The deplorable truth is that the Climate Industrial Complex (CIC) is pushing exactly in the wrong direction even if what they advocate were free (which is very very far from being the case). The CIC includes the mainstream media, the Democratic Party (which publicly adopted decarbonization last year as part of its Party platform), the Obama Administration, the UN, the “environmentalists,” and a variety of fellow travelers. What currently defines them is a position favoring decarbonization, the removal of some or all human-caused carbon dioxide (CO2) from the environment.
The CIC, which basically adopted and developed one of the bad ideas put forward by the Limits to Growth book some years ago, wants to decarbonize the world. They have invented a superficially consistent set of scientific rationalizations for this and even created an organ of the UN to define and enforce the CIC’s scientific ideology. In 2015 they cobbled together a non-treaty “Treaty” in Paris to implement their decarbonization worldwide after a previously unsuccessful effort named after Kyoto, the city where it was hatched.
President Trump Has Now Made a Heroic Effort to Withdraw the US from the New “Treaty”
To his great credit, President Trump has announced that he will remove the US from this “Treaty.” His only error was not doing it sooner and more effectively. He has also limited his arguments for doing what needs to be done to economics–decarbonization costs too much, the huge payments to less developed countries for decarbonizing included in the “Treaty” are foolish and useless (even North Korea wants some of the cash), and the “Treaty” puts the US at a competitive disadvantage compared to those countries that are not decarbonizing anytime soon. Obviously, he is correct–it does cost far more than it is worth since decarbonization clearly has negative value and will rob any developed country adopting it of much of their possibility for further economic growth and development. Trumps’ opponents are trying to obscure the monumental costs of the “Treaty,” but if the public understood this, there would be little support for it.
President Trump is apparently not willing to argue the science, which provides equally strong or even stronger arguments. I suspect he did this in order to avoid the swamp that climate science has become as a result of the CIC’s misguided efforts. But swamp it is–and it needs to be called out as such even if it is not politically correct to do so. But I think I understand why he avoided it–it is a politically dangerous area–and he is only willing to expend so much political capital on the climate issue and only as a direct part of his “make America great again” mantra.
The Scientific Case for Carbonization
So let me briefly summarize the scientific case for doing the opposite (carbonization) since President Trump chose not to do so. CO2 is a basic input for photosynthesis and therefore life itself–not the “dirty” pollutant pictured by the USEPA and the rest of the CIC. Plants will die for lack of enough of it during future ice ages, as many almost did during the last ice age. Earth’s global temperatures have been irregularly declining for many hundreds of millions of years and with it atmospheric CO2 levels, which are largely determined by temperatures (not human emissions), particularly oceanic temperatures.
If plants have more CO2, they will grow better and stronger. CO2 does not have a significant effect on global warming, contrary to the CIC’s basic ideology. Earth needs more of it–in fact as much as we can get in order for plants to have a little added protection from the next ice age–the worst fate we are almost certain to experience sooner or later. The “environmentalists” are not worthy of the name–the desired effect of their activities is not just to ruin the conventional environment (think unsightly and bird killing windmills and solar thermal plants) but threaten the very existence of life on Earth.
In the long run humans may need to try to increase atmospheric CO2 levels, but the important thing now is at least not to decrease them, as the CIC is trying to do. President Trump has pushed in exactly the right direction and deserves support for his actions–even if they need to be even stronger (like getting the US out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as a whole with only a one year wait rather than the four years he is now pursuing). He only used a few of the many justifications for stopping decarbonization and getting out of the Paris “Treaty,” but he is definitely on the right track and braver than most other politicians to do so.
Bjorn Lomborg had a piece in the Weekend wsj. an odd bird. He must lap up the premise of warming based on carbon, while disparaging the Paris agreement as inadequate, making him into a Danish Jimmy Hansen. Fancies himself a realist.
Revolting!
The Copenhagen Consensus makes as much sense as Als 97 percent consensus. The word consensus should never be employed in relation to climate.
Bjorn has Danish ditto heads he labels a consensus. So what?
Photosynthesis regulates CO2 and curbs its build-up in the atmosphere, yielding biological benefits.
I imagine some folks are uneasy by increasing levels of CO2, but levels are still very low and photosynthesus serves as a natural constraint. The Earth has been able to look after itself for the past 4.5B years, without need for help from the UN.
One new definition of organic is the absence of pesticides in growing plants.
An older definition of organic is a molecule or material that contains carbon. It used to be that carbon was synonymous with life, such that a substance containing carbon was a often product of a natural or living process.
Even oil and coal were believed to be fossilized residues from ancient plants.
Given the essentiality of carbon to life on earth, attacking carbon is intrinsically impractical and short-sighted by the CIS. It is disrespectful to the essentiality of photosynthesis to life on this planet. Photosynthesis yields both food and oxygen. Thus attacking CO2 attacks life on earth. How sane is that?
From my posts on decarbonization, I am obliged to realize and acknowledge an endangerment finding that includes CO2, a biospherically essential trace gas upon which life itself depends, is quite silly.
This is a fatal flaw in Al’s movie too.
It’s amazing such a silly fatal flaw can become an underpinning for climate theology and even be upheld by the Supreme Court. A sobering perspective.
Yes, the endangerment finding should be repealed, on the fundamental grounds of deleting CO2, and on grounds of highly uncertain and compromised temperature data and models.
The truth is just the truth, whether it be pleasing to humble Deplorables or to faux science Eco-Snobs and their devotees.
That said, deplorable truth is still a nice phrasing.
Big Al has badly tarnished use of the word, inconvenient. inconvenience for others was his convenience.
A problem for the CIS is divorcing its agenda from any useful purpose.
Advocating costly non-practical solutions for non-existent problems damages the reputation of the advocates. The CIS is shooting itself in the foot.
By attacking carbon., the CIS shows it has collapsed, intellectually.
The element Carbon is integral to life on planet Earth, perhaps more so than oxygen and water.
The atom can connect to four others, making it an essential building block of both inanimate materials and of life forms, alike.
Thus the Climate Industrial Simplex (CIS) is especially feeble minded when it attacks “carbon pollution.” Yikes is this moronic. This attacks life itself, on grounds of a non-existent problem. How smart is that, Doc?
Anti-carbon is anti-life, anti-environmental, anti-industry, anti-civilization, and of course anti-American. Opponents of carbon are looking for something to stigmatize in order to tax it. With the CIS it’s always about the money.
Like Al Gore recently disclosing he needs $15trillion in small denomination unmarked bills in order to save the earth and pay alimony to Tipper.
Hey Al, we can all use an extra $15T. Feel your need and greed, man.