Before Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), on Tuesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out a petition challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s claim that carbon dioxide is a lethal “pollutant” that endangers public health because it is a greenhouse gas and a factor in global warming.
The Appeals Court decision was based in part on a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that stated the 1970 Clean Air Act empowered the EPA to regulate CO2. This was clumsy claim, given that the Clean Air Act mentions nothing about CO2. In fact, in 1970 scientists deemed CO2 a fertilizer.
Why is CO2 a fertilizer, and why does Brian say it’s not a greenhouse gas that can alter temperature? Click here to read the rest of the story.
Not sure what’s worse: you being a Niner fan, or knowing that screwballs like you are listening to my #1 ranked radio show.
B-
1) You seem to contradict yourself in your argument: You argue that CO2 is a minute trace gas, so how can it have such a large effect on climate, yet in the last sentence you admit that even though it’s present in small amounts CO2 is vital to life.
2) Yes, CO2 concentrations were very high during the Ordovician. But that was around 450 million years ago, and the solar output was around 4% less. More recently, around 3 million years ago, CO2 levels rose as high as 365-410ppm. The result then? 3-4 deg (Centigrade) warming, globally (much more for the arctic) and about 70 ft higher seal levels.
3) CO2 is not a lagging indicator. Yes, some other factor started warming in the past, increasing CO2 levels. Then the CO2 worked as a feedback mechanism, raising the temperatures even higher, If you look carefully at the graphs, CO2 begins by lagging temp, then temp begins to lag CO2. There are many reasons why temperatures change – solar variability, rock weathering events, volcanism, wobbles in the earth’s axis, variability in earth’s orbit…. Right now, anthropogenic CO2 is the biggest driving force, by far.
4) As to how “little” CO2 we humans emit into the atmosphere, imagine a bathtub that both drips from it’s faucet and leaks a little down the drain. Right now the drip and leak are perfectly balanced – so the level of water doesn’t change. But increase the drip just a bit, and eventually the tub will overflow.
5) Yes, higher concentrations of CO2 make plants grow better – in a controlled environment greenhouse! If you’re going to say increased CO2 is better for life, then you have to take into consideration the increased heat, and the droughts and floods that come with that.
Look around you, Brian. Real meteorologists are beginning to realize that something is very badly wrong when 10 high temperature records fall for every low temp record broken. Those poor people in W Virginia to DC who are sweltering without electricity are a vision of our future if people keep listening to the likes of you.
Ninerfaithful,
You seem to be the one with the “hateful” (& I would add extremely childish) rhetoric. Clearly the kind of comment made by someone who can’t really think or articulate well so they make silly teenage bathroom statements because they can’t really think of intelligent arguments.
While I don’t think Ria is correct, at least he/she made some intelligent, thoughtful statements.
Ninerfaithful has been banned from this site because he has been using a phony e-mail address.
Brian,
Don’t know which way gets information to you best, and I worry that my attempts to pass this along is going to put me fully into the tinfoil hat crowd. This article,
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2012/09/07/dhs-ramps-up-to-subdue-and-kill-americans/
since posted on an aviation discussion to which I belong has been the nearly exclusive topic.