I can’t find the words to describe the illogic behind the EPA with this ruling. Perhaps it is best to say that bureaucrats don’t understand anything but regulations and leave it at that.
WASHINGTON – 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. Story here.
To celebrate, surfacestations.org volunteer Gary Boden sends along this poster:
But there’s an interesting twist, just two days ago, the University of Wisconsin says that CO2 is accelerating forest growth. Of course, bureaucrats wouldn’t understand this, because they can’t regulate tree growth. Oh, wait.
From the University of Wisconsin-Madison press release:
Greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ramps up aspen growth
Dec. 4, 2009
The rising level of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be fueling more than climate change. It could also be making some trees grow like crazy.
That is the finding of a new study of natural stands of quaking aspen, one of North America’s most important and widespread deciduous trees. The study, by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota at Morris (UMM) and published today (Dec. 4) in the journal Global Change Biology, shows that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the past 50 years have boosted aspen growth rates by an astonishing 50 percent.
“Trees are already responding to a relatively nominal increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 50 years,” says Rick Lindroth, a UW-Madison professor of ecology and an expert on plant responses to climate change. Lindroth, UW-Madison colleague Don Waller, and professors Christopher Cole and Jon Anderson of UMM conducted the new study.
The study’s findings are important as the world’s forests, which cover about 30 percent of the Earth’s land surface, play an important role in regulating climate and sequestering greenhouses gases. The forests of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, act as sinks for carbon dioxide, helping to offset the increase in levels of the greenhouse gas, widely viewed as a threat to global climate stability.
What’s more, according to the study’s authors, the accelerated growth rates of aspen could have widespread unknown ecological consequences. Aspen is a dominant tree in mountainous and northern forested regions of North America, including 42 million acres of Canadian forest and up to 6.5 million acres in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Aspen and their poplar cousins are considered “foundation species,” meaning they exert a strong influence on the plant and animal communities and dynamics of the forest ecosystems where they reside.
“We can’t forecast ecological change. It’s a complicated business,” explains Waller, a UW-Madison professor of botany. “For all we know, this could have very serious effects on slower growing plants and their ability to persist.”
Carbon dioxide, scientists know, is food for plants, which extract it from the air and through the process of photosynthesis convert it to sugar, plant food.
Previously, scientists have shown that plants and trees in growth chambers respond to levels of carbon dioxide well above levels in the atmosphere. The new study is the first to show that aspen in their native forest environments are already growing at accelerated rates due to rising ambient levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“It’s a change hiding right in front of us,” says Cole, a biologist at UMM. “Aspens respond to all sorts of things we had to account for — water, genetics and other factors — but the strong response to carbon dioxide surprised all of us.”
The study measured the growth rates of 919 trees from Wisconsin forests dominated by aspen and birch. Trees ranging in age from 5 to 76 years old were sampled and subjected to tree-ring analysis. Comparing the tree-ring data, a measure of annual tree growth, with records of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the researchers were able to correlate increased rates of growth with changes in the chemistry of the air.
The surprising increase in growth rates for the trees sampled in the study is coupled, the authors note, with moist conditions. By contrast, aspen in the western United States do not seem to grow as fast as those in the American Midwest, most likely due to recent extended periods of drought. Also, while the researchers found that aspen grow much faster in response to elevated carbon dioxide, similar effects have not been observed in other trees species, notably oak and pine.
Findings from the new study, the authors note, could augur revisions of the estimates of how much carbon northern temperate northern forests can sequester.
“Forests will continue to be important to soak up anthropogenic carbon dioxide,” says Waller. “But we can’t conclude that aspen forests are going to soak up excess carbon dioxide. This is going to plateau.”
“Aspens are already doing their best to mitigate our inputs,” agrees Cole. “The existing trees are going to max out in a couple of decades.”
The new study was funded by the National Science Foundation and UMM.
RE: EPA ruling …
In 2002, over 400,000 people died from drowning worldwide. In the US, drowning claims nearly 3,600 lives annually and is the third leading cause of accidental death in the United States.
I guess water will be next. And Lordy, don’t even mention water vapor and clouds to your EPA.
The word has indeed gone mad.
The tree story is something positive in a sea of insanity.
Clive
I was laughing too hard at that poster to finish reading the piece but my first impression is this is a panicked CYA move by the EPA attemting to head off the total collapse of their justification and moral authority for continue defrauding the public with the AGW agenda.
We are just a step away from identifying “second hand carbon dioxide” risks and proceeding with the necessary regulation and legislation. In the first, “soft” phase, businesses will have to provide rooms where customers who chose to exhale CO2 will be sequestered. In the second phase, exhaling CO2 will be outlawed altogether.
“We can’t forecast ecological change. It’s a complicated business,” explains Waller, a UW-Madison professor of botany. “For all we know, this could have very serious effects on slower growing plants and their ability to persist.”
For all we know, there are fairies at the bottom of Dr. Waller’s garden. Ignoratio elenchi.
“…(T)he researchers were able to correlate increased rates of growth with changes in the chemistry of the air….”
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Association doesn’t prove causation.
Clive, you’re right, the world has indeed gone mad. But the tree story, however positive it may really be, is immediately being spun into just another alarmist wave in a sea of Climategate insanity. Logic is dead. Science is dead. Lunacy rules! Woo-woo science is King!
But with C02
it is simple indeed;
no burning of carbon
and please do not breath.
The life and anti-life groups are defining themselves.
Campbell Brown (CNN) has a upcoming episode on climategate.
They can say that carbon dioxide is steroids for the trees and that’s illegal.
Water must be ruled out since it is the positive feedback of atmospheric water vapour, and not CO2, that will stew your children in their own juices.
Then EPA will have banned the two substances, H2O and CO2, that supports Life itself on this planet.
And everyone will live happily ever after.
The end.
Should the EPA go the way of the IPCC – since they are both corrupt or at least very ignorant?
Hmmm.. does that mean I can complain to the EPA about the high levels of CO2 and contaminants in aircraft cabins?
This work, if accurate, seems to tell me three things. One is that CO2 is beneficial for at least some significant plant growth – I think we might have expected that. But it also tells us that tree rings can be shown to vary with CO2 levels and with precipitation/moisture and not just with temperature. It also tells us that tree growth may vary according to different variables in different species.
I’m pretty much a layman in this, but doesn’t it tell us that tree ring variation depends on a lot of things, including those, but not only those, measured in this study. If that is so, how is temperature selected out for past centuries?
“Aspens are already doing their best to mitigate our inputs,” agrees Cole. “The existing trees are going to max out in a couple of decades.”
Well, we just need to have a talk with them about trying harder.
Surprise? Well, perhaps to the “scientists”, but any greenhouse owner could have told them this would occur. And it isn’t only the aspens, but all green plants grow faster with higher levels of carbon dioxide.
But . . . oops, turns out that the forests getting greener will have bad consequences too . . . or perhaps not. Was “go green”. Now I guess it will have to change to “Stop the greening of planet Earth!”
Now what was that word the Irish use? Eejits. Yep, sure and they are that, they are.
“This is going to plateau.””
Yeah, because the only thing sucking up CO2 is Aspen trees. Idiots. If you look at a graph of U.S. corn yields, nest to a Mauna loa CO2 graph, it looks pretty similar. The Biosphere is HUGE. If there is a top end to what the Biosphere could sequester, I don’t think we’ll be finding it anytime soon. Oh, and as a bonus, all that Carbon, taken in by plants, and then sequestered in the soil, makes the top soil more fertile, so we can grow even more, well, green stuff. Recent studies at American Universities, are also showing that, with increased CO2, plants are producing more on less water. This is just barely beginning to be studied, but, already, we’ve got the doomsayers out.
While I THINK (at least I sure hope) there are some real-world upper limits on how far off the deep end the EPA can take this without Congressional action, consider for a moment this sobering and potentially very frightening thought:
Carried to its ultimate and bureaucratically insane conclusion, this absurd finding that CO2 is ”dangerous” has the potential to eventually lead to government regulating, monitoring, and controlling just about EVERY aspect and minute detail of the personal lives of all US citizens.
Never forgot: Freedom never was free; and it won’t continue to exist if a majority are content to leave the government on internal autopilot.
It’s a crisis — accelerating flora growth rates change everything in the biosphere. How can people run things if everything keeps changing? Next thing you know, fauna will respond to increased flora growth and we’ll have more meat than we can eat. Then there will be more people to eat more of the available food. It’s enough to drive control freaks (aka bureaucrats) up the wall.
The average human breathes out CO2 at about 40,000ppmv. Multiply that by 6.5 billion then double every 45 years. I guess there is a problem.
A desensitizing step closer to the public announcement of the bigger depopulation agenda?
“We can’t forecast ecological change. It’s a complicated business,”
Why not just use computer models? I can hardly be more complex than climatic systems.
I am sure the models will show that the Aspen tree will grow to more than 500 meters in 2100. Furthermore, the amount of drift wood from these trees will make the oceans rise another meter by 2100.
/Mikkel
@Purakanui
Grenhousemen routinely run the C02 level at 1,000PPM and as high as 2,000ppm – to benefit plant production.
EM Smith states that this level was as much as 1,000 times greater in the past without ending the world.
I think we should be able to stop the EPA once more… remember the MTBE additive they required – !
Richard111 (22:43:01) :
That made me wonder if there has ever been an honest accounting of the effect that population has on CO2. There were 1.6(ish) billion people in 1900, and there are now 6.1(ish) billion. That is four times as much CO2 being exhaled. Where does it all go?
The action of the EPA is constitutional. The Supreme Court of the United States decided that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant in the Massachusetts vs. EPA decision of 2007.
The government is legislatively making Nature subject the government’s rules and regulations.
We will live in a Utopian Camelot of government specified temperature, controlled sea level, a government standardized CO2 concentration and lots of Arctic ice for the Polar Bear playground.
The EPA is bringing a new meaning to the term “oxygen thieves.” Also reported in the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126013960013179181.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
I see Barrie Harrop is hyperventilating there again… doesn’t he realise that will produce more CO2???
The museum of natural history of Helsinki features a note on the Devon (?) period: “Falling CO2 levels forced plants to develop more efficient methods of assimilating CO2 and they started sprouting LEAVES.”
As a retired GP in his 90th year I am astonished that the medical profession has swallowed the idea that CO2 is a poison. The BMJ and Lancet promote this nonsense. Less than 30 years ago we denied that peptic ulcer could be due to a bacillus. It took Australian doctors to prove us wrong, and ten or more years for us to accept that. They deserved their Nobel Prize in this century for their determination in the face of hostility.
Now Joanne Nova is leading the way in concentrating on the central ‘diagnosis’ that CO2 is the culprit. She deserves all the support she is now receiving.
Alick Dowling
Barrie Harrop is a sanctimonious turd. He’s quite the ‘green energy exec’ ain’t he?
Apparently business is so good he has endless tracts of time to spend online spewing nonsense…..i wonder what the board of directors think of his online antics….
First news article I’ve found on the solar minimum in a long time.
Will astrophysicists be allowed in the climate debate now?
Can a lull in solar activity head off climate change?
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/12/07/can_a_lull_in_solar_activity_head_off_climate_change/
I think the EPA is in big, big trouble.
It did not do enough of its own work to try and validate the IPCC ‘consensus’ science – the IPCC reports were based on data from UEA CRU/GISS – UEA CRU/GISS data can no longer be seen as reliable – I can see lots of court cases ensuing on this one :-))
Good lord, this is getting way out of hand! Let’s hope the EPA then set the trend by having their employees stop breathing like the poster suggests. What’s that? They won’t? Of course not, shows just how ridiculous this whole sham is getting!
Worth a read………
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Climate+dissenters+vilified/2307733/story.html?id=2307733
So if extra co2 makes trees grow faster, how come Phil Jones had to “hide the decline” in post 1960 tree ring widths measured by Keith Briffa?
By the way, this isn’t the first report on accelerated tree growth.
Back on the 18th Feb 2009, Pof Simon Lewis of Leeds Uni had this published in Nature.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uol-oof021609.php
EPA and UN Climate Treaty next sneak attack on humanity
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/12/un-climate-treaty-next-sneak-attack.html
Eisenhower (again)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/the_scientific_technological_e.html
Ken from the beautiful Methow Valley. You’d better lock yourself in your cabin and not come until next November. It’ll be a rough ride til then. Maybe afterward too, it might last another three years. Hope you’ve stocked up.
What about oxygen?
Doesn’t it oxidize everything it touches?
Surely that is grounds for banning.
/sarc
Maybe the EPA would like an all oxygen atmosphere.
Then we could wait for events like the immolation of Apollo 1 occurring on a wider scale.
The EPA appears not to appreciate the subtleties of nature.
What do you expect from bureaucrats.
Individual Humans produce 1000-3000lbs of CO2 / Year….. hmmm
Thats like half our allowance.
Trees benefit from CO2 ?! Who knew ?
More people, more demand for meat products (cow, sheep, chicken, etc.) which also exhale CO2, plus more industrialization, ever more CO2 emission. But more CO2 means more plant growth, taking away from the atmosphere the excess CO2. There should be self-regulation and self-regeneration of the gas there. We end up with CO2 hardly reaching 500 ppm even a century from now.
Purakanui (22:32:30) :
I’m pretty much a layman in this, but doesn’t it tell us that tree ring variation depends on a lot of things, including those, but not only those, measured in this study.
Whatever factor is in short supply is the growth limiting factor. For any given tree, at any given time, it might be water, warmth, CO2, bear poo, phosporus (bird poo), etc. All of them together will determine the ulitmate growth and thus the ultimate tree ring size.
If that is so, how is temperature selected out for past centuries?
Poorly. Very poorly.
c02 for the energy infrastructure and all that entails and implies, and it looks like food and water are next. i can’t remember which country it was that had their water privatized via predatory lending by the world bank, but they even made it illegal to use rainwater… monsanto or betchel or some company was involved…
There is a bright side, as an Australian producing exports and competing with the USA in the world market, such a pronouncement is beneficial to me, by reducing the competitiveness of the USA. This is because the costs of doing business and energy usage may well go up in the USA.
Oh, and per the EPA declaring CO2 a polutant:
Well, folks pushing too hard breaks things, and breaking things makes crowds grumpy. And cold hungry grumpy crowds shout things:
“Hey Hey, Ho Ho, EPA Has Got To GO!”
Repeat in the millions until free…
Tyrants of all sorts always push too far, and then they are taken down by the mob. But the mob is a lazy beast, so it takes a long time to get motivated. The problem for EPA is that it is hard to sell folks on the notion that being cold, hungry, and poor is “improving their lives”.
“Ed Scott (22:53:32) :
The action of the EPA is constitutional. The Supreme Court of the United States decided that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant in the Massachusetts vs. EPA decision of 2007.”
The Supreme Court ruled in favor – that’s not the same as being constitutional. The Court has issued many blatantly unconstitutional rulings (Kelo, for instance). The Supreme Court has no more authority to rule CO2 a pollutant than I have to annoint Ruth Bader Ginsburg the Queen of Romania.
One of my earlier comments in this same site would be more appropriate in these discussions… (I hope that copying it here again doesn’t create space problems)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/27/quote-of-the-week-20-ding-dong-the-stick-is-dead/#comment-228192
Dr. Kasivishvanathan Sundar (09:00:25) :
Even when I read blogs, I generally do not comment or participate in discussions – well, may be you could say that it is a retired attitude… But, I thought that this does invite a comment, even if late in making it.
The total carbon content of the world (when you include the core and the mantle of our earth) doesn’t change much as there aren’t many carbon rich meteorites striking our world…
Given this, it is only the atmospheric content of carbon that is of concern. I would like, being a person not in the community, how much of carbon (as dioxide) a volcano gives out to what is given out by us mining these out and burning these.
There may be fluctuation in climate that would encourage multiplication of carbon-fixing organisms to carbon-releasing organisms like us. Again another indicator would be the quantity of carbon-releasing organisms that exits compared to the carbon-fixing ones.
Whichever way you go the release of carbon to atmosphere cannot be slowed down whether we mine it or whether it is because of a natural causes like a volcano, or because of organisms like us.
The increase in temperature due to higher CO2 will be compensated as there will be more water that will evaporate and cause a cloud cover that will decrease the temperatures over significant areas so as to lower the overall surface temperatures…
So, it would be a cycle – what is causing harm is deforestation to fix back the carbon that WE are emitting (not only through supposedly fossil fuels, but more by our own biological mechanisms – I would really like to have a figure as to the amount of CO2 that we as humans are releasing to the atmosphere). Fortunately we can not control the algae that grows in the Oceans which will/may revert back the equilibrium – but with epsilon deviation as time goes on, more carbon is released from our core and mantle, which cannot be stopped…
So, we need to accept that the average carbon content of the surface of earth will keep increasing (only if our Earth’s core and mantle has not captured in their formative years those fragments with more carbon)
Two solutions…
One – take tones of carbon lump formed by our life forms in space ships and throw it out in space.
Two, accept the climatic change, and increase the carbon-fixing organism and reduce the carbon-emitting organisms (this would mean that in the next million years, tentatively more that 80% of life here should be carbon fixing organisms)…!!!
I request all to understand the overall dynamics at a planet-level and think accordingly – people who cannot take a pike and do the ground work to contribute to the society by planting more plants, will talk anything to keep their bread/funds coming their way…
Smokey (09:18:35) :
Dr. Kasivishvanathan Sundar,
To answer a couple of your questions…
Human CO2 emissions versus natural emissions:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/eia_co2_contributions_table3.png
We know too little about volcanoes. Those on land we can measure. But hundreds of thousands of new undersea volcanoes were recently discovered:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12218
Dr. Kasivishvanathan Sundar (11:26:35) :
Great data…
But, I do not understand the classification of human CO2 emissions – when I meant human, I did not mean the human activity but we as biological organisms (and other higher organisms that give out CO2) that contribute to the atmospheric carbon (as dioxide) – each of us probably (do check this) exhale 1 kg of CO2 every day; with population of 6 billion for humans alone, this would be 6 million tons a day – what about the other species that are around…?
And out of volcanoes on land that we can measure what is the ratio of the CO2 emitted by them to us burning the fossil (if it is really fossil – it could be from carbon compounds from even earlier in formation of our planet or is being formed right now under us) fuels – any data there?
But, wouldn’t you think that the total carbon content of this planet as a whole that includes its crust would not change much and the atmospheric carbon would increase with time (whether man/life-form made or not)…?
And, are we really so much advanced to have understood all the processes that are involved – aren’t we making tall claims one-way or other…?
My suggestion (what ever it is worthy of) is to follow the path of minimalism for a coming few centuries by every individual who has the conscious power to alter the surroundings – it is, maybe a distant hope…
I hope that these doesn’t offend anyone established in this field and it is just that I would like to highlight an alternative way of looking at things – do apologize my ignorance, if any…
Well, if carbon dioxide is to be deemed a pollutant by the EPA because of its global warming potential, for consistency the EPA should damn water vapour as well -after all it is the main greenhouse gas by far. But on second thoughts, where does the money lead?
Where will this madness end?
As our exhalations are 4% CO2, does this mean that Expired Air Resuscitation (EAR) is to be banned? Does the EPA have any guidance on what will replace the long-established EAR?
“Aspens are already doing their best to mitigate our inputs,” agrees Cole. “The existing trees are going to max out in a couple of decades.”
And it’s not like they’re gonna produce any *seedlings* in those decades, which are then going to mature into *additional* trees. Nature is really static in that regard, ya know.
[/sarc]
Note to EPA: “seedlings” = “baby trees”…
NH ice now normal
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
probably higher because of unreliability since Oct 1 (ie error is “under”, not “over”)
Meanwhile, the US Chamber of Commerce has waffled and is now bowing Obama-style to Kerry and Graham:
“The Chamber commends Senators Kerry and Graham for their recent New York Times editorial on the need for comprehensive climate legislation.” The comments on this editorial are (with the exception of one resident warmist weasel) very angry. Take a look for yourself:
http://www.chamberpost.com/2009/11/climate-change—a-different-approach.html
My Pearl Harbor Day response:
I have bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, including physics and chemistry courses, radiation into gases, astrophysics, and mathematics. I’ve spent over 500 hours in the past year looking into AGW science. My conclusion? It’s drivel.
The statement that added CO² will cause disastrous global warming is on a par with the bumblebees- can’t-fly canard: all theory, and much evidence to the contrary.
Climategate has revealed that skeptics have been right all along: pro-AGW scientists were cooking the books since early days. Those implicated by the leaked memos include IPCC science insiders at the highest levels, those responsible for virtually all “global temperature records” relied upon by the IPCC and for the IPCC summary reports themselves.
If AGW science were valid, why did Climategate scientists find it necessary to manipulate data, evade FOI requests, plan to destroy data, threaten boycotts of neutral journals, prevent publication of dissenting views, and then, for the cherry on top of this insidious farrago, proclaim a fictitious consensus?
AGW has been exposed as the greatest hoax in history, driven by a propaganda machine funded by billions of our tax dollars in the service of global socialism and tyranny. It’s time for the Chamber to make a stand, take an unequivocal position against this treasonous destruction of American industry.
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” –Winston Churchill
“the current and projected concentrations of … key greenhouse gases ….in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations”.
Could some of you lawyers please elaborate? What does “threaten” mean in this context – 50/50 chance of bad outcomes, clear & present danger, more bad than good (cost/benefit), higher risk than other dangers, etc?
I like the use of AND rather than OR throughout. The EPA will need to defend its finding in respect to both now and the future, and both welfare (including economic circumstances) and health.
lord Christopher Monckton. Russia Today UK Sky channel 512. See video here;
http://rt.com/Top_News/2009-12-01/its-end-climate-change.html
Would be nice to see this on BBC………..
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will early next week, possibly as soon as Monday, officially declare carbon dioxide a public danger.
EPA should lead the way in protecting its employees by moving them out of those dangerously enclosed buildings — where those employees are subjected to higher concentrations of CO2 — and out into the parking lots surrounding their buildings.
Immediately.
I predict that will reduce the number of employees at risk from CO2 poisoning in direct proportion to the numbers succumbing to pneumonia, *and* I have a graph to prove it.
OT? In case you haven’t seen this yet:
Promises, promises: A closed meeting on openness
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091206/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_open_government
“It’s hardly the image of transparency the Obama administration wants to project: A workshop on government openness is closed to the public.
“The event Monday for federal employees is a fitting symbol of President Barack Obama’s uneven record so far on the Freedom of Information Act, a big part of keeping his campaign promise to make his administration the most transparent ever. As Obama’s first year in office ends, the government’s actions when the public and press seek information are not yet matching up with the president’s words.”
Did anybody actually believe him? Oh, well, yes, I guess a few people did.
The only ‘carbon capture’ that makes any sense at all is using the warm damp CO2 laden air to feed rows and rows of market garden greenhouses. High value products like pomegranates and bananas would then subsidize power-production and side-step the EU’s Cap & Tax.
I suppose a positive economic impact is not quite the ‘Green’ way.
That is not true, at least not for pine. Pine responds DRAMATICALLY to increased CO2 to include 2x more seed production with a 50% increase of CO2 according to studies done at Duke University.
http://news.duke.edu/2009/08/carbonseed.html
so the biosphere is part of an natural regulatory system to keep the planet within a band of temperatures that suits plants that rely on photosynthsis
more co2 = faster plant growth which reduces the co2 in the atmosphere
The Navy is going to have fun with this given that submarines typically have co2 contents in their atmosphere of up to 2-3000 pts per million:
see the headline EPA to close down Nuke Subs.
Mind you a cunning beauracrat might push this ruling knowing it is a nonsence and will be challanged in court, ant the whole co2 charade will be exposed and subject to a judicial evidence based process.
Another change noted was dramatically better drought resistance and freeze resistance in plants grown in enhanced CO2 environments. Plants grown in 2x CO2 showed no slowdown in growth at precipitation levels that shut off growth in plants at ambient CO2. I believe that study was done with sweetgum but pines might have been included.
off topic
but would it be possible to change the link to Climate Audit to the new mirror site rather than the old one.
http://camirror.wordpress.com/
For those of us that like to use WUWT as a home page this would help.
There were a Swedish science rapport that get buried a year ago, something,
I think it was from Lund university working together with scientists from Italy.
A little simplified it goes like this. They study traffic CO2 impact on nature and concluded that the woods take up more CO2 in close to roads then elsewhere.
In fact they concluded that the uptake of CO2 was more then ten times of ordinary for woods.
I think it was also published in Nature. Now I cant find it anywhere, so sorry for missing links
This is one of the key acts in enacting ‘global warming’ economics.
It is the beginning of the end for US science if it goes on.
Time for US scientists to start upping sticks to practice their trade in foreign lands, perhaps??
Quote of the week for me.
“To blame the current warming on humans, there was a perceived need to “prove” that the current global average temperature is higher than it was at any other time in recent history (the last few thousand years). This task is one of the main topics of the released CRU emails.
Some people were so eager to prove this point that it became more important than scientific integrity.”
-Petr Chylek Los Alamos National Laboratory-
http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/218-petr-chylek-open-letter-to-the-climate-research-community.html
I would expect to see species that evolved and were dominant (such as conifers) when CO2 levels were much higher than today would benefit from enhanced CO2. CO2 depletion may well be a main reason for the decrease on coniferous forest and the rise of hardwoods in temperate regions. If atmospheric CO2 depletion resulted in decreased seed production of conifers (probably due to less efficient photosynthesis) then it stands to reason that hardwoods may they gain an advantage in reduced CO2 conditions.
“The existing trees are going to max out in a couple of decades.”
I am ever more impressed with the precise scientific terminology of the academics involved in these studies. Max out, rock on and stay cool, Professor Cole.
A few grains of salt. I haven’t read the paper, but…
* Aspen decline has been the big issue lately, not aspen “growing like crazy”
http://www.aspensite.org/research_dieback.htm
* Oh no, more tree ring studies
* I thought that trees worldwide have been experiencing an inexplicable growth contraction since 1940 or 1960 (see the ‘hide the decline’ spline justification by the CRUcrew)
* This paper is not about greenhouse growth under controlled conditions (confound those pesky confounding factors!)
* Repeat over and over: correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, correlation is not causation, …
Whoops wrong thread! Moderator please delete.
No. It’s the right one. Confound it!
Reply: Glad we got that cleared up. ~ ctm
http://aspenface.mtu.edu/
“The Aspen FACE (Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment) Experiment is a multidisciplinary study to assess the effects of increasing tropospheric ozone and carbon dioxide levels on the structure and function of northern forest ecosystems.”
This is the begining of the end for the EPA. They will try to end run the senate to put in place carbon controls by regulation and court orders and congress will cutoff their funding. sooner or later bureaucrats will over reach too far to be egnored.
All animal exhalations are “O” sum CO2 to the enviroment, kind of obvious isn’t it?
As I commented a few months ago, a doubleing of CO2 would be wonderful for life on this planet and might also temper the next cold period.
Come on CO2 is not bad for you, what about particulate matter, that will kill you, just visit LA. So why does Ian Plimer the scientist state that CO2 has an effect for the first 50ppm but after that it makes no difference in concentration, we could have 2000ppm and it’ll be fine. And that gulf stream escalator or whatever it’s called, to stop that you’d have to stop the earth spinning LOL
I wish the EPA would start by regulating the excessive carbon footprint of those hypocritical elites that are invading Copenhagen. Imagine, they want us peasants to cut back while looting our treasury!!
“Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges”
“Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough.”
“The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers. ”
“As well 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, the Danish capital will be blessed by the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah, Helena Christensen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles.”
Above from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html
I thought that there are a few ways to trap carbon from the atmosphere (apart from trees which probably is the most economical and efficient way) that could be floated to the more honoured people who are meeting in Copenhagen – an alternative way of thinking to the problem of cosmic scale made comic…
If one has followed my earlier comments, it would be clear that the carbon content of the atmosphere would increase in an epsilon way over millennia but by our actions (and presence itself!) we are augmenting it without doing anything to reverse it… Here are a few ideas to reverse it that are technically viable (with present technology) and economically feasible:
1. Most of the metals we have are reduced from their oxides and the cheapest way is to release the oxygen is as CO2. There are two suggestions here
a) The produced CO2 to be made into solid form (there are ‘n’ number of ways to do it if one now a little chemistry that are commercially viable) and bury them deep in earth (may be they will become our future fuels…? :-))
b) To condense the CO2 as huge of blocks of CO2 ice (a reverse of refining were selective gases can be condensed and the rest released to atmosphere) and use ships to drag them submerged in deep (at least 500m) ocean till all of it becomes gas. This is to enhance CO2 absorption by water (which from surface is not that high), resulting in higher growth of algae that can fix more CO2 in the animal life chain. Note that this could be a new industry (a reverse of fishing?) that will enhance economy and offset the cost of making the ice (well… making the CO2 ice needs energy but this can come from other sources or from part of the energy generated in those schemes that release a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere). For example, this would mean that electricity-generating plants from fossil fuel, if it follows this kind of a plan would reduce CO2 emission almost to zero at a loss of efficiency less than probably 20% (need to work this out) and also creating a new industry of making CO2 ice and their evaporation under water in deep oceans.
2. Create barges (of a sq. km or more) that can float in all weather in rough oceans and be partially submerged and earth filled. Plant mangroves and bamboo (some of whose species are tolerant to salt water) that has a very high growth rate implying an efficient way of fixing the carbon in the atmosphere. As long as the wood is not burned and say, used to create furniture etc. would mean that more carbon is fixed as solids…
3. Obvious – planting trees at right places with adequate water and rich soil. Unlike an old tree, a young sapling grows to a few tonnes within a few years and all of it is carbon content (I am searching for the % of carbon in timber) taken off from the atmosphere
4. Last, but not least, noticing the wind pattern over our peninsular India in the past few years as a specific example, I feel that flow has slowly over years shifted north and is running across northern peninsular India and curving over Arabian sea than the Bay of Bengal, which is the usual pattern. Flowing if it does through the bay will produce cyclones and while causing some damage brings in most of the rains in peninsular India (during the North-East monsoon period). Unlike what people think, a wind turbine, if many, would change the wind patterns (it is not such a clean source as one is made to believe, when one thinks of massive scales and over a long period of time) at surface levels, which causes shears in the successive atmospheric layers leading to a change in over all climatic conditions. The suggestion would be to install many a windmill in the northern part of the Indian peninsula to restrict this wind flow (and there are many similar regions in the world) to enable greater rainfall and to harness the wind energy when available. While this may be costly and the results prone to fluctuations in the global temperature mosaic, this would arrest the changes in climatic conditions (such as rainfall, temperature, etc. over a region due to changes in temperature distribution and rise), when they move too much to the extreme (such as the formation of cyclone in the Kanyakumari region rather than in the Bay and moving through the Arabian sea witnessed this year is an aberration which had very rarely happened in the past century)
To think globally would offer more solutions to the greater minds out there than the stupid but workable ideas told here, rather than thinking locally (or in a lower level at an individual organization/people, more keen to ensure their funding) and being at a risk of blowing a problem out of proportion and furthering urgent-wrong solutions scientifically, economically and politically, which would anyway collapse in the next decade so with the problem still persisting at large with the future (assumed by us to be born idiots) to handle this.
“Aspens are already doing their best to mitigate our inputs,” agrees Cole. “The existing trees are going to max out in a couple of decades.”
After being ~ “astonished” by the 50% increase, now they’ve decided they were right all along, just like before they were astonished.
OK enough is enough. Obviously almost the entire political class and government beaurocracy has gone stark raving mad. They have become a danger to liberty and the quiet enjoyment of life. I hypothesise that such an outcome is statistically significantly related to the access to free money provided by the working population. I would prove it but I deleted my raw data so you’ll have to trust me.
Has anyone had a chance to examine the CO2 monitoring site problems?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/greenhouse_gas_observatories_d.html
Is there anything to this story? If true, it looks like it is similar to the temperature monitoring site scandal to me.
The only bright side is that this may provide an avenue to get this back before the Supremes for reconsideration of their lame first decision, but with the”wise Latina” now on board, the odds of them overturning it aren’t real great. But we live in hope…
and die in despair.
“Richard111 (22:43:01) :
The average human breathes out CO2 at about 40,000ppmv. Multiply that by 6.5 billion then double every 45 years. I guess there is a problem.”
Hmmmm….. Lets say our atmosphere is a million grains of rice……
1,000,000 rice grains is approx 90 litres worth. Quite a pile. CO2 in our atmosphere is around a very small handful – 385. Hold out the other hand and put 13 grains in and that is the man made quotient. The UK output is but 1.6% of those 13 grains. Not even a quarter of one grain of rice. We have to get a magnifying glass to see our output and that is from all our Ships/Power Stations/Trains/Cars/Trucks/Aeroplanes etc long before one can discover the almost infinitely small contribution from British lungs!
Now look back at the huge pile of 1,000,000 rice grains and ask oneself how the 13 grains can apparently contaminate [EPA says CO2 is a poison] the remaining 999,999,987.
CO2 the new Ricin? Hmmmmmm…….
According to the Times “Copenhagen emissions targets ‘not enough to avert catastrophic warming’”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6946675.ece
It’s all like watching a shamanic chant rising to a hallucinatory climax in Copenhagen while preparing to embark on the quest for an even higher unreality. I fear that as CO2 makes you breathe more quickly they are in a runaway frenzy.
Nobody is saying co2 is a poison. C’mon, we can all get our head around this one. The argument here is equivalent to saying “we shouldn’t have firemen because, look, barbecues cook meat really well – clearly, fire is good for us.”
Fire in barbecues: good. Fire in your house: bad. Not sure how things are in the US, but in the UK we work *really* hard to mitigate against the latter. That doesn’t mean we’re trying to ban barbecues.
Dan Olner (02:16:14) :
Nobody is saying co2 is a poison.
Nobody except the EPA…
In 2005 the late Michael Wharton – the great British satirist otherwise known as Peter Simple – devised of “passive drinking” to accompany “passive smoking” as one of society’ worst ills.
In March 2009 Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer actually declared that the Govt should clamp down on passive drinking by introducing minimum prices for alcohol.
So what now ?
passive breathing ?
perhaps they should introduce laws where we are only allowed to breathe in specially air-conditioned, carbon-filtered rooms ?
If the EPA does rule, then it will leave itself open to legal challenge, especially tks to CRU’s behavior and the EPA’s reliance on their so called science.
The one thing lawyers love above all is a big fat rich juicy target and they don’t come any bigger then a government.
Perfect demonstration of how governments would like to tax breathing.
A rational article: click
Dedicated to the EPA, the Politicians, Copenhagen and everyone looking forward to their share of the swag …
He rose to his feet.
“If,” he said tersely, “we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy …”
“Fiscal policy!” whooped Ford Prefect, “Fiscal policy!”
The Management Consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied.
“Fiscal policy …” he repeated, “that is what I said.”
“How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn’t grow on trees you know.”
“If you would allow me to continue …”
Ford nodded dejectedly.
“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.”
Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed.
“But we have also,” continued the Management Consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut.”
Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The Management Consultant waved them down.
“So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and … er, burn down all the forests. I think you’ll all agree that’s a sensible move under the circumstances.”
The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the Management Consultant a standing ovation. The accountants amongst them looked forward to a profitable Autumn.
“You’re all mad,” explained Ford Prefect.
“You’re absolutely barmy,” he suggested.
“You’re a bunch of raving nutters,” he opined.
The ‘science’ behind this reminds me of the old joke about the physicist who won a prize for building a model that predicted, to four decimal places, the probability of a given horse winning a race. Unfortunately, it worked best on spherical horses racing in a vacuum.
It’s time to ostracize dihydro-monoxid, isn’t it ?
If a roughly 30% increase in CO2 levels results in a 50% increase in aspen growth, this implies that previous levels of CO2 were a major rate limiting factor in aspen growth. The natural conclusion must be that they are sub-optimal, at least for aspen growth and that aspen evolved in an era with much higher levels. We should welcome increasing CO2 as one of many answers to global food shortages.
tallbloke (03:06:21) :
Come come, if you want to poke fun at physicists be more accurate – if they are racing in a vacuum it doesn’t matter what shape they are …
Getting OT here aren’t we!
A thought occurred to me, what is happening to O2 levels? anyone?
Canadians might like to know that our ‘EPA’ has already declared CO2 to be a ‘toxic substance’. See number 74 in this list:
http://www.ec.gc.ca/ceparegistry/subs_list/toxicupdate.cfm
This means that Cabinet can regulate CO2 at its whim.
OT: Isn’t the Hope n’ Faken news hyperbolic today? The sky is falling… the sky is falling!
Ursus
“Aspens are already doing their best to mitigate our inputs,” agrees Cole. “The existing trees are going to max out in a couple of decades.”
I guess he doesn’t realize aspens multiply. Cut down the big ones, a hundred little ones grow from the roots.
2SoonOld2LateSmart (23:31:58) : regarding oxygen
Some might miss your “/sarc” at the end. I’ll add that several weeks or months ago there was a comment regarding the dangers of too much oxygen. If any missed that – begin a search with the phrase ‘oxygen toxicity’ or go here:
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Oxygen+poisoning
You know, as far as AGW insanity goes this story is actually a nice change of mood and pace. Trees galore… what could be better?!
But what never ceases to amaze me is a perfectly good story has scare-mongering sneaked into it. So…why is it that the trees will somehow grow so much and cause extintiion (presumably)? These people are supposed to have degrees, are supposed to be so smart. But they don’t ever conclude that the growing trees (if indeed that is so) will soak up the carbon excess (if indeed THAT is so) and VIOLA… the projected doom of tree overgrowth is solved. Balance restored! And sheeze… why not just, oh I don’t know, allow more of them to be cut down if they even become a problem?! And hey, if climate change is going to drown us all in more hurricanes, then we’ll have the timber to rebuild!
But no… we’re all supposde to be shaking in our air-condioned homes (we’re too stupid to adjust the setting, don’t forget, so maybe we’re just too stupid to be scared, eh?) about how we’re going to tear the planet limb from limb by, of all things, adding more limbs to it.
Brilliant! (rolls eyes)
Dan Olner (02:16:14) :
Nobody is saying co2 is a poison.
Bill Tuttle: “Nobody except the EPA…”
No, they’re not. They’re saying it’s potentially dangerous. They’re saying it’s a greenhouse gas that, in large concentrations, will cause dangerous global warming. This stuff about banning breathing is all very amusing, but I just don’t see how this is a complicated distinction to make.
I have just emailed a complaint to the head of EPA – Ms Jackson, jackson.lisa@epa.gov that CO2 is not a pollutant and the reasons. Why don’t all bloggers do the same and put pressure on EPA to reconsider.
– Some food for thought:
“Fully HALF of today’s global photosynthesis and OXYGEN production is accomplished by single-celled marine plankton living in the top oceanic layer where enough light penetrates to support their growth.”
http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/cosmic_evolution/docs/text/text_bio_1.html
“Australian research in New South Wales added 4.5 tons/acre to carbon-poor soil to double soybean biomass, triple wheat.”
http://www.carbon-negative.us/BiocharFAQ.htm
– Now time for some confusion and fun!!!
“Some studies have suggested that inorganic ARSENIC is an essential dietary nutrient in goats, chicks, and rats. However, no comparable data are available for humans. EPA has concluded that essentiality, although not rigorously established, is plausible. ”
EPA >> http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/arsenic.html
“…atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm — comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!”
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
“Even though oxygen is necessary for aerobic life, it can also participate in potentially toxic reactions involving oxygen free radicals and transition metals such as Fe that damage membranes, proteins, and nucleic acids.”
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/abstract/4/9/2587
“How Did Early Bacteria Survive Poisonous Oxygen?”
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/11/29/how-did-early-bacteria-survive-poisonous-oxygen/
“It turns out that our planet is about as carbon-poor a place as you can find in the galaxy.”
http://www.di.utoronto.ca/journalist/myblog/?p=15
Humans, animals and plants are carbon based life-forms.
http://www.webelements.com/periodicity/abundance_humans/
————–
Trying to regulate Co2 will fail as it has since Kyoto because Co2 levels continued their upward trend. After Copenhagen C02 levels will continue their upward trend.
What a waste of time and money.
This is the second December 7th that will live in infamy.
I hope the first big corporation whose CO2 output the EPA attempts to regulate files a big, fat lawsuit against the EPA, on the grounds that the ‘science’ of ‘global warming’ and the conclusion that CO2 is a ‘pollutant’ and in any way harmful to human health is fraudulent.
I am sure there are plenty of experts who visit this site who would love to testify for the plaintiff.
/Mr Lynn
nominal (23:49:46) :
c02 for the energy infrastructure and all that entails and implies, and it looks like food and water are next. i can’t remember which country it was that had their water privatized via predatory lending by the world bank, but they even made it illegal to use rainwater… monsanto or betchel or some company was involved…
Reply
Waxman of Cap and Trade fame,already has a bill designed to regulate farming into the ground. http://www.nofa.org/policy/waxman.php
Text of the bill:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875
The Food Safety Enhancement Act by Rep. Henry Waxman is part of the FDA’s planned “harmonization” with UN/WTO international regs.
see http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/ucm122049.htm
Application of regulations to already near bankrupt farmers will result in a massive transfer of land ownership from private to corporate worldwide. Heck it has already happened. Mexico lost 75% of its farmers, in India, farmers are suiciding ever 8 hrs or so, the longest sustained suicide in history, in the EU, Portugal lost 60% of its farmers and a EU chairlady announced the EU’s intention of removing a million poles from their land. But the World Trade Organization is not satisfied
“Up for grabs at the negotiating table is worldwide privatization and deregulation of public energy and water utilities, postal services, higher education and state alcohol distribution controls; a new right for foreign firms to obtain U.S. Small Business Administration loans; elimination of a list of specific U.S. state laws about land use, professional licensing and consumer protections, and extreme deregulation of private-sector service industries such as insurance, banking, mutual funds and securities.” http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0305-02.htm
my comments detailing the history of the take over of the world food supply is: Gail Combs (13:37:15) : at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/a-devastating-response-to-theres-nothing-to-see-here-move-along/
covers it or a better written and documented article is at http://www.opednews.com/articles/History-HACCP-and-the-Foo-by-Nicole-Johnson-090906-229.html
Mr Enough (02:44:10) :
If the EPA does rule, then it will leave itself open to legal challenge, especially tks to CRU’s behavior and the EPA’s reliance on their so called science.
The one thing lawyers love above all is a big fat rich juicy target and they don’t come any bigger then a government.
I don’t think the government could be forced to pay damages. However, and you’ll never know how painful it is to admit this, I would rather several billion tax dollars go to American lawyers than several trillion to fund a non-existent psuedo-science fair climate experiment.
WakeUpMaggy (04:44:12) :
“Aspens are already doing their best to mitigate our inputs,” agrees Cole. “The existing trees are going to max out in a couple of decades.”
I guess he doesn’t realize aspens multiply. Cut down the big ones, a hundred little ones grow from the roots.
Aspen trees are not unique in that “clumps” or groves may be originally derived from a single tree. What you may not know is that some scientists believe that the worlds largest single living organism is an aspen grove.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organism
Because the EPA doesn’t WANT to reconsider. They, like Obambi and the other ideologues in his administration, want to create a UN-affiliated regime of control and taxation that will bring an end to the Republic as it was founded. They won’t listen to you.
But there are a couple of routes to take: File lawsuits. Elect people who value freedom, capitalism, and the rights of the individual. Kick the socialists out.
It isn’t about science. The science for them is just the excuse.
/Mr Lynn
Oh my god, if the trees are getting greener and growing better because of increased C02, don’t people realise what that will cause? Trees photosynthesize, so that means there’ll be more oxygen in the atmosphere as well as more C02! Oxygen is very flammable so it means there’ll be even more of those wildfires that started just ten years ago because of global warming! In fact, it’s likely that eventually somebody will light a match and kaboom, the whole world will blow up! Oxygen must immediately be declared a dangerous pollutant because all the dangerous pollutant C02 is making the planet greener and… wait a minute, what’s going on? Why are all these men putting me in a strait-jacket?
Funny, I thought the aspens were dying out west. Goggle aspens dying in Colorado and see. Also, Reuters had a Sep article saying the same thing and blaming their dying on GW. Ha ha! It gets better everyday.
ps-I checked my spelling.
Does this mean that the stimulus program will involve volcanic mitigation? Considering that natural volcanic activity dwarfs anthropogenic CO2 liberation, will the EPA be banning this activity?
Ponder agriculture, re-forestation and tree growth. Since the metabolic processes of biological decay promotes the liberation of carbon, shall these growth processes also be outlawed?
There was an article posted earlier in this thread on the measurement of CO2 and the influences on volcanoes and pollution at the sampling sites. Could the hockey stick shape of the data (I use this term loosely) be related in part to poor paleo-CO2 sampling techniques or calibration of proxies and the poor siting of our more recent sampling locations? How do they join the two data sets?
The article I am referring to is: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/greenhouse_gas_observatories_d.html
The EPA will give cover to those politicians who want to force regulation upon us but who are too cowardly to vote for it themselves.
Oh good heavens. This is junk science. Take anything that has increased. Anything at all. And say that it correlates to tree ring growth. The increase in my age for example. Certainly has increased. Other people my age have experienced the same thing. Therefore tree ring growth is correlated. Or how about this one. My aging body has been caused by an increase in atmospheric CO2. There. That’s the ticket. Aging is caused by CO2 increase. Decrease CO2 emissions! Every time you breath out I get older! Where’s my convention! And I want a limo to get there gawdamit!
Can we conclude that the average temperature can go down, as it has for the last 10 years, and yet tree rings can expand strongly with increased CO2 and enough moisture. This tree ring growth stuff would appear to be a proxy for a whole bunch of things and maybe temperature is the least important.
jack morrow (06:10:31) :
Funny, I thought the aspens were dying out west.
From the Forest Service:
The slow decline is mainly because of the aging of the region’s aspen stands combined with a century of wildfire suppression and the chomping of countless cows, deer and elk.
But in the past several years, the pace of the decline has accelerated dramatically, notably in places such as southwestern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. No one is sure why it’s happening, but a delayed response to the region’s multiyear drought is a prime suspect.
Older trees get sick and die, but regrowth is even faster as younger trees are more efficient physiologically:
How can clear-cutting an aspen stand help save it?
In the West, nearly all aspen reproduce asexually through a process called suckering. New shoots sprout from horizontal roots and grow into trees that are genetically identical to their neighbors.
A typical aspen “clone” can contain several thousand trees sharing a common root system and covering up to 20 acres. The largest known aspen clone – nicknamed Pando – is just south of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and contains 47,000 trees on about 100 acres.
I have said it before, watch healthcare. This finding will be used by the Administration to force the Senate’s hand on Healthcare and also give Obama Copenhagen cover. Why would they even announce this just after Obama was up on the hill and just as Copenhagen opens?
This is political timing, pure and simple, two birds with one EPA ruling. Then watch as the President delays the EPA enforcment after the HC passes, or the enforcement dates are put off until after 2010, with reporting being the main thing first.
Wonder how the President’s pals at the Steel Workers Union are liking this.
Did none of them take Grade 12 Biology and study the concept of limiting factors…..why is this a surprise??????
Murder justified as a means of controlling global warming?
hmmm………
The next step, if not already being planned as plan B, is to declare CO2 an endangered gas! After all, we used to have lots more of the stuff. It is very likely that with continued population growth and unfettered use of fossil fuels, we will run out of stored sources of CO2. Therefore extreme conservation measures must begin in order to save this precious gas from extinction.
“Ed Scott (22:53:32) :
The action of the EPA is constitutional. The Supreme Court of the United States decided that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant in the Massachusetts vs. EPA decision of 2007.”
No, it did not. What it said was that the EPA had the authority and duty to decide whether it was or was not a pollutant, because the Bush Administration said that it lacked authority.
All EPA v. Mass. did was clarify that it had the duty to decide whether or not CO2 was a pollutant under the CAA. And since the defninition of ‘pollutant’ is so arbitrary, it can…and most likely will.
They do not need to decalre that CO2, or any other GHG, is a pollutant (I believe they will, though). Only if it determines it contributes to AGW.
MASSACHUSETTS, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf
I don’t know why you guys and girls are so worried about the dangers of CO2. Have you never read of Dihydrogen monoxide? It’s far more dangerous. This stuff is deadly: see http://www.dhmo.org/ for details, and what’s worse, it’s everywhere. The oceans are full of it as is our food. Every human on the planet has traces of DHMO in every cell of their body. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Mind you, it’s probably not as dangerous as Oxygen DiHydride, ODH (usually pronounced DOH!)
[REPLY – Oxydihydride is far worse. ~ Evan]
RE: EPA ruling …
In 2002, over 400,000 people died from drowning worldwide. In the US, drowning claims nearly 3,600 lives annually and is the third leading cause of accidental death in the United States.
250 children under age 5 die annually from drowning in 5 gallon buckets of water. Where is the 5 gallon bucket regulation?
Gail,
Thanks for the links. yeah i’d heard about the codex and waxmans’ bill…worlds’ gone nuts.. to wit:
Imagine an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where all the members showed up drunk and with extra cases of wine, beer, and booze to keep them happy. Now imagine that that same group of drunks was empowered to make trillions of dollars worth of economic decisions for everybody in the world. This absurd scenario swiftly summarizes the United Nations Climate Change Conference beginning today, and lasting through December 18, in Copenhagen.
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/12/07/morning-bell-the-copenhagen-climate-comedy/
more stuff on waxman-markey from heritage: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/cda0904.cfm
warning, that waxman article is long, but if you want to understand the bill and how much it’s gunna cost you, that’s an excellent place to start.
Dave Wendt (02:05:25) :
The only bright side is that this may provide an avenue to get this back before the Supremes for reconsideration of their lame first decision, but with the”wise Latina” now on board, the odds of them overturning it aren’t real great. But we live in hope…
and die in despair.
REPLY:
Don’t despair yet. The Supreme Court is NOT the last resort although the advocates of centralized government try to hide our other options. For example they will point to the “fact” that the Civil War trashed state’s tenth Amendment rights and therefore those rights no longer exist.
One is State Nullification. This is what happen to drivers license “real ID” It is why voters are pressuring states about 10th Amendment Resolutions. These non-binding resolutions, often called “state sovereignty resolutions” and serve notice to the Federal government that a state will use its tenth Amendment rights in defense of its citizens.
The Jury the citizens’ ultimate power and insurance against government run amok is their power in the jury. The JURY alone not only decides upon guilt or innocence; THEY have the right to judge the law that the accused is aledged to have broken. That is where the term “jury nullification” comes from.
Potential jury membes are UNLAWFULLY instructed by judges that they are triers of the facts and nothing more. Any potential juror who understood the ancient right of declaring a law unconstitutional would not be allowed to sit on a jury. A judge is NOTHING more than a referee. The jury is still the final judge— they can ignore a judge if they feel he is wrong. This is part of the citizen’s forfeiture of their rights. We simply do not understand that the SCOTUS is not the final judge— we are.
Fully Informed Jury Association: http://www.fija.org/
Vote the idiots out! Politicians in the USA can be voted out of office and laws repealed and treaties nullified. Again globalist will tell us “Treaties supersede the U.S. Constitution” and “A treaty, once passed, cannot be set aside”.
A treaty can be nullified by a statute passed by the U.S. Congress (or by a sovereign State or States if Congress refuses to do so), when the State deems a treaty the performance of a treaty is self-destructive. The law of self-preservation overrules the law of obligation in others. “This [Supreme] Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty.” – Reid v. Covert, October 1956, 354 U.S. 1, at pg 17.
“… No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or any other branch of government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution. Article VI, the Supremacy clause of the Constitution declares, “This Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all the Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land…’
“There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification which even suggest such a result…
“It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights – let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition – to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power UNDER an international agreement, without observing constitutional prohibitions. (See: Elliot’s Debates 1836 ed. – pgs 500-519).
http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/staterights/treaties.htm
Our biggest problem is how badly people have been brainwashed into believing they must sacrifice themselves and their children for “the good of Mother Earth” and the bottomless pockets of the financiers and politicians who are set to take advantage of peoples gullibility.
“Obama may visit climate talks armed with EPA carbon ruling”:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ag_OQLy84yEA
Giving Obama something to offer at Copenhagen is the likely reason for this ruling.
Scene: Executive office inside the EPA, early October
“You can’t do that in here.”
[taking a long drag and blowing it out toward the ceiling] “What? Smoke?”
“Ya smoke, where have you been? You can’t smoke in the workplace.”
“China for the last 10 years, and why the heck can’t I?”
“Haven’t you heard of second hand smoke? The dangers? Geez, I could be getting cancer right now. Put the dam* thing out.”
[he puts it out] “Where am I supposed to go if I need a cig then?”
“Outside, the tables outside in the back.”
“But it’s freezing out there.”
“Hey, consider yourself lucky, they’re talking about banning it at home.”
“Home! What the…? First the airplane ride over and now my own house?”
“Well it’s dangerous stuff. If something dangerous affects someone else you can’t do it. That’s just the way it is. ”
“Wow, set me free. I’m going back to China.”
“Can we just get back to the wording of this proposed finding, you’re supposed to be here to help me communicate.”
“Sure. What are you trying to ban next?”
“Sarcasm. Listen, this is the current language of the proposed finding on greenhouse gases. Here’s how we’ve summarized it:
The Administrator is proposing to find that the current and projected concentrations of the mix of six key greenhouse gases-carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)-in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This is referred to as the endangerment finding.”
[breathes in, holding his breath and in a labored high pitch] “OK…I feel better now about being allowed to smoke outside.”
We need to consider a lawsuit against the EPA over this.
When co2 is deemed a pollutant by the EPA, will hospitals and surgery centers be able to continue to use co2 to insufflate abdominal cavities for laparoscopic surgeries? Look at all the pollution! They will probably require some expensive scavenging systems. We use a lot of co2 in ORs daily.
Everyone has suspected for years that CO2 was a pollutant but this was suppressed by Big Breathers. We need to take little tiny whiffs of air and only breathe directly on geraniums or daisies. Maybe it’s time for a Indoor Plant CO2 Conduct Act, to be convened at San Sebastian, Spain – IPCCASS for short.
Brewing and winemaking releases far too much CO2. This must be stopped.
What does this mean for the fire extinguisher filled with CO2 I keep handy to put out fires caused by exploding kittens?
Maybe all sports will be banned in the future, as that produces so much extra CO2
This study kind of nulifyes using tree rings as proxies for temperature. Seems that things like water, CO2, sun light etc. have as much or more of an impact on tree growth than temperature. So what proxies are still plosibly accuriate?
Gee doesn’t Keith Briffa’s study PROVE the actual atmospheric CO2 has DECLINED since 1960. After all the above aspen study and the Duke University study prove correlation between tree growth (ring size) and CO2 while the Mauna Loa CO2 data is compromised by nearby volcanoes and therefore can not be trust. Therefore we most look to Mother Nature to tell us the truth – Trees are green and obviously would never lie.
Reading through some of the publications from Brookhaven’s Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment at
http://www.bnl.gov/face/
they have reached the same conclusions as the U of WI researchers, that C02 enhances the growing capablities of many trees; you just have to also read through the other conclusions of all the nastiness they claim will also occur.
But based on the the expected EPA ruling, will these government funded researchers and agencies be charged with polluting in their FACE experiments?
Dan Olner (02:16:14) :
….Fire in barbecues: good. Fire in your house: bad. Not sure how things are in the US, but in the UK we work *really* hard to mitigate against the latter. That doesn’t mean we’re trying to ban barbecues.
Reply:
They are here in the good old USA.
The one example about smoking by Tyler is too good – in explaining mass hyteria without understanding the facts. Like in smoking, open air smoking will not cause passive smoking… how many understands this?
Is EPA going to safe Obama’s face at Copenhagen?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126013960013179181.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
Regulate CO2 and destroy the US economy.
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-to-destroy-us-economy-regulate.html
Dan Olner (05:03:50) :
Dan Olner (02:16:14) :
Nobody is saying co2 is a poison.
Bill Tuttle: “Nobody except the EPA…”
No, they’re not. They’re saying it’s potentially dangerous. They’re saying it’s a greenhouse gas that, in large concentrations, will cause dangerous global warming. This stuff about banning breathing is all very amusing, but I just don’t see how this is a complicated distinction to make.
Wrong, Dan-O. They are, in fact saying that greenhouse gases are endangering people’s health and must be regulated. Are, not will. Now, not potentially. Certainly even an Alarmist, as confused as they are, can grasp the difference? Could be wrong about that.
Passing by the US Senate, the will of of the majority of the American People and driving his own agenda at any price:
Obama May Visit Climate Talks Armed With CO2 Ruling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&sid=aPQY79dCbgV4
Interesting.
Lets step back a bit and suppose we have three things with varying degrees of correlation between them A, B and C.
A is climate and B is CO2.
C is solar activity.
It seems to me that when you have three variables within a system you have to be careful not to assume that B causes A and C.
Why should it cause C?
Well, we have too many strong correlations between A and C for C not to be related in any way and C is eternal so it woudl take a pretty flight of fancy for either A or B to cause C.
We all ready have a good correlation between sunspot activity and climate e.g. the Maunder Minimum and cold weather.
Now we have a new piece of research published by NASA which says there is a very strong correlation extending over 850years between Nile records which were always vitally important to the agriculture (it is a river culture) and aurora observations in the northern hemisphere. Aurora activity is linked to solar flares.
850 years is a pretty enduring co-incidence.
Now it may be that CO2 contributes something to warming but if it is the primary driver of warming then we have to discount solar activity and write of all these correlations as simply co-incidence.
If solar activity were an internal part of the systems then that is possible but how can anything happening in the earths climate affect solar activity?
So do we investigate if solar activity drives CO2 and that drives temperature, or do we investigate if solar activity drives temperature and temperature drives CO2 ? the fact that CO2 may feedback some warming due to “green house” effects is OK. The problem is to believe it is the primary driver when CO2 lags temperature and neither tempeature nor CO2 can drive the solar activity.
So, next step. Do we have an correlations between solar activity and the climate on other planets?
If so then we have a strong case to suggest that the sun is driving our climate and we’d better find the cause because we are pushing co-incidence too far to believe these correlations to be pure co-incidence and even further to find either the earth’s climate or CO2 to be the driver.
Of course, there could be some other factor that is the cause of Solar activity… but I’ll bet it is not man.
Oh, there have been some work on causative mechanisms which usually seek to relate solar activity to clouds.
This bring us to the work at CERN:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists
So, since I am evidently a denier and a flat earther, according to some politicians and AGW advocates, please tell me where my logic is wrong.
On the other hand if there are any links between solar activity and the climates of other planets, please let me know.
They won’t ban breathing – they’ll tax it. When I’m fitted up with my licence and my carbometer, I wonder if I will get a credit for the noxious gas that I can sell to my local market gardener.
For Canada, the USA, Australia, and the EU there is a simple answer to the restrictions on CO2. The replacement birth rate is 2.1. The birth rate in the USA is 1.3 and in some of the EU as low as 0.8. Given these facts the solution is simple. Get rid of all foreigners, toss out every single non-citizen and require embassies and foreign visitors to pay huge CO2 fees. We can substantially drop our CO2 emissions, decrease racial tensions AND decrease our unemployment rate all at the same time painlessly. It is a three way win for politicians. E-mail your politicians today!
/Advert
By doing this, the EPA is now officially no longer (if indeed they ever were) about protecting the environment. Their one and only “purpose” is maintaining and further strengthening their own power. Control C02 and you control energy. Control energy and you control everything. Orwell’s prophecy is coming true.
We can’t forecast ecological change. It’s a complicated business. For all we know, this could have very serious effects on slower growing plants and their ability to persist.
In the face of the impossibility of forecasting the future of non-linear systems, the rational course of action is to examine the past for similar conditions.
The past has featured times of warmer temperatures and higher levels of CO2. At those times did the eco system collapse? Did it converge on fewer species of flora that out-competed slower growing specimens? I don’t think so.
It is very disappointing that scientists always feel compelled to ensure their statements somehow reflect the party line. Just once I’d like to see an ecologist come out and say, “Wow, if it warms and there’s more CO2 available, there will be a green explosion of the globe!”
Water intoxication / water poisoning.
“Drinking too much water can eventually cause your brain to swell, stopping it regulating vital functions such as breathing, and causing death.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6263029.stm
CO2 dangerous. Dammit, I knew I should have sold those Coca Cola shares!
EPA: Greenhouse gases endanger human health
Dec 7 12:42 PM US/Eastern By DINA CAPPIELLO and H. JOSEF HEBERT
EPA Press Conf
MichaelC58 (05:07:05) :
I have just emailed a complaint to the head of EPA – Ms Jackson, jackson.lisa@epa.gov that CO2 is not a pollutant and the reasons. Why don’t all bloggers do the same and put pressure on EPA to reconsider.
I like your suggestion. Early this year and then again last month I sent a four-page letter to the EPA. I mention the possibility that a quiet sun may portend a cooling earth, and I end the letter with::
After all, who wants to finance an agency that enacts regulations that (a) worsen not alleviate adverse natural phenomena, and (b) destroy the world’s economy in the process. Given the cost associated with maintaining the EPA, I believe the EPA has not justified its existence. As such, if I were king, I’d abolish the EPA right now. However, if (a) natural global cooling is our future, and (b) to retard or prevent nonexistent global warming the EPA enacts regulations that have an ancillary effect of contributing to a downturn in the economy, it won’t be just me and a few others calling for abolition of the EPA, it will be an army.
From Lisa Jackson – ” EPA will stand ready to help Congress craft strong science-based climate legislation that fulfills the vision of the President . ”
Also , from Lisa Heinzerling , EPA’s policy councel on climate change – “Cost benefit analysis is a deeply flawed device that has never been the environmentalist’s friend .” ( Thanks to today’s American Spectator )
Folks , this the mindset we are up against . I was under the impression that cost benefit analysis was mandated in the EPA’s charter . It is clear that the EPA is ignoring its mandate , especially in relying on the obviously flawed science from the IPCC , for that is indeed what they use . Although it has been perfectly clear for months , the EPA has disregarded any comments that ran counter to the President’s will . We should alert our Representatives and Senators to the deceitful arrogance of this rogue agency .
How stupid can these warmers be?
Just another money collection scheme..
White House announced to set a mandatory limit on carbon-dioxide gas that many scientists say could lead to dangerous climate shifts if left unchecked.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aPQY79dCbgV4
Natural gas is the cleanest of all the fossil fuels. Composed primarily of methane, the main products of the combustion of natural gas are carbon dioxide and water vapor, the same compounds we exhale when we breathe.
http://www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp
robert brucker (08:08:16) :
When co2 is deemed a pollutant by the EPA, will hospitals and surgery centers be able to continue to use co2 to insufflate abdominal cavities for laparoscopic surgeries? Look at all the pollution! They will probably require some expensive scavenging systems. We use a lot of co2 in ORs daily
The General electric Anesthesia machines can be ordered with a CO2 canister. Unless you have a normal amount of CO2 in your blood gases, you will die.
This testing of a CO2 law by the Carbon Cartel is a hoax. Who decides who can produce oxidized carbon and who gets punished?
Even a compost pile for an organic gardener is a polutter.
About the age of 10, people will see this scheme as riddled with contradiction. Walking and exercise create toxic gas. Human metabolism is illegal.
Mods,
Did my last post make it through ? I didn’t even get a “your comment is awaiting moderation .”
Webb and Inhofe warning Obama not to sign anything at Copenhagen!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/dec/02/webb-warns-obama-taking-action-copenhagen/
OK , I’ll try again . Lisa Jackson said ” EPA willstand ready to help Congress craft strong , science-based climate legislation that fufills the vision of the President ”
Lisa Heinzerling , now EPA’s senior counsel on climate change, wrote in 2004 “Cost-benefit analysis is a deeply flawed device that has never been the environmentalist’s friend. ”
By preempting Congress and ignoring cost-benefit analysis , which I think is mandated in its charter , the EPA is proving itself an activist , rogue agency which has exceeded its bounds . Furthermore , they have relied on the IPCC’s flawed science for their ruling . It is time to rein them in .
If the EPA and it’s head wish to hold thier breath from now on, it’s perfectly ok with me.
I meant to add that the source of the above quotes was today’s American Spectator online .
So why the ridiculous ruling on C02 being toxic?
What parallel can I possibly draw?
There is the Biblical belief that all men are borne into original sin, due to eating of the Tree of Knowledge.
So, C02 being toxic and man exhaling means that we are born Green Sinners.
Ok. There’s my parallel.
Almost as ridiculous as C02 being a toxic gas.
Somebody please inform Lisa Jackson and the Supreme Court which ruled on the matter that when emergency response & the hospital treat you for smoke inhalation, they are treating you primarily for C0 (Carbon Monoxide) poisioning. Now, that is truly toxic. They have to give you a blood transfusion to replace your hemoglobin, which is compromised, or you die.
For excessive C02 inhalation, remove to fresh air. Have victim exhale completely twice. That’s it.
EPA is confusing C02 with C0.
Dan Olner (02:16:14) :
Nobody is saying co2 is a poison.
I’d like to respond. First,
Maybe nobody has called CO2 a poison; but given the volume of written and oral history, I doubt you are correct. However, even stipulating your claim, people have called CO2 a pollutant. According to my copy of Roget’s College Thesaurus:
“pollute, v.t. contaminate; foul, desecrate; taint, soil, defile; …”
“poison, … v.t. corrupt, defile;…”
Thus, to me it’s a fine point to claim “nobody has called CO2 a poison“. I think it’s more accurate to say many people including the EPA have called CO2 a poison.
Second,
You write: “Fire in barbecues: good. Fire in your house: bad. Not sure how things are in the US, but in the UK we work *really* hard to mitigate against the latter. That doesn’t mean we’re trying to ban barbecues.
Maybe not; but various agencies are trying to limit the burning of wood, coal, etc. for personal use in third world countries. In my opinion the EPA agrees with those limitations. So I think it would fair to say that the EPA would like to limit the burning of CO2 releasing agents such as charcoal in barbecues.
Third,
Too much of any physical aspect of nature is harmful to the earth/mankind if for no other reason than too much of anything implies not enough of life’s many essentials. Using the “Too much of anything is bad” as a basis for discussion, the EPA could regulate anything. I think it’s fair to say that an agency that can regulate anything is a form of dictatorship. I believe in this country there would be a consensus (even in the subset of AGW scientists) that the EPA is not and should not be the center of a dictatorship.
@ LarryOldtimer
“Now what was that word the Irish use? Eejits. Yep, sure and they are that, they are.”
LOL Larry ,we have better one “gobshites” be our guest and use it as often as you want .
I see the EPA’s endangerment finding allows for a judicial review if petitioned for within 60 days of publication. I wonder if any groups will have the resources to mount a criticism on the basis that “it was impracticable to raise such objection within [the period for public comment] or if the grounds for such objection arose after the period for public comment (but within the time specified for judicial review) and if such objection is of central relevance to
the outcome of this rule.” (see pg 3 of the finding posted at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/FinalFindings.pdf) Obviously, the [poor] quality of the IPCC reports upon which they base their finding was not as obvious during the comment period as it is now.
It seems to me the EPA ruling is simply politics. With Obama angering his supporters by sending more troops to Afghanistan, I suspect he’s trying to get back some support with this ruling.
However, I doubt very much will see the EPA actually try to enforce the ruling. That would mean court cases and that is probably not something they want. The MSM would have to cover it and all the climateGate material would be front and center.
Here we go: EPA and OBAMA, who said EPA was not political?
How can we stop them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=6a7f9dcc-802a-23ad-44bd-3ad5070c7b31
Richard M. I agree… sort of. It could be what you mention but only to show Copenhagen he’s serious—it will take years to get that through and any of the presenting scientists appearing at the hearings better have bulletproof findings. Or, and this is what I believe, he’s making an end run around Congress to appease the left side of his party because the likelihood of C&T legislation making it into law before end of his last term in 2012 is highly improbable—Hell it’s quite likely the Dems will lose the balance of power in both houses next year at the rate he’s going. Then again it could be part of a new reality show, “EPA Idol.”
We need someone with some legal experience. There needs to be suits brought not only in regards to the fraud exposed by Climategate but now to sue the Obama administration and the EPA administrators for emitting green house gases that endanger the world’s population.
Eventually these frauds are exposed for what they are but in the mean time these bastards drain public coffers.
Just when I’ve gotten used to breathing it’s become illegal. Oh, well.
Time to have the EPA declare dihydrogen monoxide a pollutant too. After all, dihydrogen monoxide can cause death if inhaled, is a major component of acid rain, and solid dihydrogen monoxide can cause severe tissue damage during prolonged exposure.
Fail. Epic fail.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution
“CO2 for different people has different attractions. After all, what is it? – it’s not a pollutant, it’s a product of every living creature’s breathing, it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis, it’s a product of all industrial burning, it’s a product of driving – I mean, if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality.” – Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT
“CO2 is not a pollutant. In simple terms, CO2 is plant food. The green world we see around us would disappear if not for atmospheric CO2. These plants largely evolved at a time when the atmospheric CO2 concentration was many times what it is today. Indeed, numerous studies indicate the present biosphere is being invigorated by the human-induced rise of CO2. In and of itself, therefore, the increasing concentration of CO2 does not pose a toxic risk to the planet.” – John R. Christy, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alabama
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a naturally occurring, beneficial trace gas in the atmosphere. For the past few million years, the Earth has existed in a state of relative carbon dioxide starvation compared with earlier periods. There is no empirical evidence that levels double or even triple those of today will be harmful, climatically or otherwise. As a vital element in plant photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is the basis of the planetary food chain – literally the staff of life. Its increase in the atmosphere leads mainly to the greening of the planet. To label carbon dioxide a “pollutant” is an abuse of language, logic and science.” – Robert M. Carter, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental and Earth Sciences, James Cook University
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. On the contrary, it makes crops and forests grow faster. Economic analysis has demonstrated that more CO2 and a warmer climate will raise GNP and therefore average income. It’s axiomatic that bureaucracies always want to expand their scope of operations. This is especially true of EPA, which is primarily a regulatory agency. As air and water pollution disappear as prime issues, as acid rain and stratospheric-ozone depletion fade from public view, climate change seems like the best growth area for regulators. It has the additional glamour of being international and therefore appeals to those who favor world governance over national sovereignty. Therefore, labeling carbon dioxide, the product of fossil-fuel burning, as a pollutant has a high priority for EPA as a first step in that direction.” – S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
“Carbon and CO2 (carbon dioxide) are fundamental for all life on Earth. CO2 is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic gas. CO2 is product of our breathing, and is used in numerous common applications like fire extinguishers, baking soda, carbonated drinks, life jackets, cooling agent, etc. Plants’ photosynthesis consume CO2 from the air when the plants make their carbohydrates, which bring the CO2 back to the air again when the plants rot or are being burned.” – Tom V. Segalstad, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Geology, University of Oslo
“To suddenly label CO2 as a “pollutant” is a disservice to a gas that has played an enormous role in the development and sustainability of all life on this wonderful Earth. Mother Earth has clearly ruled that CO2 is not a pollutant.” – Robert C. Balling Jr., Ph.D. Professor of Climatology, Arizona State University
“Many chemicals are absolutely necessary for humans to live, for instance oxygen. Just as necessary, human metabolism produces by-products that are exhaled, like carbon dioxide and water vapor. So, the production of carbon dioxide is necessary, on the most basic level, for humans to survive. The carbon dioxide that is emitted as part of a wide variety of natural processes is, in turn, necessary for vegetation to live. It turns out that most vegetation is somewhat ‘starved’ for carbon dioxide, as experiments have shown that a wide variety of plants grow faster, and are more drought tolerant, in the presence of doubled carbon dioxide concentrations. Fertilization of the global atmosphere with the extra CO2 that mankind’s activities have emitted in the last century is believed to have helped increase agricultural productivity. In short, carbon dioxide is a natural part of our environment, necessary for life, both as ‘food’ and as a by-product.” – Roy Spencer, Ph.D. Meteorology, Former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies, NASA
“I am at a loss to understand why anyone would regard carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Carbon dioxide, a natural gas produced by human respiration, is a plant nutrient that is beneficial both for people and for the natural environment. It promotes plant growth and reforestation. Faster-growing trees mean lower housing costs for consumers and more habitat for wild species. Higher agricultural yields from carbon dioxide fertilization will result in lower food prices and will facilitate conservation by limiting the need to convert wild areas to arable land.” – David Deming, Ph.D. Professor of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma
“Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a colorless, odorless trace gas that actually sustains life on this planet. Consider the simple dynamics of human energy acquisition, which occurs daily across the globe. We eat plants directly, or we consume animals that have fed upon plants, to obtain the energy we need. But where do plants get their energy? Plants produce their own energy during a process called photosynthesis, which uses sunlight to combine water and carbon dioxide into sugars for supporting overall growth and development. Hence, CO2 is the primary raw material that plants depend upon for their existence. Because plants reside beneath animals (including humans) on the food chain, their healthy existence ultimately determines our own. Carbon dioxide can hardly be labeled a pollutant, for it is the basic substrate that allows life to persist on Earth.” – Keith E. Idso, Ph.D. Botany
“Atmospheric CO2 is required for life by both plants and animals. It is the sole source of carbon in all of the protein, carbohydrate, fat, and other organic molecules of which living things are constructed. Plants extract carbon from atmospheric CO2 and are thereby fertilized. Animals obtain their carbon from plants. Without atmospheric CO2, none of the life we see on Earth would exist. Water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide are the three most important substances that make life possible. They are surely not environmental pollutants.” – Arthur B. Robinson, Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry
So does this mean CO2 Fire Extinguishers will be illegal? And what about the fizzy drinks industry?
Here’s a conundrum for the EPA. Coca-cola using CO2 as a coolant!
Coca-Cola Switching to Carbon Dioxide-Based Beverage Coolers
http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/1689
A few years ago, Coca-Cola decided it would significantly decrease its environmental impact. When it took a good look at where its environmental footprint was highest, it saw that vending machines are a big culprit.
Let’s take a moment to accept the “Duh” of this.
To combat the vending machine factor, Coca-Cola began replacing HFC machines with CO2 machines. Yep – Carbon Dioxide is helping our environment! By the end of 2006, the company had 6,000 units placed world-wide (yes, that’s relatively few when considering they have 10 million machines operating around the globe, but still nothing to sneeze at). Continuing with that trend, they’ve drastically increased their CO2 machine intake by purchasing 100,000 new compressed carbon dioxide beverage coolers.
The new machines will emit 75% fewer greenhouse gasses, though they cost about 25% more. This is significant when considering that HFCs are major global warming pollutants and, if allowed to run as rampant as they currently are, their overall contribution to global warming pollution could nearly double within 40 years. Compressed Carbon Dioxide-based cooling units, on the other hand, will help reduce the impact of these HFC clunkers on our planet – and since Coca-Cola is a global company, it truly is a global issue…
Henry Chance
I give anesthesia for a living. The co2 cannisters are used on all anesthesia
machines when a closed or semi-closed system is used.
The co2 insufflated into the abdominal cavity is a separate issue. You can bet these idiots will require ORs to scavenge and sequester the co2 used during surgery.
This was published a few years ago about this matter of c02 being officially made an evil gas.
Of course, if you want to create a tax/ financial racket out of a commodity, it has to be vilified first
http://www.predictweather.co.nz/assets/articles/article_resources.php?id=43
EPA, don’t hold your breath!
Grandpa will be fitted with a catalytic converter that renders CO2 into Carbon and O2.
if co2 is danger, then water vapour is instant death.
This stuff about banning breathing is all very amusing, but I just don’t see how this is a complicated distinction to make.
When you talk about regulations that are coming, it’s a distinction without a difference.
The new mantra: STOP THE GROWING.
The media, the Obama administration and the UN will not be deterred by the climategate scandal or the obvious data that we relish on this site. We need to hire the best lawyers in the USA and get this issue into court asap. We need a committee to decide which issue, MWP, hockey stick, sea ice etc and then how to frame a law suit that we can win. I would be honored to donate the first $500 to a well structured cause. I’m sure we could raise the funds for a winning case.
Imposition of drastic new costs on the economy during a period of unsustainable government spending and high unemployment does not seem like a smart thing to do. It doesn’t take a climate scientist to figure out that higher prices lead to less consumption, which leads to a slower economy and less jobs. Idle hands are the devil’s hands, and I do not wish to see what would happen should we hit 20% unemployment.
Of course, some businesses may just want out and decide that the developing world is the best place to save money on carbon…. See? It is a jobs bill, just not a job bill for the U.S.
Sorta makes sense
CO2 is expelled when we talk
the EPA is in Washington..full of politicians and beauracrats
Politicians and beauracrats usually cause more harm than good when talking
Therefore the EPA sees CO2 as harmful
Meanwhile in the part of the world concerned with the inconsequential persuit of actually having lives, we can only try to insert some common sense
PS. One notices that the creed of AGW is becoming more and more mindless as months pass by. From a *relatively* educated British perspective, this sort of dogma is nothing new. When Hudibras was written by Butler in the 17th century, he of course pointed the finger at theorists by claiming
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For ev’ry why he had a wherefore;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and terms cou’d go.
All which he understood by rote, 135
And, as occasion serv’d, would quote;
No matter whether right or wrong,
They might be either said or sung.
His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell;
140
But oftentimes mistook th’ one
For th’ other, as great clerks have done.
He could reduce all things to acts,
And knew their natures by abstracts;
The world has gone mad.
And I want a limo to get there gawdamit!
Limos are for peasants. The aristos arrive in helicopters.
The EPA needs to declare some minimum acceptable level (MAL) of CO2.
Then they could print on all their regulation sheets:
MAL CO2.
The basis of all life on this planet has now been outlawed. Presumably this meeans that CO2 beer will now have to be banned along with leavened bread and of course animal life itself.You could not make this up….sorry I forgot the IPCC. Enjoy those bubbles this Christmas,they may be your last!
” . . . But there’s an interesting twist, just two days ago, the University of Wisconsin says that CO2 is accelerating forest growth. Of course, bureaucrats wouldn’t understand this, because they can’t regulate tree growth . . . ”
DOES THIS MEAN THAT I CAN GET A FREE CHRISTMAS BY THE END OF THE WEEK ?
Bruce Cobb: I remain civil on this site when, God knows, its easy for *all* of us on different sides to lose our rag – insulated as we are behind the interwebnets. Let’s try and remember we’re all people behind these comments, and do each other the service of being civil? Fire is potentially dangerous. Water is potentially dangerous. There are laws on both of these, that exist now. A house may potentially get burgled: many people have insurance to cover this, now.
Reed Coray: maybe the example of fire was a bad one. Say water instead. Water in swimming pool: good, for swimming. Bad, for very small children – kills more children than guns in houses do. That’s all I’m trying to say – before we even get onto the question of regulation, I’m just making the simple point that – as you also mention – pretty much anything in nature can be good or bad, depending on the context. Making lots of noise about the EPA banning breathing or starving trees is equivalent to: if some body passes a law enforcing kiddie rails around pools, everyone then starts saying “they’re banning swimming!” It may be effective politically, but it’s just silly. No, they’re not. You can still swim, they’re just attempting to protect against one dangerous aspect of having a pool.
Now – we can get on to an argument about whether regulation is good or bad – in the pool example, whether that’s the state interfering where they shouldn’t – but that’s a different argument. And a quick point on that:
“I think it’s fair to say that an agency that can regulate anything is a form of dictatorship. I believe in this country there would be a consensus (even in the subset of AGW scientists) that the EPA is not and should not be the center of a dictatorship.”
I’d argue you’ve got things a bit backwards here. If you were living in a dictatorship, overwheening regulation would be the least of your worries. You’d be making sure to turn up to the party-sponsored rallies to make sure your face was seen by your neighbours, so you or a family member wasn’t dragged from their bed in the middle of the night and never seen again. A dictatorship, indeed, would be able to pass any law they wanted, but you don’t live in a dictatorship. As can be seen by all the struggles in congress, it takes a huge political struggle to get anything done. You may or may not like who got elected, or the make-up of congress, or any of the other many things that might be wrong with politics generally (leaning towards plutocracy?) – but making comparisons to dictatorship? Hmm.
So we are not living in a dictatorship?
I think you need to put a “yet” in there.
The Copenhagen conference isn’t really about climate change or perhaps, climate change was an excuse to get there or maybe even that the most important concern about Copenhagen is the proposed new regulatory body….
I don’t know how familiar you are with normal treaties but the usual form is that once the necessary number of sovereign states agrees and the treaty is ratified, the various sovereign states then implement the necessary national statutes/laws and implement local enforcement procedures and administer such punishments as are necessary.
This has been the way of it and the main purpose of such treaties is to address global problems, including environmental.
But, instead of following the usual procedures of treaty making they propose to establish a regulatory body that will have the global power to regulate (make laws) and with its own financial powers (to re-distribute wealth, effectively) and its own enforcement powers (policing, prosecuting and administering fines/ prison sentences etc.).
The pattern is one we are now familiar with from the Lisbon Treaty.
The Lisbon treaty started as a common agricultural policy or whatever and Ted Heath took the UK in with a lot of lies and false promises. That has lead to today’s new model parliament with very little democracy left in it and what it becomes will be something we can only imagine.
So the danger at Copenhagen is that we get a global EU style parliament, if not now then very soon.
Curiously, no one has explained why thy need to do it this way rather than the more usual way.
Don’t you find that curious?
But, if Climategate isn’t de-railing the process (and it may even have, by its very threat, encouraged some of the hardball players to come prepared to sign and take their prize now while it is still on offer), and surely it should – politicians should want to say “Well, there are some questions being raised that do need to be answered and we need also to see how this has changed public support, you know, we represent the people, not ourselves here (reports are that US support for AGW has dropped 11 points which must signal to the US President that he is close to losing whatever mandate he had to any action at all) – then the conclusion must be that Global Warming has been an excuse, a plausible justification for doing something people would otherwise not want to do. For some, it may be the chance to make some money and for others, a path to a different social stucture.
Now if we live in democracies, any of us, or what pretend to be them, then surely polticians, honest ones, would want to have the true facts AND the support of the people. When it comes to support rather than an acceptance of AGW, the current proportion of the population supportive of such actions is much lower. Some people accept the AGW scenario but don’t accept that it is as serious as claimed and some, many, think there are more important problems and that there is more value (lives saved) through other uses for the money than climate change.
Blom Bomberg has a nice take on this and in two years of running a survey Climate came 12th or so in a list of things people would rather do with the money.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html
Dan Olner (02:35:57) :
I remain civil on this site when, God knows, its easy for *all* of us on different sides to lose our rag – insulated as we are behind the interwebnets. Let’s try and remember we’re all people behind these comments, and do each other the service of being civil? Fire is potentially dangerous. Water is potentially dangerous. There are laws on both of these, that exist now. A house may potentially get burgled: many people have insurance to cover this, now.
This is just more BS, Dan-O, and you know it. When you make stuff up like saying the EPA “is saying it’s potentially dangerous”, and “They’re saying it’s a greenhouse gas that, in large concentrations, will cause dangerous global warming” you are essentially lying, which is what Alarmists do because the facts are not on their side. You know perfectly well that they did not say that, so stop whining and trying to play the victim card.
Your comparisons of C02 to fire, water, and burglary are complete nonsense, which is just another Alarmist troll tactic. So, just stop.
Bruce Cobb: so, I’m lying when I say the EPA call co2 a greenhouse gas that can cause global warming? OK. Um. Well, here’s the EPA news release –
http://bit.ly/5vCkT4
Interestingly, you could have chosen to argue with me on many points about this. Let me pick some for you: the EPA approach does, in fact, appear to be bypassing democratic oversight, despite the fact its just carrying out a supreme court ruling. Also, why lump GHGs in with ground-level pollution? Overkill much? Or, yes, they don’t use the word ‘potentially’. You’re right. But I wasn’t arguing about that; I just thought all this “EPA banning breathing” stuff seemed a bit over the top.
Instead you were just abusive again. Alarmist troll? Thanks. Would you like another go at being civil? Or would you prefer it if no-one with views different from yourself posted here?
JMANON:
“Global Warming has been an excuse, a plausible justification for doing something people would otherwise not want to do.”
Some interesting points there. Though I don’t agree with you on much of it, the central problem with global or regional political agreements is tricky.
If you take something like the WTO – as one political analyst writes, it’s a ‘mast that politicians can tie themselves to to avoid the siren-like calls of lobby groups.’ That is, a politician can stand up in Parliament or wherever, and when someone says “give us money to keep our factory going” they can reply “sorry, that’d be breaking WTO rules.”
The theory there being – as with Copenhagen – collectively binding ourselves to make everyone better off, though it’ll cost some. Interestingly, very few of the thinktanks now attacking Copenhagen seem to have any problem with the WTO: another form of ‘global dictatorship’ that removes vital economic powers from sovereign states.
One would like to think there’s a happy middle ground, since on some areas, surely international co-operation of the form the WTO has (really quite a small body) is useful. I don’t buy Monckton’s stuff about global communist conspiracies, any more than I buy left-wing views of the WTO as a global capitalist conspiracy. Reality is generally murkier than this, and people generally too incompetent to carry out conspiracy even if they wanted to.
The analogy to house insurance is unpersuasive, because the cost is so high and the threat is so remote. It’s like saying we should live in tree-houses to avoid the threat of a drunken elephant rampage, or put a moat around our houses to deflect a phalanx of army ants.
And it’s unpersuasive because carbon emissions in the Third World are going to continue to rise regardless of what the West does, dwarfing our efforts. And because, even if all humanity stops emitting CO2, it will have only a slight effect on the amount in the air.
Incidentally, I just read on Bloomberg that, thanks to the recession, the US is already halfway to the nearest of its Copenhagen CO2 reduction targets. I’ve also read that emissions in the UK and Japan are down for the same reason as well. And yet, I think, worldwide CO2 levels continue to advance at the same rate as before. (I urge anyone who is more au courant on these matters to post figures and/or links.)
Dan-O: so, I’m lying when I say the EPA call co2 a greenhouse gas that can cause global warming
Well, let’s just check, shall we?
You originally said “they’re saying it’s potentially dangerous. They’re saying it’s a greenhouse gas that, in large concentrations, will cause dangerous global warming (quite a bit different from your statement above, so another example of your dishonesty).
Now, here is what the EPA actually says “climate change is threatening public health and welfare, and it is critical that EPA fulfill its obligation to respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.”
Either you can’t grasp what the meaning of the word “is” is, or you are lying. So, which is it?
Apparently you don’t get humor, either (another Alarmist troll trait), because the “banning breathing” is, of course an exaggeration. They say that the ability to laugh is the mark of intelligence. That does appear to be the case.
Different views, yes, of course. Dishonesty, no.
I cannot see why anyone would fail to see the global conspiracy, I am not sure the political aim but it is another hit on the middle classes, last time the middle classes were exorcised was by Stalin and Hitler, so we know it will not be good. Ultimately this money and power grab will fail as it is the middle classes that make most of it. Probably it is some form of communism/socialism after all its leaders are very wealthy.
Im new here, is Bruce Cob a warmist troll? the EPA is saying CO2 is causing global warming and need legislation to control. It is alarming me hugely, it is a lie and fraud, as any sane/honest human can see.
I am no scientist (can I have a cushy job in political climate research?) but if CO2 was a problem in the atmosphere then there would be a tumultuous outcry against catalytic converters (modern cars will pass emission tests in the UK without one) loose them and we could go back to real petrol and better fuel consumption, plus less CO2. Also why is there no outcry against chinese goods, the enviromental impact of chinese manufacture is massive but not a peep.
It is a logical impossibility that CO2 is effecting health in any remote way.
– Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a natural part of Earth’s Atmosphere (NASA)
– Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen from 0.028% to 0.038% (380ppm) over the past 100 years (IPCC)
– Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not toxic until 5% (50,000ppm) concentration (Source)
– Any detrimental effects of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) including chronic exposure to 3% (30,000ppm) are reversible (Source)
Bruce Cobb, thanks, I really feel like we’ve had a good ol’ open chat about stuff here. You’ve really renewed my faith in human nature. Alarmist, troll, and now stupid to boot? Cheers. Are you this unpleasant to people you meet in person, or do you save it for the internet?
Let the Climate Change Alarmists (Al Gore…he invented it) and the EPA show us their leadership and hold their breaths. Problem solved.