ton of CO2 from the air every day.  While some see the scrubber as an efficient and economical way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, many environmentalists are opposing the technology because it allows people to use fossil fuels and emit carbon in the first place.

The Editor says...
One could easily conclude that the environmentalists don't care about reducing CO2 in the atmosphere as much as they care about suppressing and inhibiting industrial activity.

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System.  Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect.  Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

EPA Seeks To Have Water Vapor Classified As A Pollutant.  If successful, the push to classify water vapor as a dangerous pollutant would impact virtually everyone.  For instance, homeowners could see a wide variety of common activities that cause evaporation being regulated:  watering the lawn, or using a hot tub or swimming pool.  "Right now, we are not so concerned about the water vapor exhaled by people.  That is low on our list of priorities", said Mr. Donaldson.  "We'll tackle that manmade source at a later time."

The Editor says...
Evidently he's not kidding.  This is just another way the EPA, having outlived its usefulness, is desperately looking for something to fix.  How do you suppose Mr. Donaldson is going to keep the lakes and oceans from producing water vapor?

Let the rest of the world make climate errors.  Kevin Rudd has an unfortunate proclivity for proclaiming Australia should lead the world in its response to global warming.  For a country so richly endowed with carbon-based energy resources, this does not immediately commend itself as the most obvious policy course for us to follow.  And the latest discussion paper on emissions trading from the Garnaut review, released last Thursday, should have set political alarm bells ringing on the potential costs of action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Are Carbon Cuts Just a Fantasy?  What if there's no way to cut greenhouse emissions enough to make a real difference?  That's the question raised by a commentary in Nature arguing that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been too optimistic in its projections for the technological possibilities of reducing greenhouse emissions.  Their calculations are called "a bombshell" in a separate news article in Nature about the paper.

Dangerous assumptions.  The United Nations Climate Conference in Bali in 2007 set the world on a two-year path to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  Yet not even the most rosy-eyed delegate could fail to recognize that stabilizing atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations is an enormous undertaking.  Here we address the magnitude of the technological changes required to meet that challenge.  We argue that the size of this technology challenge has been seriously underestimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), diverting attention from policies that could directly stimulate technological innovation.  [Also available in PDF]

Report:  Temperature Changes Precede CO2 Changes.  Temperature changes precede changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide.  Scientists have found carbon dioxide levels typically rise roughly 200 to 1,000 years after temperatures rise.  That is, temperature change is the cause, not the result, of changing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

CO2 Regulation Could Crush Building Construction.  [Scroll down] If the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ever decides to regulate greenhouse gases, it would trigger the very same stationary source controls.  As a result, construction on any new or existing source with the potential to emit more than 250 tons of CO2 per year — which includes most large buildings — could come to a screeching halt.

'Green Hanukkia' campaign sparks ire.  In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.  The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide.  If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

The Editor says...
Have the tree-huggers never heard of trees?  The world's vegetation depends on this "significant damage to the atmosphere."

The "carbon sink" and global warming:  According to this week's Science magazine, the ocean's ability to absorb carbon may be far greater than previously estimated.  That means that atmospheric CO2 gets eliminated perhaps twice as much as global warming alarmists thought, before this news came out.  Why?  Well, it turns out that there is a whole variety of tiny phytoplanktons --- single-celled plants --- that are called picoplanktons because they are so small.

The Virtues of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide:  The annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide attributable to human activities — primarily the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas — is about 1 part in 10,000 of that contained in the oceans and biosphere — a contribution of ultimately negligible consequence.  Since, however, this human-released carbon must travel through the atmosphere to reach the ocean and biotic reservoirs, human use, while it continues, has caused a transient rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from about 0.03% to about 0.04% of atmospheric molecules.  The primary environmental result of this rise is plant fertilization.  We are moving carbon from below ground into the atmosphere, where it is available to produce more plants and animals — a wonderful and unexpected gift from the industrial revolution.

$800 Billion Annual Cost to Capture Carbon.  There will be a little more required to stop global warming than making "small changes to your daily routine," as Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" Web site has suggested.  One of the authors of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage estimated the worldwide cost could run an astonishing $800 billion annually.

California suit on car greenhouse gases dismissed.  A U.S. federal judge tossed out a lawsuit by California's attorney general on Monday [9/17/2007] seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from six automakers for damaging the state with climate-changing greenhouse gases.  Martin Jenkins, a federal judge in the Northern District of California, said the issue of global warming should be decided in the political rather than legal arena.

Organic beer is CO2 sinner.  Organic beer production emits substantially more greenhouse gases than ordinary beer, according to a Copenhagen University thesis.  Jakob Majcher, author of the thesis, studied the total carbon dioxide emissions in connection with the brewing of organic and conventional lagers.

The Climate is Less Sensitive to Greenhouse Gases Than Predicted, Study Says.  How sensitive is Earth's climate?  Sufficient to warm by at least several degrees in response to greenhouse gas pollution but perhaps not as sensitive as some scientists have feared, according to a new study.

[Is it possible that the climate is self-adjusting?  Is it possible that God is still in control of the things he created?  Is it possible that environmentalists don't know everything?]

The Greenhouse Myth:  The notion that our atmosphere acts like a greenhouse — that is, so-called atmospheric "greenhouse gases," like water vapor and CO2, "trap" incoming solar radiation to warm the atmosphere — is wrong.  Not only doesn't the atmosphere work that way, greenhouses don't either.

The Right to Breathe:  The United States Supreme Court this month heard arguments on the issue of whether carbon dioxide should be identified as a pollutant and be brought into the Environmental Protection Agency enforcement policies of the Clean Air Act.  Webster describes a pollutant as a harmful chemical or waste material discharged into water or the atmosphere.  Carbon dioxide, as it exists in the earth's atmosphere, has never been proven harmful.  It is not a waste material.  Carbon dioxide just happens to be the single most important part of the Earth's atmosphere as it relates to life on this planet.

Greenhouse crusade rests on flawed logic.  Shut down our coal industry — our children's wellbeing is at stake!  This is the message from Greens' leader Bob Brown, who argues that because burning coal emits large amounts of greenhouse gases, the coal industry should be shut down within a matter of years.  Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has echoed Brown's position, while Labor's environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, has also singled out coal, effectively calling for the growth of the industry to be frozen.

The Real "Inconvenient Truth":  Does the Earth's atmosphere primarily behave like an actual greenhouse?  No. … An actual greenhouse works as a physical barrier to convection (the transfer of heat by currents in a fluid) while the atmosphere facilitates convection.  So-called "greenhouse gases" in the Earth's atmosphere do not act as a barrier to convection so the impression of actual greenhouse-like activity in the Earth's atmosphere is wrong.

 Editor's Note:   The article below is loaded with environmental bias and rash presuppositions, as the author describes CO2 as a dangerous gas, and assumes that sequestering CO2 underground will alleviate the greenhouse "problem".

Scientists say buried gases may escape.  Carbon dioxide buried underground has dissolved the minerals that help keep the dangerous greenhouse gas from escaping, US scientists have revealed.  Researchers testing the viability of injecting CO2 into saline sedimentary aquifers, in a US Government experiment in Texas, found it caused carbonates and other minerals to dissolve rapidly, which could allow CO2 and brine to leak into the water table.

Coal plant to put power of CO2 to test.  Alabama Power Co.'s Barry Electric Generating Plant north of Mobile will be the site of the nation's first large-scale attempt to capture carbon dioxide emitted from a coal-fired power plant and to inject the gas deep underground.  The four-year, $175 million experiment begins in 2011 and will test the future viability of coal as a source of electrical power, Alabama Power's parent firm, Atlanta-based Southern Co., announced Wednesday.

Carbon capture and storage a pipe dream.  Let's review the problems with the idea of carbon capture and storage (CCS), which make it unlikely as an environmental savior.  Land-based CCS consists of three primary activities:  capturing carbon dioxide out of an emissions stream, compressing it into a liquid, and then piping that liquid over land, and down into the Earth where, in theory, it will be retained in geological formations for hundreds or thousands of years.  It sounds quite simple, until you dig into the details.

Carbon's Kindergarten Cop:  The Governor's pledge to lower greenhouse gas emissions in California to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 will bring Californians little or no environmental benefit, while costing the citizenry a substantial amount of money.  The Governor has long pandered to California's environmental interest groups, but as an earlier (and wiser) Republican Governor named Reagan observed, "Facts are stubborn things."

The Earth's atmosphere is composed of 78% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases, including water vapor.  We call this "air" and humans depend on the oxygen content for life.  At the same time all six billion of us individually exhale about two pounds of carbon dioxide every day.  By contrast, Nature emits about 30 times more CO2 than humans.  The oceans of the world absorb and release CO2 all the time.  This is Nature's balance that maintains all life, animal and vegetable, on earth.*

Taking a Molecule to Court:  The Supreme Court, by agreeing to hear a case on whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must take steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, will finally judge on the alleged threat of global warming.  The stakes are huge.  Should the Court find in favor of the plaintiffs, it would put the EPA in control of the U.S. economy for the foreseeable future.

States Set to Sue the U.S. Over Greenhouse Gases.  New York is one of more than a dozen states, led by California, preparing to sue the Bush administration for holding up efforts to regulate emissions from cars and trucks, several people involved in the lawsuit said on Tuesday [10/23/2007].  The move comes as New York and other Northeastern states are stepping up their push for tougher regulation of greenhouse gases as part of their continuing opposition to President Bush's policies.

The Editor says...
Nothing wastes your money faster than the states filing a lawsuit against the federal government.  The lawyers are the only ones who benefit, and no matter which side wins, the verdict will usually result in more regulations and intrusive restrictions on property owners and businesses.

Inhofe Warns of Global Warming Laws.  At a hearing on human health effects of global warming, Inhofe implied that [Barbara Boxer] was distracting members with studies of what might happen from global warming rather than focusing on "what will happen if we legislate global warming."  Inhofe believes that any mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions will bear too great a cost for the economy for too little benefit.

China overtakes US as world's biggest CO2 emitter.  China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures released today show. … China's emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world's biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen as early as next year.

High Court Hears Global Warming Hoax.  This week the Supreme Court heard arguments in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, a lawsuit brought by a coalition of 12 states, the cities of New York, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and environmental groups including the Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.  The case is an attempt to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide as a dangerous air pollutant under the definition of the Clean Air Act.

The Editor says...
As usual, leftist troublemakers head to the courts to accomplish what they can't get done at the ballot box.  When the Clean Air Act was written, who knew it would someday be used to regulate carbon dioxide?  And of course this won't be the end of it.  This kind of incrementalism only goes one direction, and it never stops.

New Jersey's Nutty CO2 Notions:  While an army of snowplows was at work on the roads of the Garden State, the little Green gnomes in the Department of Environmental Protection were working to reclassify carbon dioxide (CO2) as a "contaminant."  If this becomes law, the DEP might as well arrest everyone living in the Garden State because humans generate CO2 every time they exhale.

Nitrogen pollution drives trees to soak up more CO2.  Nitrogen pumped into the environment by human activities such as driving cars and farming is fertilising tree growth and boosting the amount of carbon being stored in forests outside the tropics, say researchers.  Their study provides a surprising example of how one type of human pollution is helping to counter another.

"Carbon sinks" drain water.  The rush to plant forests to soak up carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming, could cause as many problems as it solves, with new research showing they can reduce local water supplies by up to 50 percent.  An international study on the use of forest plantations as carbon sinks has found that while intensive plantations can help mitigate the effects of global warming, they can also sap streamflows and cause salinity.

Rare Carbon Dioxide "Lake" Found Under the Ocean, Scientists Report.  A team of scientists based in Japan and Germany has found an unusual "lake" of liquid carbon dioxide beneath the ocean floor.  On Earth's surface carbon dioxide (CO2) is normally a gas, but in the cold, high-pressure ocean depths it cools and becomes a liquid.

From Garden State to Greenhouse State.  Carbon dioxide is the second most important "greenhouse gas", after water vapor, that helps keep the Earth habitable by retaining infrared (heat) radiation and warming the Earth.  This is a natural process that occurs with or without help from humans.  Additionally, life on Earth depends on carbon dioxide, which is used by the biosphere for food.

Who's Afraid of CO2?.  Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  It is tasteless, colorless, nontoxic to humans at concentrations up to 13 times present levels and is essential to life.  Plants breathe CO2, and as they grow and reproduce they exhale oxygen, making the earth habitable for humans.  Instead of a disaster, the expected doubling of CO2 due to human activities will produce a number of benefits over the next century.

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide:  Predictions of global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy.  The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend.  Indeed, over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly.

How come greenhouse gases increase agricultural productivity?  What about greenhouse gases?  Plenty of evidence from numerous studies indicates that the Earth has far more capacity to absorb greenhouse gases than we give it credit for, many times more, and that additional CO2 will actually be beneficial to farming, both in the volume and the quality of crops that can be raised.

Enhanced or Impaired?  Human health in a CO2-enriched warmer world.

Global Warming Policy:  Some Economic Implications.  The link between greenhouse gas emissions and global temperature increases is uncertain, and some scientists believe the net effect of any global warming could be beneficial.

US edges towards cap on greenhouse gases.  The US yesterday [11/1/2007] took a first step towards mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions, in direct defiance of the Bush administration's policy on climate change.  Yesterday's vote in a Senate subcommittee marks the first US move towards European-style policies.  Although the caps on emissions approved do not go as far as those in Europe, environmental campaigners said they marked a decisive break with the administration's policies.

How to Cripple an Economy:  Well-intentioned schemes to restrict emissions of carbon dioxide could cost the economy half a trillion dollars.

Photosynthesis in Second-Generation Pine Trees Grown in Air of Elevated CO2 Concentration.  The study was conducted at Christchurch, New Zealand in open-top chambers, where the trees were irrigated daily and fertilized every three months.  Water use efficiency was 49% higher in the foliage of the elevated CO2 treatment, although there was no change in needle stomatal conductance.

The True Agenda?  Global Governance!  Fully 95% of the carbon dioxide is produced by natural sources such as evaporating seawater, decaying organic matter, and from plant and animal respiration.  Each year, 157 billion metric tons is released in the atmosphere.  Of this amount, barely 457.2 million tons comes from cars and trucks.  According to American Enterprise Institute researcher, James Johnson, "Eliminating all U.S. gasoline powered vehicles would reduce worldwide carbon dioxide emissions by 0.18%."  Less than one half of one half of one percent.  Despite this minuscule contribution, Albert Gore, Jr., in his book "Earth in the Balance", advocates "eliminating the internal combustion engine" by the year 2018!

Living with the greenhouse effect:  A great deal of what you read and hear about the so-called "greenhouse effect" is either exaggerated, or misrepresented, or both.  The blanket of our atmosphere keeps the surface of the planet a full 33°C warmer than it would otherwise be, and crucially (as far as life forms like us are concerned) raises the temperature above the freezing point of water.

A Tale of Two Atmospheres

Global warming is a natural geological process.  An Ohio State University researcher predicts that the process could begin to reverse itself within 10 to 20 years.  The researcher suggests that atmospheric carbon dioxide — often thought of as a key "greenhouse gas" — is not the cause of global warming. The opposite is most likely to be true:  It is the rising global temperatures that are naturally increasing the levels of carbon dioxide, not the other way around, he says.

Global Warming vs. Prosperity:  Green's attempt to cut carbon dioxide emissions lacks supporting scientific evidence and will harm the country's prosperity.

Orange Juice Vitamin C Concentration:  How Is It Linked to the Air's CO2 Content?  On the basis of this study, in the words of the authors, "there is reason to believe that an atmospheric CO2 enrichment of the magnitude expected over the current century may induce a large and sustained increase in the number of fruit produced by orange trees, a small increase in the size of the fruit, and a modest increase in the vitamin C concentration of the juice of the fruit, all of which effects bode well for this key agricultural product that plays a vital role in maintaining good health in human populations around the globe."

Carbon Dioxide, the Staff of Life.  "I went to the trouble of adding up all the greenhouse gases, as provided in Gregg Easterbrook's excellent book, A Moment on the Earth, and then converted the total volume to a linear scale.  That's so you can get a better sense of mankind's total annual contribution.  That is, I wondered if there were one mile of greenhouse gas, how much of that would be the result of all of man's doing.  I found that out of 5,280 feet, mankind contributes five-eighths of an inch."

New findings indicate today's greenhouse gas levels are not unusual.  The most accurate way to determine the atmosphere's average CO2 content is to simply conduct a direct chemical analysis at many different places and times.  Fortunately, there are more than 90,000 direct measurements by chemical methods between 1857 and 1957.  However, in what appears to be a case of 'cherry-picking' data to fit a pre-determined conclusion, only the lower level CO2 data were included when the pre-industrial average was calculated (see below graph where data used in the averaging is highlighted).

Greenhouse Policy Without Regrets:  A Free-Market Approach.  Because man's effect on his climate is not yet known, global warming policy should, first of all, do no harm.  Elimination of wasteful and waste-promoting government policies can still make greenhouse reduction easier in the long term.

States Sue Federal Government Over "Global Warming".  Seven states announced on Thursday [2/20/2003] their intention to sue the federal government over the issue of "global warming."  The states are seeking to force the Bush administration to regulate power plant emissions containing carbon dioxide, which they maintain is contributing to a buildup of greenhouse gases and the warming of the planet.

Figures reveal Europe falling far short of climate targets.  The European Union, self-styled global champion in the battle against climate change, is falling woefully short of its targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and will need to take radical measures to achieve them, new projections have shown.

Climate Change Lemmings Jump Off The Cliff.  California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is making his own global warming treaties nowadays.  He and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair have agreed to set up a scheme modeled on the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol to reduce climate warming carbon dioxide emissions.

California to cap greenhouse gas emissions.  California would become the first state to impose a cap on all greenhouse gas emissions, including those from industrial plants, under a landmark deal reached Wednesday [8/30/2006] by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative Democrats.

Bill may stir California business exodus.  A measure to limit greenhouse gas emissions in California could foster fresh interest among California companies looking outside the state for a less regulated business environment.  The cap, designed to cut greenhouse gas output 25 percent by 2020, evoked stern responses from business advocates such as the California Chamber of Commerce, which said in a statement that the act would drive companies and jobs out of California and jack up power and fuel prices for residents of the Golden State.

Calif. sues 6 carmakers over greenhouse gases.  California filed suit against Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and three other carmakers on Wednesday, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have cost the state millions of dollars.

The Proper Roles of Reason and Religion in Developing Policies Related to Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions:  Global climate change may well be (1) no problem at all, (2) a problem not caused by man, (3) a beneficial phenomenon, or (4) something about which nothing can be done, which could well make extreme – but largely ineffective – ameliorative actions counterproductive to the common good.

Boulder, Colorado Sues Federal Agencies Over Global Warming:  The Boulder, Colo. City Council will join environmental activists in taking legal action against the federal government to try to control greenhouse gas emissions which environmentalists say is the cause of "global warming."

Another Global Warming Horror Story Bites the Dust:  New evidence from the carbon sequestration front turns an old gloom-and-doom hypothesis on its head.  Rather than adding to the atmosphere's burden of carbon dioxide, warming of earth's permafrost regions would likely end up removing carbon from the air, which would tend to stabilize surface air temperatures and not push them higher.

California Votes to Join the Third World.  In what could prove a disastrous move for consumers and businesses, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is poised to sign legislation imposing statutory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the state of California.

EPA unveils first rules on carbon dioxide storage.  In its first regulations on the burial of carbon dioxide underground, the EPA on Tuesday [7/15/2008] unveiled measures to protect drinking water from the gas behind the bubbles in carbonated beverages.  The fledgling technology, known as carbon sequestration, is critical to reducing carbon dioxide released into the air from coal-fired power plants, one of the country's largest sources of the greenhouse gas.

Carbon Capture and Burial — a Stupid Answer to a Silly Question.  "There is no evidence that CCB [Carbon Capture and Burial] would provide any climate or environmental benefits whatsoever — just a huge misuse of investment capital and a massive increase in the cost of living for any society silly enough to tread this path. ... "It does not take much engineering, financial or biological knowledge to uncover the logistic, economic and environmental stupidities of CCB.

The dirty truth:  During President Barack Obama's visit to Canada this week, he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged to spend billions developing technologies that would capture carbon and then store it underground.  Carbon capture and storage, as these schemes are known, is misguided environmentally, economically, and in the long term, politically too.  Carbon capture has only one virtue:  It solves short-term political problems for both leaders.

Termites emit ten times more CO2 than humans.  The overwhelming majority (97%) of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere comes from nature, not from man.  Volcanoes, swamps, rice paddies, fallen leaves, and even insects and bacteria produce carbon dioxide, as well as methane.  According to the journal Science (Nov. 5, 1982), termites alone emit ten times more carbon dioxide than all the factories and automobiles in the world.  Natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined.  (If greenhouse warming is such a problem, why are we trying to save all the wetlands?)  Geothermal activity in Yellowstone National Park emits ten times the carbon dioxide of a midsized coal-burning power plant, and volcanoes emit hundreds of times more.  In fact, our atmosphere's composition is primarily the result of volcanic activity.

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Methane

This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here.

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Volcanos

Environmentalists are quick to minimize and dismiss the atmospheric influence of volcanos, because they know volcanos can't be taxed and regulated into submission, no matter how many megatons of "greenhouse gas" they emit.

Hikers Run As A Volcano Erupts In Indonesia.  Hikers run for their lives after Mount Dukono in Indonesia erupts right in front of them.  The footage was captured by a government operated drone.  The hikers ignored warning signs that told them to stay out of the 3-kilometer 'danger zone.'  [Video clip]

Iceland is rocked by another huge volcanic eruption.  Video footage has captured the moment an enormous geyser opened up on the Reykjanes Peninsula, shooting molten ash and fire into the sky.  Local news reports said a powerful earthquake started at around 8.30 pm today, followed by an eruption near the town of Grindavik at around 9.30 pm.  The eruption has been expected for a few weeks due to the ongoing seismic activity in the area and due to pressure changes in boreholes.

Mount Etna and Stromboli spew lava and ash as Italian volcanos dramatically erupt.  Two Italian volcanoes have dramatically erupted, spewing lava and ash clouds which closed a nearby airport.  Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily, and Stromboli, just off the north coast of the island, began erupting the first week in July.  Catania airport, the main airport on Sicily, was closed as a precaution due to the ash cloud from Etna, which showered the city of the same name in black dust.  Meanwhile hundreds of firefighters were rushed to Stromboli as lava tumbled from the volcano into the sea.  [Video clip]

Mount Kanlaon volcano erupts in the Philippines.  Hundreds of residents living near Mount Kanlaon in the Philippines were ordered to evacuate Tuesday after the volcano erupted, sending a three-mile tall (five-kilometer) ash column into the sky that caused dozens of flights to be canceled.  The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said Mount Kanlaon erupted for six minutes on Monday evening, causing a "strong earthquake," as the agency warned that ash fall and sulphuric odor would affect surrounding villages.  Forty-three volcanic earthquakes had been recorded in the 24 hours to midnight Monday, according to the agency's volcano summary.  [Video clip]

Iceland volcano eruption throws spectacular 160-foot-high wall of lava toward Grindavík.  A volcano on Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula has erupted just three weeks after the last eruption ended, spewing huge walls of lava toward the town of Grindavík.  Iceland's Civil Protection warned residents and emergency responders to be ready to evacuate the town at short notice in a translated statement.  The eruption started just before 1 p.m. local time (9 a.m.  E.T.) at Sundhnúkur crater, about 2 miles (3 kilometers) northeast of Grindavík.  Rising magma opened a 1.5-mile-long (2.5 km) fissure that is currently throwing lava up to 165 feet (50 meters) into the air, according to the Icelandic Met Office (IMO).

Mount Ibu volcano erupts in Indonesia sending thick plume of ash and gas 1.5 km into the sky.  A volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted on Wednesday and spewed an ash tower almost a mile into the sky, prompting officials to raise an alert level to the second-highest and warn people to keep away.  Mount Ibu, located on the island of Halmahera in North Maluku province, erupted at 11:11 am local time (0211 GMT) and sent a thick column of dark smoke and ash above the peak.  The volcano spewed an ash tower 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) above the peak, Indonesia's volcanology agency (PVMBG) said.  "Based on the results of visual and instrumental monitoring... Mount Ibu's activity level has been raised from level two to level three" of a four-tiered system, said PVMBG chief Hendra Gunawan in a statement Wednesday [5/8/2024].

Hunga Tonga Volcano is "Most Likely" Cause of Recent Warm Temperatures.  The climate events of 2022-24 have been "truly extraordinary", notes Dr. Javier Vinós writing in Dr. Judith Curry's online blog.  The rare convergence of a number of events "that may not be repeated for hundreds or even thousands of years" represents a "unique learning opportunity" for climatologists.  Interestingly, Dr. Vinós downplays the roll of the current El Niño.  He says that the January 2022 Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic eruption, that boosted upper atmospheric water vapour by a remarkable 10%, is the most likely cause of the recent warming, which in turn led to an unprecedented three sudden stratospheric warming events.  As the excess water leaves the atmosphere, observes Vinós, it will induce a cooling effect at the surface potentially lowering temperatures for the next three to four years.  The Hunga Tonga eruption was an extraordinary event since it blasted an enormous amount of water vapour into the upper atmosphere without the usual volcanic ash.  Dust particles spread throughout the atmosphere can have a temporary cooling effect, as in 1815 with the Mount Tambora explosion, but water vapour has warming properties and is considered the most potent 'greenhouse' gas.

Volcano erupts for fourth time on Iceland peninsula: met office.  Lava spewed Saturday from a new volcanic fissure on Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula, the fourth eruption to hit the area since December, authorities said.  A "volcanic eruption has started between stora Skogfell and Hagafell on the Reykjanes Peninsula," the Icelandic Met Office (IMO) said in a statement, as live video images showed glowing lava and billowing smoke.

El Niños and the Hunga Tonga Sub-Surface Volcanic Eruption.  The absorption of IR photons by water vapor molecules is highest in the Tropics, because humidities and temperatures are high.  Enormous masses of heated air rise, form clouds, etc., and natural forces spread the heat to warm much of rest of the Earth, which would be a cold place without all that heat.  In the Tropics, the ratio of H2O molecules/CO2 molecules is about 70, plus each water molecule absorbs photons of many energies over a wide area of the IR spectrum, unlike CO2 molecules.  As a result, water molecules may be up to 3 times more potent than CO2 molecules[.]  That means, in the Tropics, the warming effect of plentiful water molecules is about 70 x 3 = 210 times stronger than CO2 molecules[.]

Volcano erupts in Iceland, forcing residents to evacuate fishing town.  A volcano erupted early Sunday morning in southwest Iceland, forcing residents of a nearby fishing town to evacuate for the second time in a month.  Residents of Grindavik, a town 25 miles southwest of the capital Reykjavik, were evacuated overnight ahead of the seismic activity and no people were in danger as as molten rock began to burst out of the ground, authorities said.  "No lives are in danger, although infrastructure may be under threat," Iceland's President Gudni Johannesson wrote on X.  Footage shared online showed immense chunks of bright orange semi-molten rock spewing out of cracks in the ground.

Volcanic eruption in Iceland threatens nearby power plant in dreaded "worst-case scenario".  As expected, a volcano located on Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula has erupted, sending geysers of molten lava blasting as high as 330 feet in the air.  Following a series of earthquake tremors reported there in recent months, the volcano has finally broken open as many speculated it would, creating issues for the nearby town of Grindavík as well as the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power plant and Blue Lagoon Hot Springs tourist attraction.  "We are looking at a worst-case scenario," commented Icelandic volcanologist Thorvaldur Thordarson.  "The eruption appears big, and only about two kilometers from major infrastructure." [...] Some will remember the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano back in 2010 that left an ash cloud over much of Europe for an entire week, stopping air travel.  Prior to that eruption, Eyjafjallajokull was dormant for nearly two centuries.  There are around 130 volcanoes in Iceland, which is home to about 400,000 people.  Since the 19th century, not a single decade has gone by in which there was not a volcanic eruption, meaning they are common and "entirely random," according to Iceland's tourism website.

Plate Climatology Theory Overview.  The overall theory contends that increased tectonic activity, either locally or globally, equates to more heat and chemically charged heated fluid release from active geological features into oceans, sub-glacial polar areas, and atmosphere.  This altered heat and fluid input has in past, and still to this day acts to significantly effect Earth's climate and climate related events. [...] This effect has been largely hidden from scientific investigation because the heat and fluid release is primarily from two under explored/under monitored regions.

Airlines delay take-off for hours as Iceland's volcano erupts.  British holidaymakers are waiting anxiously to see if their flights to Iceland will be cancelled or delayed after the nation's volcano erupted last night, with local experts warning 'this is a very different creature to anything we've seen before'.  The eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula just north of the evacuated town of Grindavik began last night at around 10.17 pm after an earthquake swarm, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said, referring to a series of small shakes.  Live-streamed footage of the eruption showed molten lava spewing into the sky from fissures in the ground, surrounded by billowing clouds of red smoke.

Wyss Yim:  Volcanic eruptions and climate variability.  The Impact of Volcanic Eruptions on Sea Levels:  My initial interest in climate change was because of my search for explanations for Hong Kong's temperature, rainfall and sea-level record.  [Video clip:  46 minutes, but well worth the time.]

Iceland Volcano Erupts, Spewing Lava After Prolonged Seismic Activity.  The Iceland Meteorological Office has reported that the Reykjanes volcano in the country's southwest has erupted following weeks of high seismic activity.  The eruption has resulted in large plumes of smoke and river of lava.  Over the past month, authorities anticipating a significant eruption have evacuated nearly 4,000 residents of the fishing town of Grindavik and closed the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, located on the Reykjanes peninsula.  Reuters images and a live broadcast showed molten rock erupting like fountains from ground fissures, the bright yellow and orange hues cutting a striking contrast against the dark night sky.  The country's civil defense has advised the public to avoid the area while the situation is being evaluated by emergency response teams.

23 Feared Dead As Indonesian Volcano Erupts.  Indonesia's Mount Marapi volcano erupted again Monday, forcing rescuers to end the search for 12 missing climbers and raising the number of confirmed or presumed dead to 23.  Marapi spewed a new burst of hot ash as high as 800 meters (2,620 feet) into the air after the bodies of 11 climbers were recovered following the volcano's initial eruption, officials said.  Scores of people were rescued from or near the mountain, including Zafirah Febrina.  "Mum, I am still alive, but this is my condition now," the young woman said, her face covered in mud.  "Please help me," she added in a video seen by Worthy News.  Mount Marapi, located in the Agan Regency and Tanah Datar Regency areas in West Sumatra province, has been active since a January eruption that caused no casualties.  It is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia.

Why Is Volcanic Activity Starting To Go Crazy All Over The Planet?  All of a sudden, the giant rock that we all live on is starting to go a bit nuts.  Unusual volcanic activity is happening all over the globe, but the "experts" are assuring us that there is nothing to be concerned about.  But could it be possible that they are wrong?  After you have reviewed the information that I provide in this article, come to your own conclusion.  To me, it definitely appears that what we are currently witnessing is not normal. [...] But when it comes to Japan, there is another volcano that I believe is far more of a threat.  Let's keep a very close eye on Mt. Fuji in 2024 and beyond, because when it finally blows it is going to cause death and destruction on an absolutely massive scale.

Ignoring History Means Choosing Windmills Over Whales.  While the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, which erupted on January 15, may be causing a spike in temperatures, there's nothing historic about what's happening.  The Earth has been this hot before, and hotter — and it wasn't that long ago either.  Before getting to historic hot spells, it's worth noting that the volcano may not actually cause a big rise in global temperature over the long run.  It's true that the volcano's eruption spewed a lot of water vapor into the atmosphere.  However, recent eruptions have also demonstrated volcanoes' planet-cooling powers.  In 1991, when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew its top, aerosols spewed by this mighty volcanic blast lowered global temperatures by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) for at least one year.  Tonga expelled approximately 441,000 tons (400,000 metric tons) of sulfur dioxide, about 2 percent of the amount spewed by Mount Pinatubo during the 1991 eruption.

Tonga Eruption May Temporarily Push Earth Closer to 1.5°C of Warming.  When Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai (HTHH) erupted in January 2022, it shot the standard volcanic cocktail of ash, gas, and pulverized rock into the sky.  But the eruption included one extra ingredient that's now causing climate concerns: a significant splash of ocean water.  The underwater caldera shot 146 metric megatons of water into the stratosphere like a geyser, potentially contributing to atmospheric warming over the next 5 years, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.  Earth's average temperature is teetering on the edge of surpassing its preindustrial level by 1.5°C — the target set by the United Nations in the Paris Agreement.  In May 2022, the World Meteorological Organization announced there was a 50% chance of exceeding the 1.5°C threshold over the next 5 years.  The new study showed that slight warming caused by the HTHH eruption increased the likelihood of Earth temporarily tipping past that mark by another 7%.

The Editor says...
In yesterday's comment, I expressed some doubt that a volcano under 400 feet of water would put ash into the atmosphere, but I stand corrected by the article above.

How Is the Government Preparing for a Cold Winter?  What are the odds of a very cold winter in 2023-24?  Several factors are involved.  First, we have not had a very cold winter in years.  The "abandoned slot machine" theory suggests that it's time to have one, if not this winter, then soon.  Second, volcanic activity has been on the rise, and volcanoes do contribute to cold winters.  Large volcanoes spew sunlight-blocking ash into the stratosphere, lowering temperatures, as did the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland.  Recent volcanic activity in Iceland, Indonesia, Guatemala, Tonga, Hawaii, Sicily, Russia, and elsewhere has emitted sunlight-blocking ash with the potential for lower temperatures this winter.

A tropical volcano eruption may have caused the hottest July ever.  Much has been said about the likelihood that the emerging El Niño would increase global temperatures this year.  However, new evidence suggests that an eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano in 2022 may have created a supercharged greenhouse effect — because it injected an unprecedented amount of water vapor into the atmosphere.  Most volcanoes, such as Mount Pinatubo's eruptions in 1991-1992, inject dust and sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere, resulting in a cooling effect that temporarily stopped warming and overrode an El Niño event.  The Hunga-Tonga eruption was different, injecting mostly water vapor.  Water vapor is actually the strongest greenhouse gas in terms of warming effect, and is responsible for about half of Earth's surface temperature.  Without it, the Earth would be about 60 degrees Fahrenheit colder.  According to NASA, in a recent study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, it was estimated that the Hunga-Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals 1 trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth's stratosphere — equal to about 10 percent of the water already present in that atmospheric layer.  Another study suggested a 13 percent increase in stratospheric water mass and a fivefold increase of stratospheric aerosol load.

The Editor says...
The eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano has not been reported by the "mainstream" news media for one important reason:  This one volcanic eruption has negated about a hundred years of CO₂ conservation.  You might as well give up that battle:  You can't compete with a volcano.  You also can't compete with China and India.

Can We Stop Volcanoes with Solar Panels?  Quick set up a summit.  Give me a grant.  Climate Change causes more rain (except when it causes more drought), and apparently the weight of "up to" four meters of monsoon rainfall can compress a crustal plate leading to earthquakes.  Now, four meters of rain means a lot to a pitiful 1.8 meter homo sapiens, but it's hard to believe a plate of rock 30 kilometers thick would care less or even notice.  It's all absurd.  The whole article, written by a "Reader in Physical Geography" at Coventry Uni makes out the climate change is all around us, but unwittingly depends on the idea that the Sun is just a big torch shining on Earth, and not a raging nuclear magnetic dynamo 300,000 times bigger than the planet, blasting us with charged particles at a million miles an hour and with a magnetic field that stretches past Pluto.  Poor Dr Blackett with his 20 years of university education was never taught about the Sun.  He has a pretty graph pointing out some correlation between earthquakes and monsoons but doesn't once ask if The Sun might be causing both.  What's more likely, that changes in the solar magnetic field destabilize tectonic plates or your SUV does?

[This] Hot Summer [is] Due to Many Factors — Carbon Dioxide Emissions Are Not One of Them.  It turns out a confluence of overlapping weather and meteorological events, some having global or hemispheric effects, some more localized, occurring simultaneously, account for the ongoing heatwaves (a series of similar but disconnected heatwaves, which the media has misleadingly treated as a single related event) this summer.  One event that is contributing to a global rise in temperatures this year, and likely will for the next few years, is the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption, described in more detail below.  Water vapor makes up the vast majority of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, 98 percent or more, and the subsea Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption added an additional 10 percent to 13 percent to atmospheric water vapor.  Scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency agree this huge addition to the dominant atmospheric greenhouse gas is contributing significantly to this years' temperatures.  In addition, El Niño is back, and it's a strong one.

Record Global Temperatures Driven by Hunga-Tonga Volcanic Water Vapor — Visualized.  Readers may recall that we have reported on the massive amount of water vapor that has been injected into the stratosphere by the 2022 eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano.  A recent study said a 13% increase in stratospheric water mass and a 5-fold increase of stratospheric aerosol load.  Water vapor is by far the strongest greenhouse gas according to NASA, and it stands to reason that the dramatic increase in stratospheric water vapor is having an effect on global temperature.

H2O, Not CO2 May Be Driving Summer Heat Wave.  Both NASA and the European Space Agency seemingly endorse the notion that a gigantic undersea volcano that erupted from December 2021 until mid-January 2022 may have spurred a dramatic increase in water vapor — the Earth's main greenhouse gas — contributing to higher air temperatures this year.  When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted, it reportedly spewed a stupendous amount of H2O as water vapor into the atmosphere, enough, it is said, to have filled no less than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.  "The violent Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption on 15 January 2022 not only injected ash into the stratosphere but also large amounts of water vapor, breaking all records for direct injection of water vapor, by a volcano or otherwise, in the satellite era," a study published in Geophysical Research Letters reported.  According to the study, this one event added the equivalent of an additional 10 percent of the normal amount of water vapor into the atmosphere.

What the media are failing to report about our current heat wave.  The current heat wave is being relentlessly blamed on increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there is a much more plausible explanation, one that is virtually endorsed by two of the world's leading scientific organizations.  It turns out that levels of water vapor in the atmosphere have dramatically increased over the last year-and-a-half, and water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures, a mechanism that dwarfs any effect CO2 may have.  So, why has atmospheric water vapor increased so dramatically?  Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption last year that I — probably along with you — had never heard of.  The mass media ignored it because it took place 490 feet underwater in the South Pacific.

Overheated.  Ready to learn something?  Let's meet the historic, record-shattering Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption of 2022, which I bet you never heard of.  Back in January 2022, you were probably distracted by covid mandates or maybe by Biden calling himself "Senator" again.  The short version is an underwater Pacific Ocean volcano named Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, 490 feet under the waves, massively erupted, bigger than any other modern eruption, even bigger than Mount Pinatubo.  You never heard about it since it was underwater and nobody died.  But the erupting lava instantly vaporized fantastic, unimaginable amounts of sea water, which billowed into the atmosphere, changing the water composition of Earth's atmosphere and heating it up for years.  In only a few days, the superheated water from the Hunga Tonga eruption blanketed the globe, pole to pole, East to West.  The eruption was so big it could be clearly seen from space. [...] Over the next year it would turn out that NASA badly underestimated the amount of water Hunga Tonga vaporized into the atmosphere.  Current estimates are three times higher than the original:  scientists now think it was closer to 150,000 metric tons, or 40 trillion gallons, of super-heated water instantly injected into the atmosphere.  Talk about a greenhouse.  Water vapor — humidity — is a much more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Deadliest volcano in Western Hemisphere shows signs of increased activity.  Experts say a volcano responsible for causing one of the largest disasters in the Western Hemisphere is showing signs of increased activity, which has forced the Colombian government to issue evacuations in the potential impact zone.  The Nevado del Ruiz volcano sits about 80 miles west of Bogotá, and according to Colombia's Geological Survey, an earthquake swarm has increased to levels not seen since a disastrous eruption in the 1980s killed at least 25,000 people.  Authorities have raised the alert level to orange — the second-highest on a four-stage scale.

Hawaii volcano erupts again with 30-foot-tall 'dome fountain'.  Lava began spewing from Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano on Thursday afternoon, after a period of seismic activity at the summit earlier Thursday morning.  The lava was confined to the Halemaumau crater at the summit crater, and officials said there was no threat to communities.  Lava was first observed at 4:34 p.m. local time in the volcano that's on the Big Island, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.  The agency said lava covered most of the east side of the crater, and a 30-foot tall bubbling fountain of lava known as a "dome fountain" was observed.

Volcanic eruption in Tonga will contribute to global cooling.  When the underwater volcano in the island nation of Tonga in the South Sea had its explosion-like eruption on January 15, 2022, a massive pressure wave, more powerful than the largest atomic bomb, spread through both the Earth's oceans and atmosphere.  The catastrophic event created a record-high ash and gas cloud that continues to spread over the earth.  Much worse is that it has dramatically reduced solar radiation over large parts of the earth and caused the temperature in the atmosphere to drop drastically, which affects agriculture in the southern hemisphere.  A selection of available new data reveal that the authorities tried to hide the extent of the disaster.  There is a historical connection that is relevant too. [...] By studying Pinatubo's much smaller eruption in 1991, we can create a picture of what to expect.  According to the study "The Atmospheric Impact of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo Eruption" by Self et al. published by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Earth's average temperature dropped by 0.5 to 0.7 degrees Celsius as a result of the eruption in the Philippines in 1991.  Two years later, the cooling effect was stated to be "as large as -0.4°C".  Agriculture was very negatively affected by the Pinatubo eruption, but the Tonga eruption earlier this year was significantly larger — and thus has significantly worse consequences.

Mauna Loa [and] Kilauea volcanos [are] erupting at [the] same time in Hawaii.  The Big Island of Hawaii was experiencing two volcano eruptions simultaneously Wednesday for the first time since 1984.  Mauna Loa and neighboring volcano Kilauea were both erupting for the third straight day.  Kilauea is a continually erupting volcano, while Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in 38 years on Sunday.  Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano in the world.

Anthropogenic climate change will be a non-issue if this volcano blows.  As the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1982 demonstrated, a mid-sized eruption can rewrite the local environment.  When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., it buried Pompeii and Herculaneum for almost 1,500 years and killed an estimated 2,000 people.  In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted, spewing so much dirt in the air that it created a volcanic winter.  The next year, 1816, was known as the "year without a summer" because global temperatures decreased so dramatically.  Famine followed.  (If more greenies and climate changistas understood that it's global cooling that kills, not global warming, the world would be a better place.)  But it's the really big "supervolcanos" that should frighten us.  If you've been to Yellowstone, you know that it's one of the most beautiful places on earth.  But that vast, peaceful valley, was once a supervolcano that erupted 640,000 years ago.  Were that to happen today, the surrounding states would be covered by pyroclastic flows, while the rest of the U.S. would experience falling ash, destroying lungs and crops, and obscuring the sun — and that was a small supervolcano.  The biggest supervolcano that we know of was the Youngest Toba eruption in what's now Sumatra, Indonesia, around 75,000 years ago.

CBS Mornings co-host warns of more frequent undersea volcanoes like that near Tonga because of climate change.  Island nations and territories like Tonga are the most celebrated victims used by the doomsday cult of global warming climate change to guilt trip the industrialized world (except China) into impoverishing itself with unreliable and expensive "green" energy sources.  They are supposedly facing imminent doom from rising sea levels.  The fact that such islands are generally inhabited by non-whites makes them all the more appealing as victims of the rich Caucasians that are the cause of all the world's problems, in the demonology of this pseudo-religion.  That context has to be at the root of the flagrant idiocy purveyed yesterday on CBS television, which, in the distant past, was known as "The Tiffany Network" for its purported high quality and classiness.

NASA scientists estimate Tonga blast at 10 megatons.  NASA researchers have an estimate of the power of a massive volcanic eruption that took place on Saturday near the island nation of Tonga.  "We come up with a number that's around 10 megatons of TNT equivalent," James Garvin, the chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told NPR.  That means the explosive force was more than 500 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II. [...] But for all its explosive force, the eruption itself was actually relatively small, according to Poland, of the U.S. Geological Survey.  Unlike the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which spewed ash and smoke for hours, the events at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai lasted less than 60 minutes.

People On The Island Of Java Run For Their Lives As One Of Its Many Volcanos Erupts, Dozens Injured.  At least 13 people have now died and dozens more are injured after a volcano erupted on Indonesia's Java island on Saturday, emergency authorities said.  Residents were filmed fleeing a giant ash cloud from Mt Semeru.  [Video clip]

Volcanic Emissions & Global Cooling.  Sulfur dioxide has the most adverse effect on the atmosphere of any of the volcanic gases.  Sulfur dioxide is converted to sulfuric acid within months of the eruption.  Winds then spread these newly formed aerosols over the majority of the globe, where they stay in the atmosphere for upwards of two years.  Not only do these aerosols cool the earth's surface by reflecting sunlight back into space, but the sulfuric acid also plays a role in the increased depletion of ozone.  Ozone is a natural absorbant of solar radiation, so when it is replaced by reflective aerosols the total radiative energy in the atmosphere decreases, resulting in global cooling.

How Much CO2 Does a Single Volcano Emit?  A tremendous synthesis of information took place in 2013, revealing our best value yet for the total amount of CO2 emitted from natural release events within Earth.  They found:
  •   33 measured degassing volcanoes emit a total of 60 million tons of CO2 per year.
  •   There are a total of ~150 known degassing volcanoes, implying (based on the measured ones) that a total of 271 million tons of CO2 are released annually.
  •   30 historically active volcanoes are measured to emit a total of 6.4 million tons of CO2 per year.
  •   With ~550 historically active volcanoes total, they extrapolate this class of object contributes 117 million tons per year. [...] Add all of these up, and you get an estimate of around 645 million tons of CO2 per year.

Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano Erupting in 'Full Swing' as Lava Fountains Form in Park.  The most active of five volcanoes that together form Hawaii's Big Island was erupting in "full swing" late on Sept. 29 after a series of earthquakes and ground swelling was detected earlier that same day, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed.  Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano is "in full swing," the agency said on Twitter.  "What was once a cooling lava lake is now a new fissure eruption!" The U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) said in an observatory that webcam images of the Halema'uma'u crater indicated that an eruption began on Sept. 29, at 3:42 p.m. local time.

Kīlauea volcano is erupting.  [Scroll down]  Large amounts of volcanic gas — primarily water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) — are continuously released during eruptions of Kīlauea Volcano.  As SO2 is released from the summit, it will react in the atmosphere to create the visible haze known as vog (volcanic smog) that has been observed downwind of Kīlauea.  Vog creates the potential for airborne health hazards to residents and visitors, damages agricultural crops and other plants, and affects livestock.

Volcanic sources of CO2.  Back in 2006, three Mammoth Mountain ski patrollers suffocated when they fell into a crevasse.  Cause of death was attributed to naturally occurring carbon-dioxide gas.  Mammoth is a sleeping" volcano, and various gasses ooze out of it from vents that reach down into the bowels of the Earth.  The local toxicity from the outgassing is such that trees have been eliminated from much of its higher surface, making it an ideal place for skiing.  The CO2 output is estimated to be 1,200 tons per day.  Lurking beneath this reality is the explanation of how plant life began.  Photosynthesis requires atmospheric CO2 in sufficient abundance for plants to produce carbohydrates.  Before humans began to burn fossil fuels (made from carbohydrates), there had to be naturally occurring CO2.  But from where?  Again, the bowels of the Earth.  In actuality, CO2 cycles around and around, from atmosphere to plant to fossil fuel (dead biomass) and then back to atmosphere.  Meanwhile, the bowels of the Earth continue to add to the mix.  Kind of diminishes the significance of human activity in all of this.

Huge black ash spews from Taal Volcano in Philippines.  The main crater of the Philippines' Taal Volcano fired a dark phreatomagmatic plume miles into the air.  Drone video captured the epic eruption on July 1, 2021 — just 37 miles south of Manila — as the lake continues to percolate.  [Video clip]

Philippines Warns Taal Volcano May Erupt as Gas Emissions Surge.  The Philippines' volcanology agency warned that the Taal volano may erupt anytime, flagging record volumes of gas emissions, localized quakes, and rumblings from the peak to the south of the capital, Manila.  "The highest levels of volcanic sulfur dioxide, or SO2 gas emission, was recorded today at an average of 22,628 tonnes/day, the highest ever recorded in Taal," the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said in a statement.  A total of 26 "strong and very shallow, low-frequency volcanic earthquakes" were recorded, some accompanied by rumblings, it said.

Drone Crashes Into Erupting Icelandic Volcano.  Drone footage captures the moment it crashes right into the erupting Fagradalsjfall volcano in Iceland.  The stunning video, shot on Monday (May 24), brings the viewer up-close to the shield volcano and right into the molten lava.  Drone operator and YouTuber Joey Helms told Reuters that being able to manually operate the first-person-view flying drone made it an immersive and unique experience, though the volcano's conditions also made it "tricky."  [Video clip]

Explosive Eruption Rocks Volcano on Caribbean's St. Vincent.  An explosive eruption rocked La Soufriere volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent on Friday [4/9/2021] following mandatory evacuation orders from the local government.

The world's worst air polluter pays no attention to global warming legislation.
Volcano Eruption.  Indonesia's Mount Sinabung was erupting Tuesday [3/2/2021], sending volcanic materials as high as 16,400 feet into the sky and depositing ash on nearby villages.  Activity at the volcano in North Sumatra province increased over the past week, with authorities recording 13 times when it released ash clouds.  [Video clip]

Kilauea volcano erupts on Hawaii's Big Island.  Kilauea, an active shield volcano on Hawaii's Big Island, has erupted.  The Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park confirmed the news on Twitter, as did the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Colossal volcano behind 'mystery' global cooling finally found.  The ices of Greenland and Antarctica bear the fingerprints of a monster:  a gigantic volcanic eruption in 539 or 540 A.D. that killed tens of thousands and helped trigger one of the worst periods of global cooling in the last 2,000 years.  Now, after years of searching, a team of scientists has finally tracked down the source of the eruption.  The team's work, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, lays out new evidence that ties the natural disaster to Ilopango, a now-dormant volcano in El Salvador.

Volcano erupts in Indonesia spewing ash 7km into the air.  [Video clip]

Volcano erupts in Indonesia.  Mount Sinabung in Indonesia erupted on Sunday [6/9/2019] sending volcanic ash more than four miles into the air.  [Video clip]

Lefty mural in lava-ravaged Hawaiian town depicts volcanic eruptions as our friends.  How is this for nature-worship, diversity, and greenie sensibility run amok?  A new mural, opened on the side of a school in volcano-ravaged Pahoa, Hawaii, depicts the volcano as — are you ready? — our friend.  Here's a screenshot of a shareable Instagram post of the mural:  [Photo]

The Most Dangerous Volcano In North America Just Erupted.  A lot of us have been watching Mt. Popocatepetl for a very long time.  Could it be possible that we are now on the verge of the most destructive volcanic eruption in the modern history of North America?  On Monday night [3/18/2019] at precisely 9:38 PM, a massive explosion at Mt. Popocatepetl sent a column of volcanic ash nearly a mile into the sky.  A "yellow alert warning" has been issued by the authorities, and they are ordering everyone to stay at least 12 kilometers away from the crater.  They are stressing that the threat has not passed, and as you will see below, an evacuation plan is in place in case an even larger eruption follows.  And if a much larger eruption does follow, the devastation could be off the charts.

Our Planet Is Not Fragile.  The 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, in present-day Indonesia, had the force of 200 megatons of TNT.  That's the equivalent of 13,300 15-kiloton atomic bombs, the kind that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II.  Before that was the 1815 Tambora eruption, the largest known volcanic eruption.  It spewed so much debris into the atmosphere that 1816 became known as the "Year Without a Summer."  It led to crop failures and livestock death in the Northern Hemisphere, producing the worst famine of the 19th century.  The A.D. 535 Krakatoa eruption had such force that it blotted out much of the light and heat of the sun for 18 months and is said to have led to the Dark Ages.  Geophysicists estimate that just three volcanic eruptions — Indonesia (1883), Alaska (1912) and Iceland (1947) — spewed more carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than all of mankind's activities during our entire history.

Naples super volcano showing 'signs' of possible 'Vesuvian-style eruption.  Italy's Campi Flegrei volcano has, for the first time in nearly 400 years, been "showing a type of unrest" which could indicate it is "getting ready for another eruption", volcano expert Christopher Kilburn has said.  The volcano, which is located in the highly-populated Italian city of Naples, could at some point in the "foreseeable future" have a Vesuvian-style eruption, warned Dr Christopher Kilburn, a professor at University College London and expert in volcanic hazard.

Katla volcano is suddenly releasing HUGE amounts of gas.  Huge amounts of potentially dangerous methane gas are being released from a glacier connected to Katla volcano — one of Iceland's most active volcanoes.  Monster volcano Katla is one of Iceland's largest burning mountains and scientist have now discovered methane from a connected glacier.  The study, published in Scientific Reports, showd Sólheimajökull glacier has released 41 tonnes of the greenhouse gas every day over the summer.  This is the first time methane released from glaciers at such large scale have been found.

Katla volcano is suddenly releasing HUGE amounts of gas.  Huge amounts of potentially dangerous methane gas are being released from a glacier connected to Katla volcano — one of Iceland's most active volcanoes.  Monster volcano Katla is one of Iceland's largest burning mountains and scientist have now discovered methane from a connected glacier.  The study, published in Scientific Reports, showd Sólheimajökull glacier has released 41 tonnes of the greenhouse gas every day over the summer.  This is the first time methane released from glaciers at such large scale have been found.

Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive'.  Historians have long known that the middle of the sixth century was a dark hour in what used to be called the Dark Ages, but the source of the mysterious clouds has long been a puzzle.  Now, an ultraprecise analysis of ice from a Swiss glacier by a team led by McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of The University of Maine (UM) in Orono has fingered a culprit.  At a workshop at Harvard this week, the team reported that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere early in 536.  Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547.

Vanuatu volcano:  Entire island to be evacuated as ash blankets villages and blacks out sky.  The population of an entire island in Vanuatu is set to be evacuated for the second time in less than a year because of an erupting volcano.  Around 11,000 people live on Ambae island in the country's north, where the belching of the Manaro volcano has left homes and crops covered in grey ash.  The volcano's alert level was raised this week, after ash clouds reportedly turned day into night when they blocked out the Sun.

Hawaii civil defence issues warning as Kilauea Volcano releases poisonous gas.  Hawaii's civil defence in Lower Puna issued a statement as Kilauea Volcano is producing dangerous levels of Sulfur Dioxide gas, leaving people who are close to the vents and lava flow at high risk. [...] Officials issued a statement on Sunday [5/13/2018], saying:  "Residents of Halekamahina Road are ordered to evacuate and be on the alert for gas emissions and lava spatter."  The Hawaii Department of Health warned against people buying cheap face masks to protect themselves from the fumes.  A spokesman said:  "No mask sold in stores provides protection from the extremely dangerous volcanic gases that are being released from the current volcanic eruption."  Scientists remain on high alert for a major steam explosion which could hurl boulders miles from Kilauea's summit and create a 20,000 ft ash cloud.

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano could be ready to blow, scientists say.  Geologists warned Wednesday that Hawaii's Kilauea volcano could soon experience explosive eruptions from its summit and launch large rocks and ash into the air.  The threat of explosive activity will rise as lava drains from the summit of Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and explosions will be possible in the coming weeks if the lava dips below the groundwater table, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Philippine volcano rumbles back to life, thousands evacuated.  The Philippines' most active volcano rumbled back to life Sunday [1/14/2018] with lava rising to its crater in a gentle eruption that has prompted authorities to evacuate thousands of villagers.

Bali Volcano:  Contributing to Global Warming, or Global Cooling?  What impact, if any, will the continuing Agung eruption and other volcanic activity have on global warming?  That is a matter of much debate, with scientific studies pointing to both a cooling and warming effect from the eruptions of the thousands of volcanoes that dot our planet.  Major eruptions of land-based volcanoes that send huge clouds of ash high into the upper atmosphere generally are believed to have a cooling effect.  The ash particles and droplets of sulfuric acid (which are formed when volcanic-spewed sulfur dioxide combines with oxygen in the air) may remain suspended for many months, reflecting sunlight away from Earth, thereby lowering temperatures.  However, there are other considerations that point to a volcanic warming effect, both from the 1,500 or so active terrestrial volcanoes, as well as the far larger number of active undersea volcanoes that have been poorly monitored, and whose impact is not well understood.

Mexico City volcano erupts.  A volcano has erupted near Mexico City sparking fears more explosions could threaten the country's capital.  Chilling footage showing the violent eruption emerged online amid fears there could be more.  A huge plume of smoke blasted three kilometres in to the air from the summit of Popocatepetl after a series explosions over the course of 24 hours.

Reverse global warming:  NASA say Mount Agung could plunge earth into ice age.  Bali's volcano eruption could plunge the earth into a prolonged cold spell as scientists warn Mount Agung explosion could slow global climate change for up to five years.  Volcanic debris, ash and other particles have continued to spew out of the volcano, leaving a seven-mile high hazardous cloud above the mountain top.  Evacuation orders are in place for the 100,000 villagers and citizens living within six miles of the mountain, while thousands of tourists remain stranded after the main airport was closed for more than two days.

The Editor says...
If the volcano is going to "plunge [the] earth into [an] ice age," and that "could slow global climate change for up to five years," then apparently the writer believes that an ice age might only last five years.  Moreover, if "global climate change" means "global warming," then why not just say global warming?

California:  Proof That Everything The Liberals Run Turns [Bad].  The climate change debate heats up, again because of hurricanes, earthquakes, rain, and more.  Trump pulling out of the Paris accord will destroy us even more.  Yes, yes, yes, only humans can prevent global warming.  Volcanos and cows have nothing to do with it.  Well, volcanos release over half a billion tons of carbon emissions a year!

91 volcanoes found under Antarctic ice.  Scientists believe they have found the largest volcanic region on earth — under the ice of Antarctica.  A remote survey discovered 91 volcanoes ranging in height from 100m to 3850m in a massive region known as the West Antarctic Rift System.  Geologists and ice experts say the range has similarities to east Africa's volcanic ridge, acknowledged to be the densest concentration of volcanoes in the world.

Residents warned as Mount Aso volcano rumbles to life.  Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture erupted early Saturday, belching a column of ash 11,000 meters into the air.  The explosive eruption occurred around 1:46 a.m. on one of the peaks of the 1,592-meter-high mountain, the Meteorological Agency said.  There were no immediate reports of injuries.  It was the first explosive eruption at that particular peak since January 1980.

Indonesia's Mount Barujari Volcano Erupts, Trapping Tourists.  More than 200 foreign tourists were feared trapped on an Indonesian volcano Wednesday [9/28/2016] after the peak erupted and sent a plume of ash 6,500 feet in the air, officials said.

Mount Barujari: 1,000 tourists evacuated in Indonesia after volcano eruption.  Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency has evacuated approximately 1,000 tourists after a volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok erupted unexpectedly on Tuesday, shooting a 6,560-foot column of ash into the sky.  No injuries have been reported from the eruption that took place on Mount Barujari, a small mountain within Mount Rinjani, one of the most active volcanoes in the region.  Approximately 50 climbers are yet to be accounted for, but they are believed to be safe.  Located on the famed Pacific Ring of Fire, with more than 130 active volcanoes, Indonesia experiences a great many eruptions, particularly in the past few years.

Tourists evacuated as Indonesian volcano erupts:  Official.  The threat level of the volcano was upgraded Tuesday as Barujari sent plumes of smoke and hot ash into the atmosphere, but remains two steps from the highest-risk category.  There were no flight disturbances recorded on Wednesday due to the ash clouds, transport ministry spokesman Hemi Pramuraharjo told AFP.

40 Volcanoes Are Erupting Right Now As The Crust Of The Earth Becomes Increasingly Unstable.  Have you noticed that our planet has begun to shake, rattle and roll?  Over the past few days we have seen major volcanic eruptions in Costa Rica and Indonesia, and according to Volcano Discovery 40 volcanoes around the planet are erupting right now as you read this article. [...] The eruption down in Costa Rica took authorities completely by surprise, and a thick layer of dust and ash is coating vehicles and buildings 30 miles away in the capital city of San Jose.

Costa Rica volcano erupts, spewing ash, column of smoke.  Featuring thick clouds of ash and smoke rising into the grey sky, spectacular images of the powerful Costa Rica volcano eruption have flooded social media.  The 3,340-meter Turrialba Volcano is located in Cartago Province of central Costa Rica, only 30 km from the country's capital, San José.  The volcanic activity started Wednesday [5/18/2016] and the first eruptions were recorded Friday [5/20/2016], according to local media.

Costa Rica's Turrialba volcano leaves capital covered in ash.  A volcanic eruption in central Costa Rica spewed ash nearly 10,000 feet in the air, covering parts of the country's capital city. [...] The volcano continued to release ash about 9,840 feet into the air after erupting on Thursday afternoon, as wind began to carry the ashes to the west.

Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano spews ash two MILES into the air.  A Mexican volcano that has been active on and off since 1994 has erupted over Santiago Xalitzintla village in Puebla, Mexico, blanketing the city in dusty, white ash.  The Popocatépetl volcano began erupting around 2.30am on Monday [4/18/2016], sending ash two miles into the air.  The eruption sent glowing rock hurling through the air as far as a mile away from the crater.

Alaska Volcano Ash Cloud Covers 400 Miles, Cancels Flights.  Pavlof Volcano, one of Alaska's most active volcanoes, is 625 miles southwest of Anchorage on the Alaska Peninsula, the finger of land that sticks out from mainland Alaska toward the Aleutian Islands.

What does the global onset of major seismic and volcanic activity portend?  Have you noticed that seismic activity along the Ring of Fire appears to be dramatically increasing?  According to Volcano Discovery, 39 volcanoes around the world have recently erupted, and 32 of them are associated with the Ring of Fire.  This includes Mt. Popocatepetl which sits only about 50 miles away from Mexico City's 18 million inhabitants.  If you are not familiar with the Ring of Fire, it is an area roughly shaped like a horseshoe that runs along the outer perimeter of the Pacific Ocean.  Approximately 90 percent of all earthquakes and approximately 75 percent of all volcanic eruptions occur along the Ring of Fire.

Volcano in Ecuador spews huge column of ash.  The Geophysics Institute said Cotopaxi is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the large amount of snow at its peak and because nearby areas are densely populated.  The last time it erupted was in 1877.

America Has a Whole Lot of Potentially Active Volcanoes.  Yellowstone and the Cascades do get a lot of the attention when it comes to North American volcanoes, but they are surely not the only places where we might find active volcanoes across the continent.  Now, I can't highlight all the "hidden" volcanic areas in the United States, but I will talk about a few gems that most people don't realize are potentially active volcanic areas.

Warning issued as the Kick 'em Jenny volcano in the Caribbean Sea off Grenada threatens to erupt.  An underwater volcano off the Caribbean coast is on the verge of erupting — posing a risk to all passing ships.  Named Kick 'em Jenny, the volcano — which sits 180m below sea level off the northern coast of Grenada — has produced no less than 200 small earthquakes since it began stirring on July 11.  However, experts at the University of the West Indies' Seismic Research Centre have raised its threat level to orange, predicting that it could erupt at any point.

No law or treaty can stop South America's worst polluter:
Chile's Calbuco Volcano Turns Brazil's Skies an Eerie Purple.  The Calbuco eruptions aren't just creating a spectacle in southern Chile, with their lightning-streaked mushroom clouds and reverse-terraforming of the land into an ashen, "gray desert."  Thousands of miles away they're showboating in Brazil, too, turning sunsets a weird, neon shade of eggplant.

Video shows aerial footage of Chile's Calbuco volcano as it continues to send millions of tonnes of gas into the air.  Last Wednesday, the volcano that sits 620 miles south of the Chilean capital Santiago erupted for the first in 42 years, causing thousands to evacuate surrounding areas as the thick ash filled the atmosphere.

Chilean volcano third blast forecasted; ashes reach neighboring Argentine provinces.  Chile's Calbuco volcano erupted for the first time in over 42 years on Wednesday [4/22/2015], creating a remarkable scene of smoke plumes and ash shooting into the sky.  A second eruption Wednesday night blasted red-hot rocks skyward and produced an extraordinary display of volcanic lightning.  Winds are pushing the ashes north and easr to several neighboring Argentine provinces.

Volcanic ash cancels flights to Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay.  Calbuco, considered one of the most dangerous along Chile's chain of around 2,000 volcanoes, erupted twice in 24 hours on Wednesday [4/22/2015] and Thursday, sending up a spectacular 17-km-high (11 miles) cloud and coating nearby towns in a thick layer of gray ash.

Scientists find missing link in Yellowstone plumbing: This giant volcano is very much alive.  Yellowstone National Park is the home of one of the world's largest volcanoes, one that is quiescent for the moment but is capable of erupting with catastrophic violence at a scale never before witnessed by human beings.  In a big eruption, Yellowstone would eject 1,000 times as much material as the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.  This would be a disaster felt on a global scale, which is why scientists are looking at this thing closely.

One of Chile's most active volcanoes erupts: 3,500 people evacuated.  Chile is situated in an area known as the Pacific Rim of Fire and has the second largest chain of volcanoes in the world after Indonesia, including around 500 that are potentially active.  Thirty-six are currently active and in the last 20 years, there have been 15 volcanic eruptions.

Underwater volcanoes alter climate, new study finds.  Underwater volcanoes, which were long assumed to ooze lava at relatively steady rates, in fact erupt in "strikingly regular cycles" that can range from just a couple of weeks to 100,000 years, the study found.  "People have ignored seafloor volcanoes on the idea that their influence is small — but that's because they are assumed to be in a steady state, which they're not," said the study's author, marine geophysicist Maya Tolstoy of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.  A related study by a separate team this week in the journal Science bolsters Tolstoy's case by showing similar long-term patterns of submarine volcanism in an Antarctic region Tolstoy did not study.

White House Methane Madness.  Contrary to persistent claims by environmentalists, Methane is not an important greenhouse gas (GHG); it has a totally negligible impact on climate.  Attempts to control methane emissions make little sense; the just-announced [Jan 14] White House plan to reduce emissions by 40 to 45% by 2025 ignores well-established 'text-book' science.  Methane (chemical formula CH4) is the main component of natural gas.  It may technically be defined as a greenhouse gas since it absorbs strongly in some portions of the infrared spectrum; but its impact on climate is insignificant.  Its atmospheric level has been increasing because about half of the methane is produced by processes related to human activities, such as cattle raising, rice agriculture, landfills, and the production of oil and natural gas; it is also released in coal mining and from leaky natural gas pipelines.  The major non-human sources include swamps and bogs.

Meat and You: Partners in Freedom.  It's worth noting the U.S. cattle population is actually in decline — it's currently at its lowest level since 1951.  Beef, which surpassed pork as America's favorite meat in 1909, is now in second place behind chicken.  And according to Nicolette Hahn Niman, author of Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production, the amount of water needed for beef is only slightly more than the amount needed for rice.  Two percent of greenhouse gases supposedly come from cattle (in the form of methane emissions, if you will).  But as Niman recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, "Australian research shows that certain nutritional supplements can cut methane from cattle by half.  Things as intuitive as good pasture management and as obscure as robust dung beetle populations have all been shown to reduce methane."

How Icelandic volcano Bardarbunga will plunge Europe into the dark ages.  It is on our door step and is a constant threat but for some reason it is almost never mentioned in the media.  Yet again, an Icelandic volcano threatens to fracture the political landscape of Europe.  An explosion of Bardarbunga could wreak agricultural havoc, shifting weather patterns, and leading to a doubling of grain prices.  As the volcano Bardarbunga has been "quietly" erupting for more than 100 days, it could now enter "a far more intense eruption phase", said John Hardy, head of FX strategy at Saxo Bank.

Claim: 'the pause' is caused by small volcanic eruptions.  Small volcanic eruptions might eject more of an atmosphere-cooling gas into Earth's upper atmosphere than previously thought, potentially contributing to the recent slowdown in global warming, according to a new study.

University of Texas Research Demolishes Main Rationale for Climate Alarmism.  Researchers at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics have punctured one of the main arguments of global warming activists, that the large scale melting of an Antarctic glacier is caused by man made global warming.  1200 WOAI's Michael Board reports researcher Duncan Young says the Thwaites Glacier is indeed melting, but it is not melting due to global warming, but do to the fact that an active volcano exists directly under the glacier.

Alaska volcano erupts with new intensity, prompting 'red' alert.  An Alaska volcano that has been spewing ash and lava for years began erupting with new intensity this week, pushing a plume of smoke and ash as high as 24,000 feet (7,315 meters) and prompting scientists to issue their highest volcanic alert in five years, authorities said on Tuesday [6/3/2014].

Termites emit ten times more CO2 than humans.  The overwhelming majority (97%) of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere comes from nature, not from man.  Volcanoes, swamps, rice paddies, fallen leaves, and even insects and bacteria produce carbon dioxide, as well as methane.  According to the journal Science (Nov. 5, 1982), termites alone emit ten times more carbon dioxide than all the factories and automobiles in the world.  Natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined.  (If greenhouse warming is such a problem, why are we trying to save all the wetlands?)  Geothermal activity in Yellowstone National Park emits ten times the carbon dioxide of a midsized coal-burning power plant, and volcanoes emit hundreds of times more.  In fact, our atmosphere's composition is primarily the result of volcanic activity.

The Volcano That Rewrote History.  Thomas Jefferson went broke, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and Arctic exploration got a new life, all because a massive volcano erupted in 1815.

2014: The Year Without Summer.  For most in America, Europe, and Asia, the winter of 1815-1816 was the coldest in living memory.  What followed in the spring and summer of that year was equally disastrous.  It was an entire year of cold rains, crop failures, hunger, and economic collapse.  There were multiple causes for the extreme weather of 1816, but all of them were natural, not man-made.  Chief among them, according to the Klingamans, was the massive eruption of Tamboro in present-day Indonesia.

Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano revives, spews 6-mile ash column.  Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano has spewed a 6-mile (10-kilometer) column of ash after a powerful, five-minute explosion that shot pyroclastic material onto its northern and northwestern flanks.

Volcanoes: Nature's ticking time bombs.  [O]nly one percent of our Earth is solid rock.  Most of the other 99 percent is an oozing, mass, churning beneath our feet like road tar at temperatures between 2,000 and 10,000 degrees.  The Earth's crust is only 20 miles thick.  When that cracks, one of the greatest forces in nature erupts.  There are 1,500 active volcanoes.

Our Fragile Planet: Man is the Fragile Animal That Must Be Must Be Protected.  The 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, in present-day Indonesia, had the force of 200 megatons of TNT.  That's the equivalent of 13,300 15-kiloton atomic bombs, the kind that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.  Preceding that eruption was the 1815 Tambora eruption, also in present-day Indonesia, which holds the record as the largest known volcanic eruption.  It spewed so much debris into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight, that 1816 became known as the "Year Without a Summer" or "Summer That Never Was." [...] Geophysicists estimate that just three volcanic eruptions, Indonesia (1883), Alaska (1912) and Iceland (1947), spewed more carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than all of mankind's activities in our entire history.

Active Volcanoes, Not CO2, Are Melting West Antarctic Ice Sheet.  Researchers have discovered a chain of smoldering active volcanoes under the West Antarctic ice sheet — which happens to be the ice sheet that climate hysterics say is proof of man-caused global warming.

Another known unknown — volcanic outgassing of CO2.  In 1992, it was thought that volcanic degassing released something like 100 million tons of CO2 each year.  Around the turn of the millennium, this figure was getting closer to 200.  The most recent estimate, released this February, comes from a team led by Mike Burton, of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology — and it's just shy of 600 million tons.  It caps a staggering trend:  A six-fold increase in just two decades.  These inflating figures, I hasten to add, don't mean that our planet is suddenly venting more CO2.  Humanity certainly is; but any changes to the volcanic background level would occur over generations, not years.  The rise we're seeing now, therefore, must have been there all along:  As scientific progress is widening our perspective, the daunting outline of how little we really know about volcanoes is beginning to loom large.

Long Invisible, Research Shows Volcanic CO2 Levels Are Staggering.  We now know that the CO2 released during volcanic eruptions is almost insignificant compared with what happens after the camera crews get bored.  The emissions that really matter are concealed.  The silent, silvery plumes which are currently winding their way skyward above the 150 or so active volcanoes on our planet also carry with them the bulk of its carbon dioxide.  Their coughing fits might catch the eye — but in between tantrums, the steady breathing of volcanoes quietly sheds upwards of a quarter of a billion tons of CO2 every year.

Opposing (?) viewpoint:
Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?  Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes. [...] Volcanoes can — and do — influence the global climate over time periods of a few years but this is achieved through the injection of sulfate aerosols into the high reaches of the atmosphere during the very large volcanic eruptions that occur sporadically each century.

Europe's largest and most volatile volcano Mount Etna spews molten lava.  Europe's most active volcano Mount Etna has erupted — spewing molten lava thousand of feet above the Sicilian countryside.  The eruption, which was captured on camera from Acireale, near Cantania, sent thick plumes of smoke and ash over the Italian island last night ]11/16/2013].

Scientists confirm existence of largest single volcano on Earth.  Covering an area roughly equivalent to the British Isles or the State of New Mexico, Tamu Massif is nearly as big as the giant volcanoes of Mars, placing it among the largest in the solar system.

US airlines cancel Mexico flights due to volcano.  At least six U.S. airlines canceled 47 flights into and out of the Mexico City and Toluca airports Thursday [7/4/2013] after the Popocatepetl volcano spewed ash, steam and glowing rocks, airport officials said.

Mexican volcano spewing ash and lava threatens town as officials prepare to evacuate thousands.  Thousands of people living in the shadow of this looming Mexican volcano have been placed on high alert following a dramatic increase in seismic activity from the Popocatepetl crater.  The 17,886 ft active volcano near Mexico City, known as Popo, rumbled and shook during the night on Saturday [5/11/2013], and has been spewing ash, lava and steam in recent days.

The Largest Volcanic Eruptions in the past 250 Years:  The size of volcanic eruptions is determined by the amount of lava emitted.  The largest eruption over the past two centuries was Tambora in Indonesia in 1815.

New Data, Old Claims About Volcanoes.  [Scroll down]  So let's look at the volcanoes, one by one:
Laki, 1783:  Occurred near the end of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.
Tambora, 1815:  Occurred at the end of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.
Cosiguina, 1835:  Occurred near the middle of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.
Krakatoa, 1883:  Occurred at the end of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.
Santa Maria, 1902:  Occurred in the middle of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.
Novarupta, 1912:  I can see why Muller omitted this eruption, which occurred just before a rise in temperature ...
El Chichon, 1982:  Occurred during the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.
Pinatubo, 1991:  This is arguably the only one of the eight volcanoes that could legitimately be claimed to cause a detectable fall in temperature ... a whopping fall of 0.15°C or so.

Alaskans mark 100th anniversary of big volcano.  Even a century after one of the world's largest volcanic eruptions, a strong wind still whips up the ash that rained down on what became known as Alaska's Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.

Thousands found in London burial pit were victims of a volcanic eruption thousands of miles away.  The remains were found at Spitalfields Market, in east London, during the early 1990s and experts assumed they had died during the Black Death or the Great Famine.  However, following radiocarbon dating of the bones and further geological research, scientists have come to the conclusion that they were in fact victims of a 13th century volcanic eruption — one of the largest eruptions of the past 10,000 years.

Supervolcanoes may have shorter fuse than thought.  There are quite a few supervolcanoes around the world, from the one in Yellowstone Park to what could be a new supervolcano in Bolivia.  While none of them appears primed for an eruption, understanding their behavior illuminates Earth's past and gives a better picture of the danger they pose.

Argo Data Confirms El Niño/La Niña Caused By Underwater Volcanoes.  Last week I postulated that the El Niño/La Niña effect was not due to solar or atmospheric conditions, but actually caused by underwater volcanic activity along ocean ridges off the West coast of South America.  To see whether my theory held water I decided to look into the Argo Float data to see if there it was showing a warm upwelling of water in this region.  I apparently was correct.

America's Energy Future is Bright, if Government Doesn't Shut it Down.  There is no scientific evidence that the use of fossil fuels in our country has a negative effect on our climate.  Our efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are foolish.  A simple volcanic eruption will cancel a decade of effort in this regard.

Is a super-volcano just 390 miles from London about to erupt?  A sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up.  It's lurking just 390 miles away underneath the tranquil Laacher See lake near Bonn and is capable of ejecting billions of tons of magma.  This monster erupts every 10 to 12,000 years and last went off 12,900 years ago, so it could blow at any time.

Iceland volcano Katla sparks global disaster fears.  A huge Icelandic volcano long overdue for an eruption is showing signs of activity that could disrupt air traffic, experts reported.  There have been more than 500 tremors at Katla in the south of the country in just the last month.  An increase in activity at the site since July has also been causing concern among volcano experts.

Icelandic volcano 'set to erupt'.  Geologists detected the high risk of a new eruption after evaluating an increased swarm of earthquakes around the island's second largest volcano.  Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the area around Bárdarbunga is showing signs of increased activity, which provides "good reason to worry".

Ocean Acidification and the CO2-Propaganda.  While mankind has undoubtedly added CO2 to the air, most of the CO2 in the air is from natural sources.  Before man's arrival, all CO2 was from natural sources, primarily from volcanoes.  The CO2 is emitted by thousands of volcanic vents both on land and under water along some 60,000 km of tectonic rifts which criss-cross the earth.  For example, the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii alone emits daily some 9,000,000 kg CO2 into the surrounding air, at a concentration of 500,000 parts per million or 50% of the emitted gas.

Volcanic Emissions in Perspective.  Agence France-Presse (by way of Drudge/Breitbart) puts the volcanic belch from Eyjafjallajökull in perspective.  The Iceland volcano is "emitting between 150,000 and 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide per day, a figure placing it in the same emissions league as a small-to-medium European economy. ... Extrapolated over a year, the emissions (55 million metric tons) would place the volcano 47th to 75th in the world table of emitters on a country-by-country basis."  That is, in the neighborhood of Austria, Portugal, and Denmark, according to the World Resources Institute.  That perspective is also relevant to the U.S., where spoiled, rich elites pretend CO2 is the greatest challenge that mankind faces.

Volcano CO2 Output Could Be 150-300,000 Tons Daily.  Experts said on Monday [4/19/2010] that the volcano in Iceland is emitting 150,000 to 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, a figure comparable to emissions released from a small industrial nation.

Volcanic Carbon Dioxide.  At continental rift zones, where an entire continent is being pulled apart by divergent mantle convection, magma rising to fill the rift is enriched in CO2 from deep mantle sources.  Oldoinyo Lengai is an example of a continental rift zone volcano, which has above average CO2 outgassing at 2.64 megatons of CO2 or 720 KtC per annum.

Mount St. Helens is the state's No. 1 air polluter.  Right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn't a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man.  It's a volcano.  Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October [2004], it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze.  Those emissions are so high that if the volcano was a new factory, it probably couldn't get a permit to operate.

Smashing Environmentalist Myths:  I have never believed the earth is fragile.  Did you know that your typical volcanic eruption puts more pollutants in the air than all auto emissions in the history of civilization combined?  But the earth also has a mechanism for cleaning itself.  It doesn't just sit there, get dirty and die.  It has its own corrective measures.  For us to think that we have the ability, just by virtue of living our lives in a way that enhances our lives, to destroy this planet is the height of folly.

Hawaii's biggest polluter is completely out of control.
Gas from Kilauea forces 2,000 from Hawaiian park.  Elevated sulfur dioxide levels from Kilauea volcano and a change in wind direction Tuesday [4/8/2008] forced 2,000 people to leave Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island.

Trivia:
Hawaii is the only state that is getting bigger.  It is also the only state that has no straight-line borders.

Chile volcano blasts ash 20 miles high, forcing evacuations.  [Scroll down] So far, Chaiten has emitted only a few thousand tons of sulfur dioxide, "which is very small," said Simon Carn, a University of Maryland-Baltimore volcanologist who uses satellites to measure volcanic gases.  In general, a volcano must spew at least 1 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to have a global effect on climate, said Alan Robock, a Rutgers University professor who co-authored a book on the subject. … The Philippines' Mount Pinatubo produced a brief cooling of the climate after spewing 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide in 1991.

Warming or Cooling?  You Be the Judge.  In 1991, the volcanic eruption at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines put more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere than did the whole human race during the most recent century of the industrial era.  Notwithstanding all the heat and fury released in the neighborhood of the volcano, the event had a cooling effect on the world as a whole.

Volcanoes and climate:  [Scroll down]  Volcanoes also release large amounts of water and carbon dioxide, the two most important greenhouse gasses.  From an isolated point of view, a volcanic eruption might thus be expected to result in atmospheric warming.  However, there are large amounts of water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already, and even a large eruption will not be able to change the atmospheric composition of these compounds much.  In addition, the water generally condenses out of the atmosphere as rain within few days, and the carbon dioxide quickly dissolves in the ocean or is absorbed by plants.

The Editor asks...
If the thousands of tons of CO2 from a volcano are absorbed so "quickly," why is there any concern over industrial production of carbon dioxide, where the CO2 trickles into the atmosphere from thousands of locations all over the world?  Why all the fuss over carbon credits?  Some "experts" say "carbon dioxide … stays around for more than a century."  Which "expert" is right?

Global Warming Heresy:  Manmade carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 5 percent of the total; the rest are from natural sources such as volcanoes, dying vegetation and animals.  Annually, volcanoes alone produce more carbon dioxide than all of mankind's activities.  Oceans are responsible for most greenhouse gases. ... The bottom line is, the bulk of scientific evidence shows that what we've been told by environmentalists is pure bunk.

Ian Plimer argues CO2 is not causing global warming.  Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist from Adelaide University, argues that a recent rise in temperature around the world is caused by solar cycles and other "extra terrestrial" forces.  He said carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, widely blamed for global warming, is a natural phenomenon caused by volcanoes erupting.  "We cannot stop carbon emissions because most of them come from volcanoes," he said.

Supplemental information:
1000 people evacuated after Colombia volcano erupts.  A 1993 eruption of Galeras, which rises in the Andes mountain chain to an altitude of 4,270 meters (14,029 feet), killed nine people, including six scientists who had descended its crater to take gas samples. ... Huila, at some 5,363 meters (17,595 feet), last erupted in November 2008, killing 10 people.

Forced evacuations around Philippine volcano.  Security forces will forcibly evacuate thousands of residents reluctant to leave their farms near a smoldering volcano in the Philippines despite fears of a major eruption, officials said.  Authorities in Albay province on Thursday declared a round-the-clock ban on anyone entering with a five-mile danger zone around the Mayon volcano, which is spewing lava and ash.

The Editor says...
The volcano is spewing a lot of other stuff, too, like carbon dioxide and methane.

Volcanic explosions expected in Chile quake's wake.  Besides aftershocks, Chile's magnitude 8.8 earthquake on 27 February may also leave a legacy of volcanic explosions.  "We expect to see an upsurge in volcanic activity over the next 12 months," says David Pyle, a volcanologist at the University of Oxford. ... In particular, they found that after a magnitude 8.3 in 1906 and a magnitude 9.5 earthquake in 1960, there were three or four more volcanic eruptions within about 500 kilometres of the epicentre in the following year than would normally be expected.

Volcanoes may help climate.  A vast network of under-sea volcanoes pumping out nutrient-rich water in the Southern Ocean plays a key role in soaking up large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), acting as a brake on climate change, scientists say.

Volcano erupts in southern Iceland.  Authorities evacuated hundreds of people after a volcano erupted beneath a glacier in southern Iceland, Iceland's civil protection agency said Sunday [3/21/2010].

Britain Closes Airspace as Volcanic Ash Spreads.  British civil aviation authorities ordered the closing of the country's airspace as of noon on Thursday [4/15/2010] to shield aircraft from a high-altitude cloud of ash drifting south and east from an erupting volcano in Iceland.

Volcanic ash grounds flights worldwide.  Hundreds of flights worldwide were cancelled or delayed as volcanic ash from Iceland swept across northern Europe, closing airspace above Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia and other countries.

Iceland Volcano — Weather and Agricultural Implications.  [Scroll down]  Aircraft are grounded as the very fine dust particles when ingested into the engines cause them to fail.  It is a very dangerous situation that occurs whenever eruptions occur.  Longer term the very fine material will remain suspended for several years.  It will block sunlight causing cooling but because most of it is sulphur it will tend to block more in the yellow portion of the light, a part important for plant growth.  We witnessed both the cooling effect and the delayed ripening of the crop following the eruption of Pinatubo in 1991.

Volcanic eruptions caused by global warming!
Volcanoes?  All Your Fault According To NPR.  The slogan attached to NPR gabber Diane Rehm's show is "one of her guests is always you."  Based on Rehm's interview of Elise Labott, senior State Department producer for CNN, reality isn't quite as welcome as you are.

Geothermal Energy:  Another Forgotten Or Ignored Climate Factor.  [Scroll down]  Now we have claims global warming is the cause of the volcanic eruptions in Iceland and more eruptions are to come.  Of course, there are more to come because Iceland is splitting apart and lava will continue to come to the surface in flows or eruptions.  It's another one to add to the remarkable list of false claims kept at the website Numberwatch.  We also have the claim that the eruptions won't stop global warming.  Two problems with that, warming is not occurring and they can't determine the effect of the volcanic dust called aerosols.

Icelandic Volcano:  An animated map of the ash cloud.

Big Nature and Tiny Us.  Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano has forced tens of thousands of airline flights in Europe and the North Atlantic to shut down.  The last time this volcano erupted, in 1821, it continued for two years.  No one knows when the eruption will stop this time.  This uncontrolled and unpredictable explosion of nature's power upon our lives steps across our puny civilizations with frightening ease.  Nineteen years ago, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines coughed up twenty million tons of sulfur dioxide.  In Mexico, nine years earlier, the Chichón eruption perceptibly cooled the planet.  Recent human history has other examples of globally cooling volcanoes.

What ever Happened To The Erupting Iceland Volcano?  The Eyjafjallajokull volcano continues to erupt in Iceland, but the story has fallen off the very small mainstream media tabletop. ... A brief examination of climate history shows how much it changes naturally and how those changes are a great influence on nature and human history.  The planes may be flying again but the fallout from the eruption is just beginning.  The mainstream media ... quickly lurch on to the next hysteria leaving the outcome and fallout of previous hysterias unreported.

Volcanic Gases and Their Effects.  Volcanoes release more than 130 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.

Second Iceland volcano could erupt.  An Icelandic volcano neighbouring Eyjafjoell, whose eruptions paralysed Europe's skies last month, could come to life in the near future, experts have warned.

Big volcanic eruptions in Guatemala, Ecuador.  Explosive eruptions shook two huge volcanos in Central and South America on Friday [5/28/2010], forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and disrupting air traffic as ash drifted over wide regions.

Volcano erupts for the first time since 1600.  Around twelve thousand people have had to be evacuated from their homes in the mainly agricultural area on the slopes.  Its (sic) the first time Mount Sinabung in the north of Sumatra has erupted for 410 years.  There are no reports of casualties, nor of aviation being affected.

Indonesian Volcano Unleashes Biggest Blast Yet.  Clouds of gray ash rumbled down the slopes of Indonesia's most volatile volcano Saturday [10/30/2010] in its most powerful eruption of a deadly week, prompting soldiers to force reluctant villagers to evacuate amid fears of a larger blast.

Iceland volcano flooding - could erupt.  Torrents of water are pouring from a glacier that sits atop Iceland's most active volcano, an indication that the mountain is growing hotter and may be about to erupt, scientists said on Monday [11/1/2010].

Indonesians flee after huge volcanic blast.  Indonesia ordered thousands more people to evacuate on Thursday [11/4/2010] as the country's most active volcano erupted again, shooting gas and ash into the sky and triggering a new aircraft exclusion zone.

Huge volcanic blast spurs more Indonesians to flee.  Indonesia's deadly volcano erupted Wednesday [11/3/2010] with its biggest blast yet, shooting searing ash miles into the sky and forcing hasty new evacuations of panicked people from villages and emergency shelters.

1,400-degree gas chars villages near volcano.  Searing gas avalanched down an Indonesian volcano with a thunderous roar, torching houses and trees and incinerating villagers as they fled Mount Merapi's worst eruption in a century.  Dozens of bodies found Friday [11/5/2010] raised the death toll to 122.

The Editor asks...
What kind of gas flows downhill when heated to 1400°?

Indonesia is a no-fly zone after Mount Merapi's worst eruption yet.  Three airlines have temporarily cancelled flights to Indonesia after another eruption of the Mount Merapi volcano.  Malaysia Airlines, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines have all scrapped flights to Jakarta because of the continued volcanic activity in Indonesia.

Japan on alert after volcano's biggest eruption in 50 years.  A one-mile cordon has been established around a volcano on Mount Kirishima after it erupted scattering rocks and ash across southern Japan and sending smoke billowing 5,000 ft into the air.

Thousands flee as Philippine volcano erupts.  Thousands of people in the Philippines fled their homes as a volcano erupted on Monday [2/21/2011], sending a spectacular column of ash high into the sky, residents said.  The eruption of Bulusan, a 1,559-metre (5,115-foot) volcano, turned mid-morning into night for about 20 minutes across largely farming areas around its slopes, regional army spokesman Major Harold Cabunoc told AFP.

Lava spews 65 feet high after crater collapse.  Kilauea has been in constant eruption since Jan. 3, 1983.

Fire in the hole.  Puu Oo crater's floor collapses, starting a spectacular fissure eruption at Kilauea Volcano.

Iceland volcanic ash cloud.  Flybe called off scheduled flights between London Gatwick and Aberdeen and Inverness airports, while easyJet also cancelled routes between London airports and Scottish destinations.  It came as all major operators flying in and out of Scotland cancelled flights on Tuesday morning [5/24/2011] with the ash cloud already drifting across airspace after the eruption of the Gr?msvötn volcano in Iceland.

Chilean volcano erupts, forces mass evacuations.  Southern Chile's Puyehue volcano erupted for the first time in half a century Saturday [6/4/2011], prompting evacuation orders for 3,500 people as it sent smoke billowing into the sky, authorities said.  The National Service of Geology and Mining said the explosion that sparked the eruption also produced a column of gas 10 kilometers (six miles) high, hours after warning of strong seismic activity in the area.

Bariloche, Southern Chile on red alert after volcano eruption.  The volcano, which had remained dormant for decades, began belching ash over 10 km into the sky and prompting the Chiean government to evacuate several thousand residents, authorities said. ... Local media said the smell of sulfur hung in the air and there was constant seismic activity.

Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano blasts tower of ash.  The Popocatepetl volcano that towers over Mexico City began rumbling again Friday [6/3/2011], shooting a blast of ash about 2 miles (3 kilometers) above its crater at dawn.

Chile volcano eruption: Alert remains for ash cloud.  Authorities in southern Chile and Argentina are continuing to monitor the direction of ash clouds belched out by a chain of volcanoes over the weekend.

Volcano erupts in Eritrea after quakes.  A long-dormant volcano has erupted in Eritrea after a series of earthquakes and sent a 13.5 km plume of ash into the air, according to the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC). ... The Dubbi Volcano - which is located 350 km north of the Eritrean capital Asmara and 233 km east of the Ethiopian city of Mekelle - is thought to have last erupted in 1861.

Iceland's 'Gateway to Hell' volcano ready to erupt, experts say.  One of Iceland's most feared volcanoes, Hekla, looks ready to erupt, with measurement instruments showing likely magma movement, an Icelandic geophysicist said Wednesday [7/6/2011].

Farmers flee as world's deadliest volcano rumbles.  Bold farmers in Indonesia routinely ignore orders to evacuate the slopes of live volcanoes, but those living on Tambora took no chances when history's deadliest mountain rumbled ominously this month.

Mount Etna bursts into life.  Mount Etna, Europe's biggest volcano, has erupted, spewing lava down the sides of the mountain on the southern Italian island of Sicily.  A huge column of hot ash rose high into the sky on the Mediterranean island yesterday [1/6/2012] as the highest active volcano in the continent rumbled back to life.

A killer cloud of CO2 was released by a volcano — not by a factory or power plant.
Carbon Capture Projects Imperiled by Worst-Case Scenario: Energy.  The cloud of carbon dioxide that burst out of Lake Nyos in Cameroon and asphyxiated 1,700 people haunts the plans of oil and power companies to bury their greenhouse gases underground.  "It was shocking," said Minoru Kusakabe, a Japanese geochemist who makes regular trips to the site of the 1986 disaster near the border with Nigeria.  "The village was completely devastated, and people were in their homes dying."  While the source of the CO2 bubble was natural, originating from volcanic magma deep below the lake, the devastation shows how shifts in the Earth's crust can trigger worst-case scenarios for the energy industry...

Concerns grow over volcanic eruptions.  Scientists have known for decades that hidden under those impressive vistas at sites such as Death Valley and Yellowstone National Park are magma pools that under the right conditions can trigger explosive eruptions.

Hawaii Volcano Wipes Out Last Remaining Home.  A volcano that erupted in Hawaii has destroyed the last remaining home in the neighborhood that spanned the volcano's side.  The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island wiped out a subdivision neighborhood on the mountainside Friday [3/2/2012].

Mexico's Popocatépetl sleeping volcano awakens.  Popocatépetl, the nearly 18,000 foot volcano that hovers like a sentinel on the southeastern fringe of Mexico's capital, awakened again Sunday, punctuating an especially shaky seismic season.

Mexico raises volcano alert level after rumbling.  Authorities in Mexico have raised the alert level for the Popocatepetl volcano southeast of Mexico City due to increasing activity.

Mexican Volcano: Ash and Rock Half-Mile Into the Sky.  México's Popocatépetl volcano has spewed super-heated rock fragments into the sky and officials worry that this is a sign of more serious eruptions to come.

Mexico preps shelters as volcano roars, spews ash.  A 35 million cubic foot (1 million cubic meter) chamber of magma is seething about six miles (8 to 10 kilometers) beneath Popocatepetl, Roberto Quaas, director of the disaster prevention center, said at a news conference laying out emergency preparations.

Guatemala volcano erupts, forcing 33,000 to evacuate homes.  A long-simmering volcano outside one of the Guatemala's most famous tourist attractions exploded into a series of powerful eruptions Thursday [9/13/2012], hurling thick clouds of ash nearly two miles (three kilometers) high, spewing rivers of lava down its flanks and forcing the evacuation of more than 33,000 people from surrounding communities.

Massive volcanic eruption puts past climate and people in perspective.  The colossal eruption, which occurred 74,000 years ago, left a crater that is about 50 km wide.  Expelled with the eruption was 2,500 cubic kilometers of lava — equivalent to double the volume of Mount Everest.  The eruption was 5,000 times larger than the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980 in the United States.

When the Ice Melts, the Earth Spews Fire.  It has long been known that volcanic activity can cause short-term variations in climate.  Now, researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany), together with colleagues from Harvard University have found evidence that the reverse process also occurs:  Climate affects volcanic activity.

50 Amazing Volcano Facts.  [#49]  The gas and other particles spewed high into the atmosphere during the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo reduced global temperatures by about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) during the following year.

Volcano Location: Greenhouse-Icehouse Key?  A new Rice University-led study finds the real estate mantra "location, location, location" may also explain one of Earth's enduring climate mysteries.  The study suggests that Earth's repeated flip-flopping between greenhouse and icehouse states over the past 500 million years may have been driven by the episodic flare-up of volcanoes at key locations where enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are poised for release into the atmosphere.

Iceland volcano: Fears of eruption increase as Met Office registers 1,000 small earthquakes in region.  Fears of another volcanic eruption in Iceland continued today with reports that weather officials have detected 1,000 small quakes in the Barðarbunga volcano, following an unusually strong earthquake on Monday [8/18/2014].  Hundreds of people have been evacuated from the highlands north of the Vatnajokull glacier by Iceland's civil protection department after the volcano began belching huge plumes of smoke.

Iceland volcano: Bardarbunga eruption sparks red alert.  The Icelandic Met Office warned that a small eruption had taken place [8/23/2014] under the Dyngjujokull ice cap.  Seismic activity is continuing at the Bardarbunga volcano, about 30 km away.  Airspace over the site has been closed, but all Icelandic airports currently remain open, authorities say.

Volcano Erupts; Several Seconds Later, Its Powerful Ensuing Effects Are Felt.  Incredible footage posted online captured Papua New Guinea's Tavurvur Volcano eruption — in addition to the ensuing sonic boom.  [Video clip]

Over 12,000 evacuated ahead of Philippines volcano eruption.  The Philippines has evacuated more than 12,000 people from around the foot of its most active volcano as the crater glows red and authorities warn of a possible eruption.

Hawaii residents told to prepare for possible lava evacuation by Tuesday.  Dozens of residents in a rural area of Hawaii were placed on alert as flowing lava from an erupting volcano continued to advance.  Authorities on Sunday said lava flow on the Big Island of Hawaii had advanced about 250 yards since Saturday morning [10/25/2014] and was moving at the rate of about 10 to 15 yards an hour, consistent with its advancement in recent days.

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"[N]ature produces far more greenhouse gases than we do.  For example, when the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupted, within just a few hours it had thrown into the atmosphere 30 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide — almost twice as much as all the factories, power plants and cars in the United States do in a whole year.  Oceans emit 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, every year.  Decaying plants throw up another 90 billion tonnes, compared to just six billion tonnes a year from humans."

— Against Nature — Part I of III (Broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK, 1997)    
[Source]    

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