Guest essay by David Archibald
It used to be that ocean acidification was the last refuge of the global warming scoundrel. When all else fails – lack of actual warming etc., the global warmers claim that increased carbon dioxide will make the seas acid and dissolve the shells off all the little sea creatures.
The Economist magazine has just gone one further and predicted that it will also cause blight. Hundreds of ludicrous claims have been made about the effect of higher atmospheric CO2 levels on this and that but when The Economist feels the need to join the clamour of idiotic voices then that means something. So, they adopt ‘ludicrous mode‘.
Figure 1: Article reproduced from The Economist
The photo The Economist used to illustrate their article seemingly shows London police wrestling with agitated loons from Extinction Rebellion.
The Economist “tugs at the insecurities and ambitions of the status-seeking reader” who wears “aspirations of wordliness”. In short The Economist instructs its readership of what the proper view on a subject is. What the article means is that the long retreat from global warming alarmism has begun. The magazine’s readership may crave acceptance and be highly susceptible to suggestion but not all would be completely stupid. Thus some would notice colder winters and the fact that the world has hardly warmed at all. And some would be aware that higher atmospheric CO2 levels are beneficial to crop production. And then start thinking that higher atmospheric CO2 levels are all good with no downside. So The Economist comes up with a vague notion about something that might go wrong at an unspecifed time. In effect The Economist is conducting a fighting retreat in the death of the global warming meme.
The truth of the matter is that the plants that most of our diet is derived from, the grasses, evolved when CO2 levels were five times what they are today. The following figure is a screenshot from a presentation by Patrick Moore:
Figure 2: Projected CO2 Level in the Absence of Human Emissions
The Earth’s atmosphere started off at 200,000 ppm CO2. The first plants came along three billion years ago and by 120 million years ago the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was down to one hundredth of its intial level. And then kept falling. If it had kept on that trajectory all life above sea level would have died off from lack of CO2 about five million years from now. Humans evolved just in time to save Creation. That is the inspiring story that should be told, not that there might be blight.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare
Tesla is a very nice car. Makes sense to build electric cars instead of the extremely complicated internal combustion propulsion. But I agree we must burn oil for CO2. Even if, and especially if, we find a cheaper source of energy it is probably wise to keep burning the oil, for the benefit of the climate and the plantlife.
Besides, you don’t have to drop $150k for a Model S P80D to get the “ludicrous effect.” We used to have a 2006 Jeep Commander with a 5.7 L Hemi V8 engine.
Yes a V8 is something special, the roar of the engine is comforting almost, like friendly aggression. But 0-60 mph in 2 seconds is ludicrous on another level.
This is the “ludicrous effect” to which I was referring…
With a 5.7 L V-8 Hemi… In a large, boxy SUV, when you punch it… You feel like you’re being launched into orbit… in a large, boxy SUV.
To land or take off in a U-2, you need a car to help you. I read somewhere that they were using Teslas very effectively, perhaps in ludicrous mode.
Back in the late ’60s I experienced the joy of owning a Sunbeam Tiger with the prerequisite V8. Punching this baby out was like turning on a starship warp drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunbeam_Tiger
I had a 1975 Maserati. Better not say any more, as I’m not sure on the statute of limitations ……
The problem with Tesla is that owners drive them like race cars, and just like race cars, it takes energy to accelerate mass to high velocity in a very short time (e.g., 0-60 times <5 sec). So, as the point of the Tesla was to reduce energy consumption, the end result is that people use more energy driving a Tesla this way than they would consume driving a Hemi, even a Hell Cat which has comparable 0-60 times as a Tesla. But in most areas of the country, outside California, a Tesla driven nicely for maximum energy efficiency still emits more CO2, but remotely, than a gasoline powered vehicle, at substantially lower cost as well. This is due to the fact that a Tesla only reduces GHG emissions when driven in CA with a GHG emissions for electricity production well below the national average due to CA using hydroelectric power from the Pacific NW.
The problem with Teslas is they self ignite in the middle of the night…in your garage…in your house…and you can’t put them out
Dr. Bob wrote, “The problem with Tesla is that owners drive them like race cars, and just like race cars, it takes energy to accelerate mass to high velocity in a very short time”
Actually, it takes exactly the same amount of energy to accelerate a car to a high velocity in a very short time as it does to accelerate the same size car to the same velocity in a longer amount of time.
However, it takes more peak power to accelerate the car in a very short amount of time.
The faster you draw current out of a battery (or put it into a battery) the less efficient the process is.
When plugging in your Tesla in CA, how do you ensure that the electricity going into your battery is good electricity from the Pacific NW hydro projects, and not dirty electricity from coal fired power stations across the border in Arizona?
That’s just like your opinion man.
And totally sterile. Point and shoot. Then start worrying about remaining charge.
“Makes sense to build electric cars instead of the extremely complicated internal combustion propulsion.”
What a silly assertion.
But one I’ve seen repeated over and over again by electric car enthusiasts.
While the Tesla ($105,000) is a fairly nice car, it only just barely beat a Ford Model T in a 770 mile race from Chicago to the Tesla Science Center on Long Island. Tesla beat the Ford in the 22 hour long race (by 44 minutes) after the Ford had to stop and rebuild their Carb.
BUT
I have driven from Santa Rosa, Ca to Seattle, (791 miles and 3 fueling stops) in just over 12 hours. ICE still wins
Forgot my link
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15112705/2013-tesla-model-s-vs-1915-ford-model-t-race-of-the-centuries-feature/
You have never delved into the heart of the electronics and software required to modulate a battery to a three phase motor or accept back EMF to charge the battery then?
Leccy cars NOT simple. The complexity has simply moved from mecchanicals to electronics and software.
An ICE car from the era before seat belts, fuel injection, overhead cams, electronic ignition and pollution control were extremely simple. Almost any fool could be trained to fix them.
In contrast, modern vehicles, regardless of engine technology, need a NASA engineer just to unlock the doors.
And neither is the process of producing lithium, and the host of rare earth elements that go into this technology.
Keep in mind electricity is not a fuel. It is a method of distributing power. You still need to create the power.
This is a fundamental mistake many people make when talking about electric vehicles. Many times they turn out to be coal powered.
The switch to electric vehicles is largely an illusion caused by the mistake of seeing electricity as a power source when in reality it is more like a pipeline delivering oil.
And as for complexity, the many hundreds of cells in a big battery are a complexity and source of failure you don’t have in an ICE. As are the power control electronics.
And the same is true for hydrogen. If the “hydrogen economy” is ever built it will still require a power source that is not H2.
???
A car with specially wound and constructed electric motors/generators that require multiple circuit boards and programming is not less complex than internal combustion machines.
When authors’ count parts to declare electric cars as simpler than internal combustion machines, they appear to not understand just how complex circuit boards, wiring, sensors and specially constructed motors are. Instead they treat the most complex parts as units of one.
Where any component in those extremely complicated electric cars may degrade or fail, they are given a pass because they’re tiny components or hidden wiring or complex coding hidden from view.
That “extremely complicated” engine costs less than the battery for your commuter car, and will last longer as well.
The Tesla may not have a “complicated” IC engine but the body is very complex with an unusual number differing fastenings making it more expensive construct than a car made by other makers. The centre touch screen console is nothing more than a laptop with one feature I don’t like. There is an internal SD car that records images from the various cameras on board. OK in sentry mode that will capture an image of someone trying to break in to the car, but will trigger a record people passing by. And I don’t like the fact it has a on-board SIM card too so can “call”, or be called by, Tesla at any time.
Fossil fuels are nothing more than naturally, but accidentally sequestered, CO2.
The ONLY observable manifestation directly attributed to increased atmospheric CO2 is that the planet has greened by 14% in 35 years of satellite observations. One of the NASA scientists involved in this study commented that it was equivalent to two continents the size of mainland USA worth of vegetation.
Meanwhile, no one has, by empirical means, ever in human history successfully demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 causes the planet to warm. Every attempt has been roundly discredited.
Preaching to the converted folks, I know, but perhaps there’s a newcomer to the site who might benefit from those vital facts. Apply them to almost any ‘climate change’ argument and they simply demolish alarmist rhetoric, although they never listen.
HotScot
“Meanwhile, no one has, by empirical means, ever in human history successfully demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 causes the planet to warm.”
And never has it been attempted if you exclude Feldman et al (2015) which attempted to show anthropogenic CO2 forcing but could not separate that CO2 from the naturally occurring CO2. I wonder why that is.
Conversely, has the alarmist scientific community ever been pressured into providing such evidence by sceptical scientists? I can’t find any evidence of that either.
It seems it would put an end to the “debate”.
Possibly because human CO2 emissions are only 5% of the total. In other words, anything humans do is completely swamped by natural emissions.
So why do sceptics not push climate alarmists to show evidence that the radiative powers of CO2 are what they claim to be.
I suspect it’s because most sceptics are luke-warmers and it would just become a case of what constitutes “how bad”.
leitmotif
I suspect it’s something to do with the general acceptance that CO2 does exhibit radiative qualities under lab conditions therefore it ‘must’ affect the earth’s temperature in some way.
That acceptance has evidently crept into the lexicon of CC so much so that most scientists perhaps don’t even think offer up the obvious challenge – Prove it.
It’s not “under lab conditions”. Molecules don’t change their properties when released into the wild. Molecules absorb and re-radiate radiation. That’s really not in doubt (though we should not consider anything fixed forever). And that happens outside the lab.
I am not a lukewarmer however, merely a sceptic. I can see how more GGs could en up with a cooler Earth because the climate is complex and non-linear. Or it could end up warmer or alternate or do neither. If we don’t know, we don’t know.
As for “how bad” i have yet to see any evidence that a bit warmer with a bit more CO2 is bad – but there’s plenty of evidence it is good. The claims it must be bad are absurd, since the inherent assumption is that we would otherwise live in a perfect climate. That seems extremely unlikely.
HotScot, Phoenix44
The trouble with CO2 being the control kn0b for temperature is that it doesn’t have a great CV.
Only 0.04% of the atmosphere. Each CO2 molecule is surrounded by 2,500 other atmospheric molecules.
Only absorbs within the earth’s emission spectrum at the 15 micron wavelength which is also absorbed by the much more powerful ghg, water vapour.
Absorbs all its energy in the first 10 metres of the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface.
The 15 micron wavelength is only 8% of the earths’s emission spectrum so 92% of the IR emitted by the surface is transparent to CO2.
Emits to the warmer surface; cannot raise its temperature.
Is hit by hundreds of millions of other atmospheric molecules and surface molecules (conduction) before it has a chance to emit photons in a random direction.
Being a ghg, it contributes to cooling the atmosphere to space. More useful higher up in the atmosphere or over polar regions where water vapour is sparse or non-existent.
Doesn’t like bad press from the MSM an climate activists.
With respect to the CO2 CV, don’t hire this guy. Ask the plants. CO2 at 150 ppm kills all life on the surface of the planet. The fish shall inherit the earth.
HotScot,
You are actually preaching to the half-converted. That is, the luke-warmers–who want their cake and to eat it too. They want to be “skeptical,” without raising too much ire from the cultists. They want to say, “Sure, everyone knows that CO2 warms the planet. But we just don’t know how much, or how much man’s CO2 warms the planet.”
Standing up to the powers-that-be is hard. Being wishy-washy is easy.
So, yes, it’s great that you make the point–there is no empirical proof that CO2 “traps heat” on earth, causing the atmosphere to be warmer than it would otherwise. Just don’t mis-underestimate your audience, or host, here.
Thanks.
Luke-warmers are fence-sitters. CO2 either has the power to raise surface temperatures or it doesn’t.
Not seen any evidence that it can or does.
Nothing wrong with fence sitting why get invested and waste time and energy on something that is meaningless in the real world.
Arguing with either extremists is a bit like arguing over religion, you always change the rules and science to suit yourselves.
Leitmotif
I don’t think that is the split. The issue is whether or not the amount of “heating” is large or insignificant.
There is no competing theory that holds radiative gases do not emit radiation isotropically. That means there isn’t a theory of radiative interaction between molecules that has up-pointing knowledge to keep IR pointing away from the surface. Call it the “sentient molecules” hypothesis. There is no theory holding that GHG’s know which way to radiate so as to overcome their tendency to radiate in all directions. This puts paid to the notion that there are no GHG’s with true warming potential.
It is a matter of how much the system warms when a change is made in the concentrations of GHG’s. It appears to be very little, and it is very little for reasons which are well understood. Some realise this, some don’t. Be alarmed (or not) appropriate to your understanding.
That is one issue, but to me the larger issue is whether warming should be seen as bad, rather than good.
I for one see no reason, evidence, or logic to the proposition that a warmer world will cause catastrophe, at all. On the contrary, I think warmer is better for a wide range of very important reasons.
Cold is the catastrophe for life, not warmth.
Warmer climates are more stable, more livable, more productive…
The notion that warmth is dangerous has been the most successful part of the whole climate alarmism hoax.
Without that as a starting point, everything else is largely a moot point.
And even many skeptics fail to see that truth, and go around twisting themselves in knots trying to prove this or that about warming.
The alarmists lie about virtually everything, all the time.
Everything they say is mere assertion, unbacked by any logic or evidence.
Malarkey, all the way down.
Sooty Bear sits next to a mirror ball in the toy box, and mysteriously they attain the same temperature.
Disingenuous.
If (as is all probably the case) the climate sensitivity to CO2 is under 0.5C, then any increase caused by CO2 is too far below the level of noise in the system to be detectable with just a few decades of accurate monitoring.
This not the same thing as saying it doesn’t exist, which is what a lot of extremists want to believe.
What continues to be forgotten is the all-important caveat; the strictly HYPOTHETICAL effect or increasing the CO2 level x2 applies ONLY when “ALL OTHER THINGS” are “HELD EQUAL.”
Here in the real world, the “other things” ARE NOT “held equal,” the “feedbacks” are negative/offsetting feedbacks, and the ultimate “sensitivity” to CO2 level changes is essentially zero.
And we know this because..
NO empirical evidence that CO2 has EVER driven the temperature/climate (just assertions based on the “pet” hypothesis and assumptions related thereto);
Long periods of climate STABILITY which simply would not and could not occur if the atmosphere was as “sensitive” to CO2 levels as they say, AND reacted with the POSITIVE feedbacks that the alarmist case depends on which would (IF they existed) amplify the otherwise mild (even hypothetically) effect.
An episode in the paleoclimate record where the Earth plunged into an ice age, which took MILLIONS of years to recover from, with TEN TIMES today’s CO2 levels (that tell us we should panic about).
On shorter time scales (ice core reconstructions), CO2 FOLLOWING temperature, like a DOG on a LEASH being dragged into wet weather.
For all we know, the net effect of x2 CO2 may be nothing more than a bit more precipitation – which, like the extra CO2, would just help the plants grow.
No empirical evidence? You don’t think all the empirical evidence on absorption and re-radiation of radiation by molecules and atoms is empirical? Despite it being measured all the time all over the place? You don’t think the satellite measurements of what is lost to space are empirical? How about the radiation from the Sun? Perhaps the difference between the two is swallowed by the Magic
Trees?
As for the sneering about Lukewarmers, if you think they somehow get pats on the head from the Alarmists, you are living in a delusion.
Lukewarmers must be right… Everyone disagrees with us… 😉
Increasing CO2 doesn’t necessarily mean increases in [ALL] “greenhouse gases.” Since the MAIN “greenhouse gas” is water vapor and the MAIN modulation of incoming energy from the Sun is clouds, the HYPOTHETICAL effect of increasing CO2 ONLY is just that – purely hypothetical.
So no, no “empirical” evidence that CO2 level increase has done ANYTHING to the temperature. That remains an unsupported hypothetical conjecture, especially given that CO2 never has been shown to “drive” temperature in the paleoclimate record.
The error bars on the paleoclimate record are too great to record a CO2 signal, even if there is one.
AGW is not Science
100+
Your comments seem to get through easier than mine. 🙂
“No empirical evidence? You don’t think all the empirical evidence on absorption and re-radiation of radiation by molecules and atoms is empirical? Despite it being measured all the time all over the place? You don’t think the satellite measurements of what is lost to space are empirical?”
No.
“As for the sneering about Lukewarmers, if you think they somehow get pats on the head from the Alarmists”
No.
This mini-thread is about the effects of back radiation from ghgs.
Well I am inclined to believe that Greenhouse Gases (even though they are misnamed) do warm the Earth by absorbing and re-radiating radiation. The physics of that is pretty solid. That means that more GGs should warm the planet more too. The question then is, by how much and what happens to climate if it is a non-linear, chaotic complex system? That’s when we move from relatively solid science to modeled guesses. And since we neither udnerstand the climate much nor can model a non-linear complex system with any degree of accuracy, I am inclined to believe we haven’t got a clue yet.
And why is the inherent assumption that more CO2 = more “greenhouse gases” ignored, when the primary “greenhouse gas” is water vapour, which is highly variable due to the multiple “phases” of water?!
“Well I am inclined to believe that Greenhouse Gases (even though they are misnamed) do warm the Earth by absorbing and re-radiating radiation. The physics of that is pretty solid. ”
Except there is no observational or experimental evidence for this. How does a ghg molecule re-radiate a photon (subsequent to absorbing a different photon) after suffering hundreds of millions of collisions from other atmospheric molecules and the molecules of the earth’s surface (conduction)?
If the CO2 molecule finally does emit a photon in the 15 micron wavelength to the planet surface, how would that be absorbed and contribute to an increase in surface temperature. According to Wien’s Displacement Law we are talking about a photon from a CO2 molecule at -80C.
More CO2 + warmer winters –> Higher crop yields + longer growing seasons –> Larger harvests.
Larger harvests–> More instances of diseased crops.
Therefore larger harvests are bad.
Conclusion: Zero harvests = Zero diseased crops.
Green New Deal Cultural Revolution justified.
QED
Green**** Logic 101
Try running that through one of the new AI theorem provers, and imagine the result, as some claim, if AI takes over!
That should be a test case for any autonomous auto software!
That pretty much sums up their academic logic. Since we can’t do something everywhere we can’t do it anywhere.
Must remove all carbon-based units infesting Earth to protect the environment….
I agree with the contents of this post, but there is just something in the headline that bothers me.
Tesla’s ‘Ludicrous Mode’ is just so cool!
I’m not arguing from a global warming paradigm, I’m arguing from what make sense.
Okay, it won’t happen immediately, but surely the future must be in nuclear power generating the electricity and all road vehicles to be electric? The ‘Ludicrous Mode’ is helping to make electric cars sexy. Not?
Not!
Not unless some better way to store electricity than batteries is found. And don’t start talking about better batteries. Batteries wont get much better. Ever. There simply are no atoms with more valence electrons. Lithium is the best, Period.
“There simply are no atoms with more valence electrons
Lithium may be the best but any atom in group 2 or higher in the periodic table has more valence electrons than lithium.
Not per weight or volume which is the important thing.
Electrified roadways like the old toy slot-car tracks? 🙂
Pity the poor possum trying to cross the road. Not only does he have to worry about getting squished by silent electric cars, now he has to be careful where he steps as well.
And how would you change lanes or pass a slow-poke driving 20 miles below the speed limit?
Momentum?
tty,
I think to say batteries wont get better ever lacks vision. Its more accurate to say that current battery technology has come to its limit, and that limit renders electric vehicles uneconomic, and there is currently no new battery technology on the horizon that can fix this problem. But there might be in the future. It needs to have 10x efficiency of the current batteries. But there is no indication at the moment what this new technology might be. Its decades away.
They will get better, but not much better, ever. Batteries work by fiddling with valence electrons and sending them around a circuit. The best in that respect is lithium, being the lightest alkali metal. There is, as I said, simply no better element in the periodic table, none, nada. No new battery technology can do anything about that.
Some completely new method to create or store electricity is needed. As far as I know none is in sight, not even as a theoretical possibility.
Or a more creative solution – stop trying to “store” electricity. Generate it with a small displacement ICE, and use electric motors for the “transmission” (pun intended) of power to the wheels. Full torque available right from a dead stop (the big + of “electric” cars), but none of the useless battery silliness.
That’s the Chevy Volt.
Super capacitors or perhaps anti-matter might be possible in the future.
However neither is a battery.
Might work, but you wouldn’t want to be in Indianapolis when they were racing supercapacitor powered cars. With antimatter you wouldn’t want to be in the US.
Depends on how much anti-matter was being stored in each car. You don’t need enough to push the Enterprise to Warp 8 after all.
Will an EV ever win an Indianapolis 500? From what I see, the lengthy pit stops will be a problem.
Ever watch Formula E races? The cars sound awful.
jtom: “Will an EV ever win an Indianapolis 500?”
That’s an interesting question to contemplate. I know that the NHRA has been kicking around the prospect of EV drag racing. The last article I read quoted one of the NHRA officials as saying it will pretty much going to happen, but they will probably race EVs as a separate class because the pit requirements and rules would be different.
I think current Indy rules preclude an EV race car, but maybe some Indy fan can chime in on whether the current Indy rules would allow an EV to race.
And then there’s the problem of a crash and the possibility of a fire that could not be put out.
Indy 500? No. Current cars are limited more by traction and aerodynamics than by power. 500 mi of batteries to run a race car would weigh tons. Batteries scale linearly. Recharge times would make “refueling” impossible.
6-8 second battery swaps? I can see the engineering behind that. But then that gets into the rules thingy and I don’t know the current rules.
Does a battery swap = refueling? I dunno, but I can see the ICE teams arguing for recharging to be required. That would rule out EVs at Indy.
Let’s say battery swaps are OK. Then we get into the energy density discussion. I suspect that the EVs would have to pit a few extra times over the ICEs, which would make it impossible to win.
Might be possible by using high-performance quick exchange-batteries. Possibly aluminium-air batteries that can be changed as fast as wheels are now during pit stops.
Aluminium-air batteries are almost as good as the theoretically best possible (lithium-air) batteries for energy density, but aren’t rechargeable, but that isn’t a problem for a racing car. They are also much less fire-prone. Batteries using air (oxygen) as cathode have the high energy densities, but actually grow heavier as they discharge which is a drawback, particularly for a racing car. Jettisoning battery elements during a race as they are exhausted is probably not acceptable for safety reasons.
They could work by developing some way to rapidly switch out the battery.
More or less like how we change a propane tank on a forklift or a gas grill.
CO2 strongly correlated to serious mental illness faced by CAGW (or Unicorn) believers :
– the more CO2 concentration increases, the more they spout nonsense.
In this case correlation is not causation /sarc
I was an Economist subscriber for almost twenty years… until last week. Every *damn* issue in the last few years has had some unsubstantiated drivel about climate change, CO2, global warming, with absolutely no critical analysis — just a rote repetition of the standard talking points.
I was originally introduced to the Economist by some very well-read colleagues, and found it a refreshing change from the weekly dreck (Time, Newsweek, etc.) that passed itself off as news. They took a seemingly longer view to world events, and provided some deeper background analysis than found in traditional daily newspapers.
Not so much any more. It took me a few years to come to terms with the fact that their editorial slant was spilling over into everything. When I realized that I was cringing every time I opened a new issue, I canceled my subscription.
+10
The climate consensus is ruining everything.
Same Same Same
I live in Australia. My Economist was originally in ‘onion skin’ format to save postage cost. As an economist I was initially attracted to the ‘Newspaper’ as they insist on calling it.
I gave up my subscription about 20 years ago. My understanding from others is that the publication is now strongly pro EU (which I am not) and suggests that global warming is caused by humans and is leading us to catastrophe in a hand cart (which I do not believe).
Yes, the Economist is just another of the publications that have been bought out by some globalist corporation.
As such, it is a worthless rag.
There is no way to trust or give benefit of doubt to any such publications, so reading them is a waste of time.
Even when they say something true, it is watered down with some BS somewhere or other.
“I was an Economist subscriber for almost twenty years”
I let mine lapse about 20 years ago!
Me too!
And I did, too.
Auto
Me too, and I didn’t even subscribe.
I have also terminated my subscription.
Just seem to have lost the cutting edge thinking.
Incredibly some 15 years ago they had article on the impact of the UK leaving the EU and the conclusion was maybe a 2% tariff impact and a load of cost gone.
Now the story is that the UK will simply implode upon leaving.
Researched work and advocacy are a short walk from one another
From when matt ridley left basically.
Although I agree with the assessment of ludicrous writings in patronising papers a word of caution. One should not make the mistake by trying to counter a flawed idea in the MSM with a questionable hypothesis of ones own. I mean the idea that the biosphere is self-limiting because left on its own the CO2 will run out is, let’s say, not proven. Mankind as saviour of the biosphere is teleological thinking which rationality should have left behind. Dr Moore’s presentation is questionable. We know that CO2 concentrations have fluctuated widely thoughout geological history, going as low as 200 and high as 4000ppm. That alone tells us that there are other sources of CO2 apart from the biosphere. The reason why plants do photosynthesis and not something else is because CO2 is the only source of carbon accessible. They will adapt to low concentrations of the stuff as they have done in the past.
E J Zuiderwijk wrote:
“I mean the idea that the biosphere is self-limiting because left on its own the CO2 will run out is, let’s say, not proven.”
Nonsense EJ! There is ample evidence that C3 plants (almost all food plants) die at about 150ppm CO2 in the atmosphere. During the last Ice Age atmospheric CO2 concentrations dropped top about 180ppm.
By the time it is fully “proven”, all significant terrestrial life on this planet will be dead.
That is not what I said.
Please explain what you meant then EJ.
I meant this:
CO2 is inexorably being sequestered in carbonate rocks since the dawn of life on Earth, and this is pretty much a one-way street. The very slow geologic processes that return some of that CO2 into the atmospheric via volcanic action are much slower than the processes that sequester CO2, so atmospheric CO2 will decline to below 150 ppm during one of the next ice ages, which occur every 100,000 years – the blink of an eye in geologic time.
That will be the extinction event for ~all complex terrestrial life, which relies primarily on photosynthesis of C3 plants to survive.
There are a few C4 and CAM (photosynthetic pathway) food plants, such as corn and sugar cane, but i doubt terrestrial can survive on Sugar Frosted Flakes, notwithstanding the rumour that “They’re Great!”
correction:
There are a few C4 and CAM (photosynthetic pathway) food plants, such as corn and sugar cane, but I doubt that terrestrial life can survive on Sugar Frosted Flakes, notwithstanding the rumour that “They’re Great!”
E J
“One should not make the mistake by trying to counter a flawed idea in the MSM with a questionable hypothesis of ones own.”
There´s big difference between those two “hypothesis”. The questionable one makes sense. Because there is more people to burn fossil fuel, coal, etc, more CO2 is released to atmosphere and more food to feed that growing population is the result.
Our mainstream “science” says that human is to blame for global warming, which isn´t, but the blame is. So because global warming isn´t, mankind is only adding CO2 to solve food problem.
Plants will die without our help. So who are the real greens? V8-drivers or Tesla drivers?
Well, an ironic twist.
A German e-Auto report recently showed they produce more CO2 than Diesel, when lifetime costs are taken into account. Bad news for Gov’t policy, but greens could claim e-autos are helping plants with more CO2!
Will they do it? Severe cognitive dissonance, with convulsions and conniptions is the likely prognosis.
“grasses, evolved when CO2 levels were five times what they are today”
In the 55 million years sice, they’ve completely adapted to 280ppm.
“Humans evolved just in time to save Creation.”
Lol. 10 or 12 billion selfish, warlike ape/gods… just what Creation needed.
Actually the vast expansion of grasses and grassland during the Neogene and Pleistocene is probably largely due to grasses being able to tolerate low CO2 better than most other plants, though increasing aridity probably played a role.
Plants also have an unusually large genome as compared to humans. I’ve seen it speculated that this is because they need to have a lot of chemical tricks up their sleeve to survive in a world where they cannot move around very fast but predators and conditions can.
Similarly, at least some strains of bacteria don’t drop their genes for antibiotic resistance even if they are removed from an environment where it makes a significant difference to survival. There’s an awful lot we still don’t know.
Loydo, “selfish, warlike ape/gods”? Speak for yourself, please.
Grasses are greatfully more adapted to more CO2.
They have memory, and you… don´t.
“Lol. 10 or 12 billion selfish, warlike ape/gods… just what Creation needed.”
The wisdom of a self-hating carbon unit that detests its preeminence in nature.
Neo-con Bolton expressed his bestial view of humanity himself in a December 2009 interview with Fox News: “{Homo sapiens} are hard-wired for violent conflict, and we’re not going to eliminate
violent conflict until {Homo sapiens} ceases to exist as a separate species. And the whole notion you could even think about eliminating it, not just in our lifetime but soon thereafter, I think reveals a {fundamental} misunderstanding of human nature.”
He is busy right now with the bestialization of Venezuela. Target Iran on his bestializaton list is not amused.
Care to dispute the claim, rather than just let your blind hatred of the man color your thinking?
Very interesting that London’s Economist mentions “blight”.
Surely a reference to the 1840’s Irish genocide, in polite company “potato blight famine”, run by the British, which some even declare a climate catastrophe. Army-escorted food exports peaked while streets were blocked with the dead, and half died on the escape ships to the US, unleashing a massive diseased migrant crisis at NY Ellis Island.
Sound familiar?
Seems London’s elite are pulling out old rabbits from hats again, on a global scale.
Not that simple. Ireland wasn’t the only place where people starved because of potato blight. I recall seeing a Professor (from University College Dublin, no less) who said that the potato had probably allowed the population to expand beyond was was considered sustainable for the ‘normal’ agricultural productivity of the available land, and was almost a disaster waiting to happen when surviving on a mono-culture.
The landed rich holding on to what they’ve got at the expense of the poor is a human constant across all times and cultures.
No one died of the blight in Dakota where it started. Sure the Profs, liberal Uni crowd, always excuse genocide with “it’s there own fault for being too many” . The British line touted by liberals is nothing new.
Other food exports, plentiful, went ahead unabated to keep prices stable as London wrote. Army escorts were the only way that happened.
India famines were even worse.
The soil and climate and population density, etc, of Dakota is not the same as that in Ireland.
Genocide is the main word I object to. It means planned extermination, not incompetence or indifference as judged by members of a welfare-state one and a half centuries later.
“run by the British”? What does that mean?
As with most disasters, it was far more cock-up than conspiracy.
As in the British Government, with the army of the East Indie Company, a private outfit contractetd to the Crown. A bit like Blackwater today.
Price stability at all costs was the reasoning in London, not a cock-up nor a conspiracy, but free-trade.
They should ask Greta, she knows everything….
“aspirations of wordliness” What is wordliness, please?
Likely worldliness, where genocide is instead called blight, by aspiring, get ahead, Remoaners, En marche, Move On, subjects.
The Economist article is not as bad as it first seems. They mainly appear to be arguing for a wider acceptance of modern techniques for manipulating the DNA of crops, something that Europe has taken a largely negative attitude to.
They also state that grant applications containing the words “climate change” are largely screened out by the current administration in the US. That is something I didn’t know, but, if true, is the best news I have received in a long time.
Have they commented on the new yellow rice, a major development?
I often walked through the terrestrial formations above the Vaca Muerta fm., in a Cretaceous time of 70 to 90 million years ago. The amount of fossilized tree encountered was amazing, estimated by me (sitting here typing) at around five thousand. The paleo-environment was arid countryside, with meandering river running through it. Dinosaurs grazed along the rivers, and when floods came and caught them up, and uprooted trees, some really great fossilized collections of tree trunks and dinosaurs! There also was the record of some sea return, with patch-reefs loaded with clams (lots of Trigonia sp., for example). Let’s see, consulting the time/CO2 chart in David Archibalds excellent report, the CO2 level then was between 1,000 and 1,500 ppm. Now we are at 400 ppm and rising slowly? Evidently nothing bad happens until somewhere above 1,500 ppm, so wake me up then.
– What the article means is that the long retreat from global warming alarmism has begun: Well, I should hope so. I see little to nothing of the CAGWers or Greenbeaners anywhere in my area. People are too busy with their lives to act like a pack of hysterical zealots. I must be living on a different planet than those people
– The magazine’s readership may crave acceptance and be highly susceptible to suggestion but not all would be completely stupid. Thus some would notice colder winters and the fact that the world has hardly warmed at all: If there is any clue at all that people are not completely stupid, it is that alarmism is simply not working as an editorial meme in the majority of publications such as Grauniad and NYSlimes. There is a point at which being hammered by same-old/same-old repetitious twaddle stops working. Economist is starting to figure that out. Maybe it’s losing its subscription cash and/or advertising cash, but the cash in the cash drawer is the “tell” and loss of it is the breaking point.
There is something that the Economist missed entirely in its article: every fad has a life cycle, whether it’s the 1960s and the miniskirt, or the late 20-teens (2015 to now). Fads come and go and all of them have an end. That bunch of wet-nosed schoolbrats rioting in the streets and making nuisances of themselves is likely the peak of the zombie climate kid thing. If so, it’s downhill from that bit of nonsense. When London is as snowed in as Chicago, WDC, and NYC can get – and don’t think it won’t happen – it’s doubtful that any of them will want to be gluing themselves to a building in that kind of weather.
This “global warming” hogwash started with you-know-whose infamous chart f**t, and just went from there. Bolstered by Earth Day and alarmism, it grew like a weed, but all weeds have a life cycle: they sprout, grow to maximum size, and die back. Sometimes, they don’t even put out seeds.
I’ve just checked my popcorn stock-up. I’ll get more this week.
The British Opinion Industrial Complex is not helpful or informative as usual.
Well put!
David in his note mentions Tesla.
This week the stock set the lowest low since early 2017.
Two weeks ago, a friend who is an automobile engineer consulting to the big firms on assembly line efficiencies, called.
Over the past 15 years he has had some good stories.
A couple of years ago, he was under a confidentiality agreement and couldn’t say anything more than that it was “bad”. There is an engineering firm in Detroit that buys a new car and takes it apart to see what parts it has and how it is assembled. And for big bucks sells the info to other manufacturers.
They did this for the recent new Tesla. As he describes it the “body shop” (assembly line) is critical for profitability. You want as few parts as possible which makes the line more efficient.
In putting the line together as fast as possible Tesla sucked up all of the engineering talent around the world and despite this–did not get it right.
The body has nine times the elements that would be used on a properly designed line.
It is impossible to fix and make the operations profitable.
“This week the stock set the lowest low since early 2017.”
Meanwhile the rest of the market is on the verge of setting new highs.
“The truth of the matter is that the plants that most of our diet is derived from, the grasses, evolved when CO2 levels were five times what they are today. The following figure is a screenshot from a presentation by Patrick Moore:”
haha, nice projection. You will not that the author had to screen shot it
why?
because the data and the methods are not described.
anyway. It would seem that D archibald is arguing against Salby
So is Salby right and we havent had anything to do with the rise in c02
or
Is patrick moore and david correct?
well skeptics?
Steven, what did we tell about drinking and posting?
For an English major, you sure do have a hard time actually making sense.
carbon dioxide will make the seas acid and dissolve the shells off all the little sea creatures.
===========
The main ingredient in shell is CaCO3 which is mostly CO2.
Without CO2 there would be no shell. Most of the mass of the Great Barrier Reef is made from CO2.
The lie about acidification is not based on proper understanding of biology. Rather it come from using unrelated acids to create false narratives.
The graph shows CO2 going to zero in about 5 million years with a linear trend, but plants would die off around 150 ppm, which could have been reached in the next glaciation. Not any more, thanks to that wonderful human species. Humans have come along just at the right time to save life on Earth…for a while.
George Carlin almost nailed it in his classic stand-up routine. But it is not plastic, Mr. Carlin. It is CO2!
The zooxanthellae algae, through photosynthesis, remove carbon dioxide from the air and make carbohydrates available as food for both the zooxanthellae and the coral polyps. Eventually, much of the carbon removed from the air will reside on the ocean bottom in the form of limestone produced by coral polyps.Mar 8, 2004
Coral Reefs – COTF
http://www.cotf.edu › ete › coralreef
The plastic you find in the oceans is not plastic bags and straws. Except around SE Asia where black plastic bags are a problem.
Most plastic ends up on the ocean floor because anything floating in the ocean eventually becomes fouled with marine growth. Plastic is no exception. And this marine growth eventually sinks most floating objects unless they are very buoyant.
The enormous deposits of limestone found around the earth are mostly made from CO2 that was at one time dissolved in the ocean.
I may have forgotten some of my chemistry so please forgive my ignorance, but carbon dioxide when it dissolves in water is only a weak acid as Carbonic acid is only partially dissociated. Carbonic acid dissociates into Hydrogen ions and bicarbonate/carbonate ions and hence is a useful buffer solution. The sea has a pH of 8.3, which means there’s a surfeit of hydroxyl ions, for calcium carbonate to be involved in a reaction with an acid would require the pH to drop below 7. To overcome the buffer effect would require the quantity of hydrogen ions to increase at a very high rate, which is unlikely to happen.
Please feel free to correct me, it’s almost 50 years since I did chemistry!
Instead of the “Blob”, now it’s the “Blight”. Run for your lives!
If it had kept on that trajectory all life above sea level would have died off from lack of CO2 about five million years from now. Humans evolved just in time to save Creation. That is the inspiring story that should be told, not that there might be blight.
Yes indeed. Volcanic activity has been winding down to where it is not a significant CO2 contributor anymore. Life has been living on borrowed time & facing eventual extinction from lack of CO2 of all but anaerobic/extremophile life.
This Tesla?
https://wolfstreet.com/2019/04/29/tesla-discloses-record-pollution-credits-for-q1-without-them-it-would-have-lost-918-million-and-bled-1-14-billion-in-cash/
About a year ago, there was another attempt in the legislature of the State of Washington, USA where the ‘carbon equivalency’ value of fuels were to be taxed (there was another attempt during this just-finished 2019 session to float a Carbon (dioxide) Tax, but thankfully that attempt did not make it out of committee). At that time, our Illustrious Gubnor, Jay ‘I’ll Pass a Carbon Tax on my Watch’ Inslee (now attempting to run as a Democratic Presidential candidate) presented in televised commercial spots, his support for the latest attempts to tax carbon-based fuels in the State. He quoted as support University of Washington research, presented as conclusive evidence for Ocean Acidification. I researched those UW documents, and sent to my District Legislators the following at that time:
Needless to say I was contacted by both of my District Representatives. I guess I posted this, to say you can have an influence on the governmental process, and it is not all that hard. Also thought it may be appropriate to post this here given Mr. Archibald’s’ mention of Ocean Acidification.
Regards,
MCR
I agree.
The Economist magazine 25 years ago was appropriately critical of policies and full of facts to justify any criticism or recommendation.
The Economist 25 years ago would list pros and cons, alternatives, and did not hesitate to report on critical data that disproved ineffective policy.
The Economist now has become a propaganda magazine that pushes policy ignoring reality such as cost, effectiveness in actual CO2 reduction, observations that show there is no CAGW, and so on.
Past atmospheric CO2 Measurements (CO2 Gate?)
The past CO2 direct measurement data has been filtered (removing measurements that do no create a steady increasing line on a graph to support CAGW) to hide the fact that atmospheric past CO2 level 1866 to 1990 and has been as high as 550 ppmv. (See the Tom Segalstad’s review of the monkey business concerning the creation of the so-called Bern model of CO2 resident times and sinks).
CAGW disappears as a worry if humans did not cause the majority of the rise in atmospheric CO2.
https://www.co2web.info/ESEF3VO2.pdf
Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the “Greenhouse Effect Global Warming” dogma by Tom V. Segalstad
There following are a couple of the dozen different papers that have all found the data supports the assertion that humans caused less than 5% of the rise in atmospheric CO2.
Sources and sinks of CO2 Tom Quirk
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/EE20-1_Quirk_SS.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257343053_The_phase_relation_between_atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_and_global_temperature
The risks of proceeding at ludicrous speed: (hope the link works)
For years now I have heard skeptics claim once CO2 reaches a certain level, it reaches a saturation point and more CO2 will lead to no additional warming. While I am a skeptic myself, where is the experimental evidence to support this contention?
It’s important for us skeptics to get the facts straight. It should be important for everyone, but in this debate the true believers are never held accountable for getting anything wrong.
Figure 2 has the co2 levels falling until all the plants die. But would this happen? The carbon cycle posits some sort of equilibrium between plants turning water and co2 into hydrocarbons and oxygen and animals turning them back into co2 and water. All life sequesters carbon, hence over time the decline in figure 2 and this will push the equilbrium to reduce plant activity (the reverse of what we are seeing with increasing co2). So the rate of absorbtion of co2 will reduce. If some trees and animals die as a consequence they might rot and return sequestered co2 to the atmosphere. So we have the elements of a self balancing system albeit on very long time cycles.
And then there’s the
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=GRXPXLyBNIWyrgTF64HoDQ&q=germany+deadly+city+car+racings&oq=germany+deadly+city+car+racings&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
mode.
The first convictions for murder will probably go up to the Federal Court.
And then there’s “euro rallies”:
Germany police seize 120 sports cars during Eurorally ‘race’ – The Irish Times
vor 2 Tagen · Cars including Porsches, Lamborghinis and Audis were stopped on Thursday on the A20 east of Wismar, in northeast Germany, on a stretch of the autobahn without speed restrictions. Concerned drivers had notified authorities after some of the cars were witnessed travelling at estimated speeds of up to 250km/h (155mph).
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=yhTPXLroCeeGrwT28JnICQ&q=germany+illegal+city+car+racings&oq=germany+illegal+city+car+racings&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
Anyone who has driven to the shift every day under deadline pressure and back again after the shift
thinks 3x before setting a car into operation.
What makes people think the streets belong to them –
https://www.google.com/search?q=Turks+celebrating+wedding+in+the+middle+of+the+street&oq=Turks+celebrating+wedding+in+the+middle+of+the+street+&aqs=chrome.
“Besides, you don’t have to drop $150k for a Model S P80D to get the “ludicrous effect.”
___________________________________________________
Not to forget the ‘vw golf generation’ effect:
https://www.google.com/search?q=steiermark+vw+golf+meetings&oq=steiermark+vw+golf+meetings&aqs=chrome.
___________________________________________________
Generation Golf, generation X, millenials, AO-C’s, xtinctions, Greta Thunberg friday child crusader loctites without a clue.
Live goes on without Glue.