According to the US Environmental Protection Agency and many environmental groups and governments around the world carbon dioxide is a pollutant that needs to be regulated because it may endanger public health or welfare.
But
is it? To most people, “pollutant" is something that we would be better
off without. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas that is essential to life on earth.
If the level falls below about 180 ppm plant growth will suffer and, at lower
levels, will cease.
So
what happens if the level increases? At the time of the dinosaurs carbon
dioxide levels were at least five times higher than they are now. Herds of
dinosaurs devoured grasses, trees and other plant life that, under the
influence of the high levels of carbon dioxide, was growing at a hugely greater
rate than it does now.
The
high levels of carbon dioxide didn't cause the world to reach a “tipping
point" and burn to a crisp. Instead, the high levels produced a world of
plenty that could sustain the voracious appetites of huge numbers of enormous
creatures.
So
we can conclude that insufficient carbon dioxide would end life on earth and,
at five times the present concentration, the ecosystem thrived. How can it be a
pollutant?
Confirmation
of the agriculturally beneficial effects of high levels of carbon dioxide comes
from commercial greenhouses that burn large quantities of natural gas to boost
the carbon dioxide levels from the current 400 ppm to 900 ppm. As a result,
productivity is increased by about 40% without any increase in the amount of
water needed. There is also ample evidence that the increase in carbon dioxide
levels has reduced desertification and benefited agriculture worldwide.
The
EPA’s claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant is based on its belief that it
could cause dangerous global warming. We now know that this is not true because
the world has not warmed as predicted over the last 18 years. According to the
climate model predictions that the EPA relied on, the world should be 0.5°
hotter than it is now.
Trillions
of dollars have been squandered over the last 20 years subsidising wind and
solar power, shutting down modern and clean coal-fired stations whose main
emissions were water vapour and carbon dioxide, subsidising electric cars and
promoting massively fraudulent carbon trading. This has made no detectable
difference to the steady increase in carbon dioxide levels.
Their
solution is to squander even more money on the same expensive and futile attempts
to limit the emissions of an entirely beneficial gas that has made a major
contribution to reducing poverty around the world. The campaign against
coal-fired power generation has increased the price of electricity and, in many
countries, limited the access of poor people to an adequate and affordable
supply of electricity.
To
make the whole thing even more crazy, the same people that oppose coal-fired
power generation also oppose nuclear power generation which is carbon dioxide
free and is the safest form of power generation in the world. It is the only
technology that can make a big reduction in carbon dioxide emissions at little
or no additional cost. Are these people in the pay of the renewable energy
industry?
Right
now, the New Zealand government is contemplating ways of extending our idiotic
Emissions Trading Scheme even though it will make no difference to our carbon
dioxide emissions and increase the cost of electricity and transport. It
will increase the cost of electricity from the Huntly coal-fired station and,
because of the way our electricity market works, all the renewable energy
generators will receive windfall profits. So if they respond to market signals
(as they should), they will be rewarded for shutting down hydro power generation
so that Huntly continues to burn coal and keeps the price high. You can't get
crazier than that!
Note:
My wife and I are majority owners of a hydropower station that benefits from
the ETS.
4 comments:
Next thing you'll be telling us Bryan,maybe, that the Sun causes global warming. Hard to believe isn't it . My scientific evidence; a naked eye.
The Carbon Question
A case of “How Green was my Villain”?
There is little doubt that CO2 is more beneficial than what the United Nations paid donkey scientists would have us believe to the contrary. This is followed as a matter of course, by our Political Parties come hell or high water. Their submissive adherence to that organisation is well proven.
But tell us Bryan? How can we to turn the tables on this present, and I suspect continuing Human Climate Indoctrination? It starts in our very schools that “Humans are destroying the (your) Planet”; and consequently “we” must end this horrid nightmare of our reliance on fossil or nuclear power if we are to survive!
The key word here being “survive”, there is nothing like fear as we have seen, to induce panic. Also it is a well known fact as both Lenin and Hitler have proved, that to gain any acceptance of an ideology one must first indoctrinate the child.!
The very fact that those children will emerge from the classrooms (old fashion descriptive word...no apology) fully convinced that the United Nations/Greenpeace eco terrorists are right, and any other counter argument wrong.
Even if as it will, time proves the fallacy of this Green campaign; will it even alter one bit the concept of CLIMATE FEAR!
Great instructional Blog Bryan...Am with you all the way.
Brian
Well said Bryan. Nothing like a bit of good old fashioned logic to make sense of things.
We would all be much better informed on "climate Change" (global warming) and agree with Bryan should we read "Air Con" The Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming By Ian Wishart. Unfortunately the majority of people prefer to learn by Hearing and have their ears tickled with bias rhetoric.
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