Keith Lowery – May 15, 2024 (12 Hours Ago) – Ricochet.com

I have always been skeptical of the catastrophic claims of climate hysterics. There are several reasons for this. I myself have substantial experience observing, measuring, and analyzing complex systems and I just don’t accept that our ability to measure the entire planetary climate is as comprehensive as the hysterics would have us all believe. Adequately measuring and predicting the behavior of even man-made complex systems is not a comprehensively solvable problem. But we are nevertheless expected to believe that we have solved the problem of reliable sensor data for an entire planet.

I also harbor skepticism toward models or, at least, toward anyone who argues for making societal-scale changes merely based upon models. It is easily possible that our climate models are about as accurate as the Covid models were. So imposing societal hardship simply on the basis of models is a hubristic approach only an ideologue could love. Perhaps one of the upsides of the self-inflicted injury associated with Covid policy will be that the public will become far more skeptical of models in general, and of model purveyors in particular.

Third, models are not “science” in the way that people normally think of science. Models do not reflect experimental results but only computational speculations. No one has done actual experiments to prove any of the models because such experiments simply cannot be done at planetary scale. Models are merely mathematical predictions. Where the climate models are concerned, their actual predictive power has been consistently underwhelming. For thirty years or more, the looming climate catastrophe has always been just over the horizon but never actually right here.

Fourth, the climate hysterics tend to self-disclose their own mendacity by never balancing their shrill predictions of catastrophe with any consideration that there could actually be corresponding upsides to, say, warming or increasing CO2. For example, a reasonable person might ask if warming could expand the amount of arable land on the planet? Or if CO2 could improve plant growth efficiency, which would then be a boon to agriculture and thus contribute to human flourishing? I’m not saying that I know that such upsides exist, only that the climate neurotics rarely, if ever, provide an evenhanded analysis. Their consistently stark, one-sided predictions ought to raise warning flags in the minds of everyone not overly inclined toward abject credulity.

All of this bubbled up because of a recent study which reminds us that, not only is CO2 specifically NOT a poison, it is actually beneficial for many things.

Nutritive Value of Plants Growing in Enhanced CO2 Concentrations (eCO2)

by cO2Coalition.org – 04/22/2024

We are pleased to announce the publication of our latest research report Nutritive Value of Plants Growing in Enhanced CO₂ Concentrations (eCO₂).

Despite many years of claims that increasing concentrations of CO₂ are an “existential threat” to life on Earth, one cannot identify any harm that has been done. In fact, the only clear result of increasing CO₂ has been an overall greening of the Earth and increasing productivity of agricultural and forest crops.

The evidence for greening of the Earth from eCO₂ is now too obvious to deny. In recent years, some researchers have claimed that that nutritional values are negatively affected by elevated CO2 concentrations. Media promoters of climate alarmism have seized on these results to further demonize CO₂.

In this paper we explain why the nutritional value of our more abundant crops can and will remain high as atmospheric CO₂ concentrations increase toward values more representative of those existing throughout most of Earth’s history.

While this is a somewhat technical report, it is a valuable tool for you to put in your quiver to use the next time you see increased CO₂ being linked to declining nutrition.

Read the full report here.
ABSTRACT

Trivial Climate Effects of More CO2
Many people point to the continuous rise of CO2 since the start of the Industrial Revolution as the
cause of the modest warming during that time. But “correlation is not necessarily causation!” Much of
the warming has probably been due to natural processes after the end of the Litle Ice Age. The current
warming in no way differs from the many warmings and coolings that have occurred throughout the
Holocene (Fig. 13). The greenhouse gas CO2 has probably contributed some of the warming of the past
170 years, but it has certainly not been the primary cause. The (rather poor) correlation between CO2
and temperature rise is the dominant justification for today’s misguided climate policy in many
countries. Apparently, in order to “save the planet,” governments will be obliged to control all areas of
people’s lives and force them to minimize their “carbon footprint.” But as we have outlined above,
more CO2 brings great benefits to agriculture and forestry. And as we will briefly review in this section,
the effects of CO2 on climate will be trivial compared to the natural fluctuations that have characterized
Earth’s climate throughout geological history and will continue to do so in the future. However,
proposed policies to combat this nonexistent threat from greenhouse gases are bad news for those
who still believe that every person has an inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.