Carbon dioxide does not “endanger” our health – and it’s time EPA recognized that simply fact
Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr
On August 6, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Washington) that it be granted intervenor status concerning litigation launched by environmental groups against the Trump administration’s new Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule.
The case in question, American Lung Association v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 19-1140, concerns attempts by environmental groups to strike down the ACE rule and resurrect the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). The Chamber wants to be able to intervene in the case in defense of ACE.
The Chamber’s focus is on the legal aspects of ACE and CPP, and this will perhaps be valuable. However, it sidesteps the most important issue: both ACE and CPP are unnecessary since they rest on a faulty premise, namely, the misguided notion that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must be reduced to avoid a climate crisis.
The appellants for the case, the American Lung Association and American Public Health Association, represented by attorneys from the so-called Clean Air Task Force, certainly pull no punches in their pronouncements. Their July 8 press release alleges that “EPA’s decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan and replace it with the ACE rule continues to disregard the vast health consequences of climate change and puts more lives at risk.”
That is nonsense, of course. But that didn’t stop other groups from taking a similar approach. Carter Roberts, President & CEO of the World Wildlife Fund, said, “This [ACE] rule enables dirty power plants to keep polluting – grounding federal energy policy firmly in the past and saddling future generations with the costs of unchecked climate change.” He too apparently wants people to believe the CO2 that we exhale and plants require for photosynthesis is a “dirty pollutant” and the primary factor in driving Earth’s climate – more important than the Sun and hundreds of other natural forces that do regulate climate.
Sierra Club director Michael Brune said, “This is an immoral and illegal attack on clean air, clean energy and the health of the public, and it shows just how heartless the Trump administration is when it comes to appeasing its polluter allies.”
Environmentalists, Democrats and some state attorneys general dubbed the regulation the “Dirty Power Plan,” and more lawsuits against ACE are apparently on the way.
As to clean energy and public health, the forced elimination of fossil fuels that provide over 80% of U.S. and global energy would be devastating to our economies, jobs, living standards, health and welfare. Any forced reduction in atmospheric CO2 levels would negate and roll back the tremendous plant growth that has been “greening” our planet for two decades.
Forcing America to install literally millions of wind turbines and tens of millions of solar panels, and plant tens of millions more acres in biofuel crops, would devastate wildlife habitats and countless species, while driving up electricity prices for families, factories, farms, businesses, schools and hospitals. The wind and sunlight may be free, clean and green. But the massive technologies required to harness those forces for human benefit certainly are not.
If Trump Administration advisors thought they could appease their opponents by implementing a rule focused on the useless and ultimately dangerous goal of limiting CO2 emissions, they were sorely mistaken. But as long as they did not contest the scientifically flawed idea that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant that must be controlled, they really had no choice but to replace the even worse Obama era rule with some form of CO2 reduction regulation.
Dr. Sterling Burnett, Senior Fellow of the Arlington Heights, IL-based Heartland Institute, explained recently on the internet “Think Radio” program Exploratory Journeys: The ACE rule was effectively “forced on the Trump administration because they didn’t, at the same time [they drafted the rule], say we are going to re-examine the Endangerment Finding” [EF] – the EPA’s 2009 finding that CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” (GHG) somehow endanger the health and welfare of Americans.
“As long as the Endangerment Finding exists,” said Burnett, “any administration, no matter how skeptical of the claims that humans are causing catastrophic climate change, … the courts will order them to come up with plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. So, it’s time to go back and examine that finding.”
It is hard to believe that attacks that would ensue against the current administration for opening the GHG Endangerment Finding to re-examination would be any more severe than what they are already being subjected to by enabling the ACE rule. So there is little, if any, political upside to bringing in a weaker version of Obama’s misguided Clean Power Plan.
If you are going to infuriate your opponents to the extent that they will take out lawsuits against you and publicly label you “the worst president in U.S. history for protecting the air and our climate,” as Brune did after Trump’s July 8 environment speech, you might as well do what you really wanted to do, instead of taking half measures.
Burnett explained that ACE has another serious downside that will limit the Trump EPA going forward.
“ACE is dangerous because it cements for a second time, this time by a Republican, supposedly skeptical administration, the idea that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that needs to be regulated,” said Burnett.
“This gives the Endangerment Finding the Trump administration’s stamp of public approval, which environmentalists will cite when they fight this in court saying, ‘even the Trump administration acknowledges carbon dioxide is damaging the U.S., but they are unwilling to take the steps necessary to truly fight carbon pollution.’” For even more reasons to reverse the EF, read this policy brief.
It’s time for the Trump administration, the Chamber, and indeed everyone who wants sensible environmental policy to call a spade a spade. Rather than merely engaging their enemies in legal arguments, while fighting activists on their own ground, they should clearly state that CO2 endangers no one and the EF should be reopened.
They should demand that alarmist scientists and advocacy groups prove clearly, with convincing data and evidence, and against vigorous counter evidence and cross examination, that the small manmade portion of atmospheric CO2 and far tinier manmade portions of other greenhouse gases: are dirty and poisonous; control Earth’s climate and weather; are doing so to a dangerous and unprecedented degree never experienced in prior Earth or human history; and can be manipulated by the United States and other nations so as to stabilize planetary climate and weather systems that have never been stable.
When the re-examination inevitably reveals that effectively classifying CO2 as a pollutant was a mistake, administration officials should not be quiet about it. They must follow Winston Churchill’s advice:
“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”
Extremists in the climate change movement clearly hate fossil fuels and apparently humanity. Ridding the world of the inexpensive, life-enhancing fossil fuels would devastate society and especially hurt our working class and poor families, as our standard of living is reduced to that of third world nations. Moreover, the environmental devastation caused by their proposed “solutions” to the supposed climate crisis would be far worse than anything caused by any foreseeable human impact on climate.
It’s time to defuse the climate scare at its source. The greenhouse gas Endangerment Finding must be given a tremendous whack, and sent to the dustbin of history.
Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute. Dr. Jay Lehr is Senior Policy Analyst with ICSC.
Why fight over this CO2 thing?
We have developed during the previous administration a technology that we have been hoping will soon help President Trump and the coal industry.
What our Carbon Capture Utilization does is with an agriculturally grown product, that is absorbing CO2 out of the atmosphere as it grows to maturity, is absorb over 90% of the CO2 out of the combusted coal exhaust and create 3 useable-saleable earth friendly products.
We turn CO2 into good paying full time jobs and money.
Forests, lumberjacks and wood industries have been around for a long time. You didn’t build that.
Lumberjacks?
I always liked that skit. Unfortunately the absurdity at the end … it has become illegal to call out it’s absurdity in some states.
Just as some who would oppose the CO2 “endangerment” finding.
Nature is nature. Live with it. Don’t try to legislate it.
No we don’t want to absorb the CO2 out of the air, it is a life enabling gas not a pollutant as you seem to think.
Peddle your wares at think progress site.
There are many many people who strongly believe that there should be ZERO CO2 in the air we breathe, and I mean that seriously. 410ppm/v CO2 is TOO much and “chokes” us to death with CO2 pollution, apparently. Problem is, and ignoring exhaled breath, our bodies actually need to breathe CO2 as part of the respiration process.
Trying to absorb CO2 is an insane and unnecessary waste of energy and resources. Absolute waste. Fake science, fake solution to a fake problem.
But, but think of the ale!
Absorb as much as possible before it’s too late…
Carbon capture is just as wasteful as are solar power, electric cars and windmills all attack a problem that does not exist and in many cases produce more carbon then they are a ledge to prevent. CO2 is not a pollutant, it necessary for life on earth as we know it. Anyone who call CO2 a pollutant is evil period and is working to kill people here on earth by denies them cheep energy. To call CO2 a pollutant is anti human and anti earth as we know it.
alleged?
Sid,
“Why fight over this CO2 thing?”
Don’t you think it’s a worthwhile endeavor to fix the fake science supporting a fake catastrophe?
Do you really think wasting money on carbon capture will fix the IPCC’s pseudo-science that’s so obviously broken it’s an embarrassment to legitimate scientists everywhere?
The point of fixing the science is so that people aren’t suckered into paying for silly things like carbon capture, although this truth probably isn’t consistent with your business plan …
Co2isnotevil
This has parallels that can be used to demonstrate the problem. A ponzi scheme is one that cheats all those at the bottom, funneling money up to the top. The top few layers of the scheme and “early adopters” benefit from money arising, essentially, as a result of a story line fed to the unsuspecting public (the suckers who will pay and get no benefit).
So the question arises as to whether or not a ponzi scheme should be allowed to carry on until the entire population gets a chance to “participate” or be shut down as a worthless scam, thus preventing harm.
Speaking in defense of the scheme, those benefiting point out that there are “thousands of jobs” being created by Mr Ponzi’s descendants and that the “economy is benefiting tremendously” from the pointless investment and construction.
Personally I don’t put so much emphasis on the idea that all energy should be “cheap”. I am first concerned that the investments are not creating an energy-positive return, and that means they are a tremendous waste of resources.
Society has various ways to compensate the poor for the cost of energy, but if the energy supply system is made fundamentally dysfunctional and unable to replicate itself, it will wind down.
We need new, large scale, despatchable sources of energy. A population of 11 billion will require far more energy than “nature” supplies. That’s a fact. It comes down to mankind doing things nature does not, at least not on this planet. We are clever. Let’s work with that.
Hmm, a ponzi scam whose foundation is extortion manifested by a financial fraud against the developed world all supported by pseudo-science that’s so obviously broken it’s a crime against nature. How is it possible that so much malfeasance can be so unchecked?
Popular sentiment is to stop the pollution at the source or not create it in the first place. And what causes pollution? Why it is over population and exploitation of natural resources because of capitalism. So what do we do? Get rid of the problem before it starts. How do we do that. We get rid of people. How do we do that? Well mother nature will take care of it eventually. Or if you want to help things along, you can start a war or two or create some nasty epidemics.
The ”why” should be obvious. No point in supporting a falsehood. It’s a bit like, ‘if you can’t beat them…’
I don’t want to support or be any part of what amounts to, one big confidence trick.
“Why fight over this CO2 thing?”
I would say we should fight over this CO2 thing because I want the truth to come out about CO2: It is not a dangerous gas that needs regulation.
As the article says, let the alarmists prove CO2 is a dangerous gas. Let’s have that debate. As soon as possible. Otherwise, we agree with the alarmists that CO2 is a threat. If we don’t agree with CO2 being dangerous, then we (Trump administration) should say so.
Republicans should stop running away from this issue.
Sid Abma – August 31, 2019 at 6:18 pm
Sid Abma, ….. your Carbon Capture Utilization sequestration “thingy” sounds super duper tremendously efficient with its “90% efficiency rating”,, ….. but there is only one (1) problem.
Iffen your “thingy” is limited to only “sucking” 90% of the CO2 byproduct of combusted coal exhaust out of the atmosphere, …… then you “thingy” serves no practical purpose because such a small quantity of atmospheric CO2 is immeasurable as well as ineffectual in the “grand scheme of things”.
It is as futile as is ….. “spitting into the wind”.
His company’s business seems to be based on promoting CO2 fear. People have asked him time and again to provide some economic and engineering data to justify his “solutions.” He fails to respond to such basic requests. He is probably just another climate huckster.
“Yup”, …… iffen you can scare someone …… they are likely to give you anything you ask for.
That is why those “telemarketer” telephone scams are so lucrative.
Off topic but this has been regurgitated from a report from Wellington Uni some years ago;
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/how-big-is-your-pet-s-environmental-paw-print-20190830-p52mbz.html
There is apparently a powerful Green voice somewhere in the Administration (the First Daughter?) that is blocking striking at the root of the problem–the Endangerment Finding–as well as other approaches, such as the Red Team-Blue Team approach that Will Happer would have been so good at leading. The opportunity has now been lost, because it is a multiyear thing with Federal Register, public comments, etc. But it could have been carried out using a few persons inside or outside the EPA to prepare the argument. Alan Carlin (EPA economist for many years) would have done this single-handedly given the opportunity. He was allowed a week to look at the EPA arguments for the EF and identified major weaknesses. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling, partly because they punted on the science, just said that the Agency arguments should be given first priority. If the Agency had then submitted a NonEndangerment argument, the same Court might well have held to their deference to the Agency. Now it is a different Court, all the more reason to re-engage, but again the opportunity seems to have been lost.
President Trump is a pragmatist. He doesn’t do things because they are the “right thing to do”. I’m not sure what it will take to make him attack the ruling. If anybody comes up with that, he will do it.
“There is apparently a powerful Green voice somewhere in the Administration (the First Daughter?) that is blocking striking at the root of the problem–the Endangerment Finding–as well as other approaches, such as the Red Team-Blue Team approach that Will Happer would have been so good at leading.”
I think the major problem is Republicans are very reluctant to address the topic of “climate change”.
It’s understandable. If they challenge the alarmists on this issue, then the Republicans have to know how to counter the arguments of the alarmists and, other than Senator Jim Inhofe, I don’t see any Republicans who have made a logical argument against CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) in public and I think this is because they don’t trust their own understanding enough and so they remain silent.
Think about what you would do if challenged by every wild CAGW theory around, and your job is to debunk them. I could debunk them successfully, if given enough time to study all the ins and outs of the situation, but it would be difficult even for someone who has a lot of knowledge to debunk all the claims right off the top of their head, and that’s what you have to do when a reporter is badgering you.
Alarmist are more than satisfied to fall back on the “97 percent” lie as their reason for believing in CAGW, because it is so much easier than trying to actually prove your case. So the alarmists have an easy time arguing CAGW (97%), and Republicans have a difficult time countering their claims because countering the claims requires more than an appeal to authority..
You can see that “deer in the headlights” look on Republicans every time they are asked about “climate change”. Climate change is the last subject Republicans want to talk about.
To counter this, Trump needs to get Dr. Happer out in public smacking down the CAGW speculation. He *does* have the counter-arguments and the Republican politicans can follow his lead and use his arguments when confronted by the alarmists. Happer will give the Republicans a legitimate authority to appeal to. 🙂
But why should Republicans “counter the arguments of alarmists”? It is the alarmists place to prove their argument. Appealing to authority and ad hom attacks are not proof. Unless and until there is empirical scientific evidence that CO2 is a pollutant, their claims are baseless.
“But why should Republicans “counter the arguments of alarmists”? It is the alarmists place to prove their argument.”
I would agree, but you can bet that all you are going to hear from the alarmists is “97%” of scientists agree with them. Republicans should at least be able to debunk this lie. That shouldn’t be too hard for them to do. If they don’t, then the alarmists will be chanting “97%” every time a skeptic opens their mouth.
And those “3 useable-saleable earth friendly products” would be what? How much per ton would they cost a user of these “3 useable-saleable earth friendly products.”
Please don’t feed the troll.
And the cost of these 3 useable-saleable earth friendly products?
First sentence “simply fact” should be “simple fact”.
The sky is falling crisis is real and happening today.
Yes, the sky is much lower than it used to be , we much act NOW!
Does the American Lung Association appreciate that exhaled human breath is very concentrated in carbon dioxide? Around 50,000 ppmv … and there are around 7.6 billion folks breathing regularly for 24/7/365.
Yes, but if we can reduce that to 50,000 ppm 49,600 ppm all life on Earth will be saved. I think Weepy Bill, of 350.org fame, says it will only take a reduction to 49,650 ppm. The ‘Science’ isn’t exactly settled, you know.
I don’t trust them, though. I think we’re better off praying for The Second Coming before the 7-hour Democrat Climate Debate begins.
My 2¢.
The EPA, like all executive branch agencies, is forbidden to lobby Congress by the Hatch Act.
The Obama EPA got around this inconvenient legal restriction by giving federal grants to the ALA, which the ALA then used (since hard money is a fungible asset) to fund lobbying and a disinformation PR campaign about CO2.
There’s a plan for that. Reduce the number of emitters.
I’ve heard that Gaia can only sustain about 500,00 people so the rest will have to go. I don’t know how they plan to accomplish this.
I propose they offer vacations to Mars for really cheap. Anyone dumb enough to want to vacation on a planet with no breathable atmosphere or infrastructure to sustain life can be safely removed from the gene pool.
Just a helpful tip for all the Gaia worshipers.
But the CO2 on Mars is really low, and therefore healthy!
“…..If Trump Administration advisors thought they could appease their opponents by implementing a rule focused on the useless and ultimately dangerous goal of limiting CO2 emissions, they were sorely mistaken. But as long as they did not contest the scientifically flawed idea that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant that must be controlled, they really had no choice but to replace the even worse Obama era rule with some form of CO2 reduction regulation…”.
I have to confess that I am at a loss to understand why the Trump administration has chosen not to challenge and go on offense against the scientific credibility of the CO2-induced CAGW theory. If there is indeed enough scientific material with which to do so, it certainly appears that they are making life more difficult for themselves by not challenging it. The administration certainly has the public’s lack of interest in the climate scare narrative working in its favor, but that doesn’t necessarily help them with their legal problems.
By allowing the status quo for the CAGW theory to go on, the environmental NGOs have what they need to continue implementing legal problems for the administration. It further discredits Trump and his administration in the eyes of the CAGW believers, and any pandering or submission to them will only provide them with more encouragement. BTW, has that children’s lawsuit against the federal govt been decided yet?
This observation also could apply to the disputable wind and solar energy narrative, which the CPP was probably designed to encourage and support. If you don’t challenge the narrative, it will be used against you.
You don’t win a war if you are always on defense.
Trump has prevailed against enormous odds and while under a deep state investigation, but I think Harris, Lehr and indeed Churchill are right. Go for the throat on the CO2 EF.
They admit that there was no collusion by saying Jr. was too stupid to collude. How about, there was no collusion because it wasn’t even remotely necessary.
It’s amazing they couldn’t find anything to stick him (Sr.) with.
“It’s amazing they couldn’t find anything to stick him (Sr.) with.”
Yes, we may have gotten one of the more honest presidents in history with Trump. If anything illegal had been in Trump’s background, you can bet it would have been found by now.
The Democrats are still thinking they can nail Trump if they can just get his tax returns. But Trump has said on several occasions that he has no problem with them looking at his tax returns. The only reason he denies them the look is because that is the advice from his lawyers since Trump is currently under a tax audit.
I think Trump is telling the truth when he says he isn’t worried about Democrats searching through his tax records. My guess is Trump is basically an honest man and told his accountants to make sure they did everything “by the book”. Trump is too rich to need to cheat on his taxes.
I suppose eventually Trump’s tax returns will be made public and then we’ll all see, won’t we. Trump doesn’t seem to be too worried about it. He laughs when reporters bring the subject up. He’s probably enjoying the thought that the Democrats are going down another deadend road.
Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr
“Carbon dioxide does not “endanger” our health – and it’s time the? EPA recognized that
simply>/strike> simple fact.”Great post….
Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr
“Carbon dioxide does not “endanger” our health – and it’s time (the?) EPA recognized that
simplysimple fact.”Great post….
President Trump may simply not be able to go after the Endangerment Finding. The EF was constructed over the course of years, and was specifically designed to be hard to reverse. From the beginning, the EF was seen not as a end in itself, but as the basis for a whole new landscape of regulatory authority. In the EPA’s view of the world, this was a great and momentous occasion which would hugely expand their regulatory reach and Power to unprecedented levels. Most of the more important regulatory moves are designed to be hard to roll back, and the EF was perhaps the most important in decades.
So What?
The EPA put the EF into place, and it is fair to note that the EPA would be needed to roll back the EF. After all, they have the necessary regulatory machinery and legal authority needed for the task.
The Catch:
The EPA, like all Washington DC bureaucracies is loaded with careerists who are long since past-masters of obstruction. In Washington, administrations come and administrations go, the Bureaucracy lives on forever. All of the agencies are fully adept at using slow-walking, red tape, and procedure to kill any initiative they do not like. More, of all the agencies, EPA is fully infested with hard core Leftists and Environmentalists who will fight non-stop to prevent any threat to the EF. As an added “bonus”, be sure that EPA is also full of people who *hate* the president and will attempt to block *anything* the president attempts on that basis alone.
A work-around solution is probably the best that can be reasonably expected under the current conditions. If that solution is effective and durable, it counts as a win.
Check out these two links for a lot of background on the EF and its Technical Support Document and Lisa Jackson’s “social justice” agenda:
The United (Nations) States Environmental Protection Agency
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/science-papers/originals/the-un-states-epa
“The EPA presents itself as a non-aligned body, working in the public interest and objectively taking on-board scientific reports, in order to protect the American people from the “air pollutant” CO2. It has in fact, a major stake in the IPCC process, as former EPA officials, (non-scientists), have been heavily involved in the IPCC reports, with funding from the EPA. Those former employees are also consultants to EPA and have major input to their regulatory findings, including the endangerment finding. Bizarrely, the EPA website says, “The process used by the IPCC stands as one of the most comprehensive, rigorous, and transparent ever conducted on a complex set of scientific issues.”
“Lisa P Jackson, EPA Administrator – Fulfilling the UN Mission”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/science-papers/originals/lisa-p-jackson-epa-administrator-fulfilling-the-un-mission
“The new Administrator also promised the (2009) crowd, that she would seek to overturn the Bush administration “midnight regulations”. The most critical of these to the environmental lobby was the memorandum by outgoing EPA chief Stephen Johnson, which stated that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant to be regulated and officials assessing applications by utilities to build new coal-fired power plants could not consider their greenhouse gas output when approving power plants.”
Jackson also revealed the administration’s pre-determined policy on CO2, when she said that:
“Our first steps on taking office were to resume the CO2 endangerment finding and to seek fuel efficiency standards to reduce carbon pollution. The Law says Greenhouse Gases are pollution.”
Lisa Jackson boasted at the “40 years of EPA” celebration at Harvard, about the fact that:
“the lead author of Massachusetts vs. EPA, came to work at the agency she once sued – to see through the work she sued it to do.”
“Lisa Heinzerling, who with my colleagues here today including Gina McCarthy, Bob Perciasepe and Bob Sussman helped EPA follow the science and follow the Supreme Court to finalize our endangerment finding on greenhouse gases last year.”
In the UK, there is hardly any opposition to the CAGW hoax but I’m hopeful that the hoaxers will become victims of their own success. Most people think “I’ll be able to go on driving, flying and eating meat – it’s other people who will have to give up these activities”. When they discover that “other people” includes themselves, they are likely to change their minds.
And by then, it will be too late. The people find out that they, themselves are the “other people” after the laws are passed, and they must comply. This carelessness with rights and freedoms is how people lose them. The loss of freedom of speech in England is a cautionary tale for all of us. Next up, banning knives. The obsession with banning knives is bumping up hard against the practical realities of kitchen duty. This will be interesting to see how this plays out (from a discrete distance). Watch for a chef at a prominent London restaurant to be arrested for possession of “assault knives”. Find out later that the formal complaint against the chef was lodged with authorities by the owners of a competing restaurant. As the insanity unfolds, watch the authorities claim “We had to act” because “We had a complaint”. No matter how insane the situation, the rights and freedoms will not be restored. Once gone, they are gone for good.
This is how a bureaucracy continues to grow. Investigating every “complaint” demands more employees who “investigate”.
We will spend our budget and increase it by the current trend for next year.
Translation:
We can’t manage our way out of this without spending more to do the same.
I won’t be here to see it, but my hope is that, when the climate cycle moves toward the cold phase, their CAGW hoax causes them and/or their progeny to miserably freeze and starve to death. May Karma prevail.
No, you won’t, because the next cold cycle, even if we had a new Maunder minimum, is hundreds and hundreds of years off… the human derived CO2 warming has overridden the natural slide into the next ice age and postponed it.
I fail to see why skeptics can’t accept a new additional climate driver, additional CO2, on top of natural cycles…???
“the human derived CO2 warming has overridden the natural slide into the next ice age and postponed it.”
A little evidence of this please, Griff.
I know I’m wasting my time expecting any evidence but it is worth asking so that others new to the subject will see that alarmists make claims they can’t back up with facts. And the evidence for this is the fact that they never reply with any supporting evidence of their claims, and that would be because they don’t have any supporting evidence. Expect that to happen this time, too. Silence from the alarmists. All they can do is tell scary stories.
I don’t hear anything out of the alarmists.
Logic should tell you that if the alarmists had evidence of CAGW they would be jumping on this post with both feet. They would inundate us with facts. If they had any.
Instead, there is that silence. That ought to tell you all you need to know about the basis for human-caused Global Warming.
The basic facts about the relationship of CO2 to the Earth’s atmosphere have not been established. There are plenty of guesses about what is happening, but nothing has been nailed down. All the scary climate chnage stories you see are based on these guesses. It’s speculation built on top of a basic CAGW speculation. Fact-free climate science.
griff
Many people here probably accept – subject to scientific proof, not pal-reviewed consensus – that one extra part per ten-thousand of CO2 in the atmosphere might act as a small driver.
For a lot of folk, that proof has not been shown.
But maybe not as big a driver as the Sun, or ocean currents, or clouds, or the disposition of the continents [and mountain ranges], or albedo changes and there are lots of other suggested drivers.
The science is certainly not settled.
We all know that – even you, I suggest.
Auto
There is no evidence outside a computer model of a “…new additional climate driver, additional CO2…”! None!
Back when the EPA was new and all there was a lot of work to do. Hazardous waste disposal. Volatile organic compounds produced by industry. Particulate pollution from power plants. Smog. And more.
We are better off for all that the EPA did in their first quarter century.
The EPA is the example case of a bureaucracy making law. Nameless unelected government employees — good ’nuff fer gummint work — making law. Issuing a “finding.” A declaration that CO2 is a pollutant. (This abdication of power by the Congress too busy with lobbyists to make law themselves established the deep state. They have more power than Congress because they not only do not run for election they cannot be fired. The current administration’s appointees can be, but not the real power that spans administrations.)
FFS! A law cannot determine whether or not CO2 is a pollutant. An agency finding with the force of law cannot either. A UN agency cannot determine whether or not CO2 is a pollutant. An EPA finding based, in turn, on a UN agency — IPCC — finding is the science equivalent of double hearsay in law.
★★★★★
CO2 is not (and never was) a pollutant.
It’s that simple.
Just a question, an obvious question: If carbon dioxide is SUCH a threat that we have to remove it from the atmosphere completely (and kill off plant life, followed by bug life, followed by other life), then why aren’t these fanatics wearing rebreathing equipment?
That will easily solve their problem, won’t it?
I’m waiting for this political cyst to rupture all over itself. It has a life span, just like all the other manufactured crises have had. If you reduce or cut off their funding, they’re doomed.
People who are at war with CO2, are really at war with themselves, after all we are ARE a Carbon based life form and CO2 is a Carbon based molecule.
Professor John Brignell – In praise of Carbon
https://www.numberwatch.co.uk/Carbon.htm
“Carbon-based, carbon-dioxide-exhaling politicians invent carbon taxes, carbon trading and carbon rationing; quite meaningless paper transactions that only serve to manacle the masses and (naturally) enrich those individuals with an eye to the main chance. People submit to repression and restraints of liberty that would have seemed inconceivable twenty years ago, purely because they come wrapped up in a cloak of religious conviction. They are subjected to absurd rituals without the right to dissent. They are denied access to the knowledge that could unshackle them.”
Global Warming as Religion and not Science
https://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
Interesting how CO2 global warming alarmists call skeptics “climate change deniers”, when it is the alarmists themselves who are climate change deniers. The climate has been changing for all of the earth’s history, yet the alarmists’ declared goal is to stop climate change as if it is a new phenomenon. Alarmists are the true climate change deniers, and should be called that at every opportunity.
To be fair, the alarmists quoted at the top weren’t saying that CO2 was dirty, but that coal plants are. (However, as Willis showed a couple of years ago, few of their mercury emissions fall in the U.S., and 95% of those that do fall here originate from other sources, some of them not manmade.)
Two or three weeks ago, agording to a bevy of comments in an unrelated thread, Trump officially disbanded the climate critique group Happer was to head. there should be a thread about that decision. Its import is bad.
Trump’s advisors likely all think they’re playing it safe by avoiding a political hot potato that will distract him and open him to more attacks. That’s RINO pusilamity.
The ASHRE limit for indoor CO2 is 1000 PPM which we are not anywhere close to. We are still way below the optimum CO2 level for plant growth. During the last ice age CO2 levels were almost too low for plant survival. The CO2 that we have been adding to the atmosphere will hopefully be around long enough to boost CO2 levels during the next ice age to be well above danger levels. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. It is all a mater of science. For those that believe in a radiant greenhouse effect, most of it is caused by H2O and not CO2. H2O is a much stronger absorber of IR radiation than is CO2, molecule per molecule and there is so much more of it in the Earth’s atmosphere than is CO2. Humans are a form of life made from hydrocarbons of which H2O and CO2 are the building blocks. Mankind needs both of them in the Earth’s atmosphere to survive.
I think that Churchill quote is a misquote. It’s not in Wikiquote, which is generally a well researched source.