CO2 Is Plant Food Not Pollution

When the establishment can't, or refuses, to understand the difference between plant food and pollution ordinary folk have a big problem. Despite the fear that CO2 generates, it is plant food that all of life depends upon. The main issue has been the promotion that certain molecules of CO2 emitted by modern industrial society can wreak havoc upon the Earth's weather and climate. Part of the problem is that there has been no evidence that variations in CO2 cause climate change. The Vostok ice core from Antarctica covers some 400,000 years, and the observation is that there is no causation. If anything, the record shows that warming leads CO2.

---

The other problem has been the huge and needless intrusion upon freedom accompanied by extraction of money via any scheme that comes to the bureaucratic mind.  Beyond the lack of evidence behind the intrusion, the real problem has been to ignore that CO2 is your basic plant food and without plants all life would end. This makes the trace gas a necessity not a pollutant. And geologically speaking at some 400 ppm, the atmospheric concentration is very low. At less than 150 ppm life as we enjoy it will begin to shut down. Much of it did until our warming interglacial started some 16,000 years ago. It seems then that the great misunderstanding between food and pollution has been a promotion by the establishment ambitious to change society from freedom to coercion. On, regrettably, another great experiment in authoritarian government run by "expert" central planners.  Such experiments have been promoted using inspiring banners such as the hammer and sickle or a party name. Over the past forty years, what really has been the difference between Republican and Democrats? During either watch, the bureaucratic and administrative state continued its bullying. So, to cut though the political salesmanship physics provides a definition of authoritarian:  "That which is not compulsory is prohibited", which elegantly describes everything from Communism to schoolboards.  And a definition from the speculative Vancouver Stock Exchange provides an equally elegant description of a promotion: "In the beginning, the promoter has the vision and the public has the money. At the end of the promotion, the public has the vision and the promoter has the money." 

---

---

Promotions from "Global Cooling" to "Global Warming" to now "Global Hysteria"

And in the promotions from "Global Cooling" to "Global Warming" to now "Global Hysteria" the amount of money has been enormous. Trillions of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars going into central planners' life-styles as well their grand conventions. Naturally, "Cooling" could not be blamed upon society and was not be promoted to extort a living.  The next definition is the chemistry of photosynthesis that simply turns a condemned pollutant into life. Clearly the more carbon dioxide going in, the more food and oxygen coming out. And it has been so since the first micro-critters appeared a few billion years ago. Hot rocks give us CO2 and photosynthesis gives us oxygen and life. Photosynthesis research is, itself, interesting.  Van Helmot, in the 1630s was a dedicated observer and grew a willow tree under closed conditions. After five years he found that the tree had gained 164 pounds, but the box of soil had only lost 2 pounds. He argued that the increase was due to water. Then, one could not imagine substance coming from thin air. But those limbs and roots, trunk and bark came from somewhere.  It was in the 1750s when Joseph Black first identified carbon dioxide. Calling it "fixed air", he observed how it could turn into calcium carbonate. Unknown until much later, this has been the process whereby carbon dioxide has been sequestered into literally mountains of CO2-based rock. 

---

---

That carbon dioxide has been condemned as a "pollutant" is based upon raw political ambition. Not physics

This is covered in another piece CO2 Rocks! Further understanding of photosynthesis evolved in the 1890s with definitive work being done into the 1940s.  That carbon dioxide has been condemned as a "pollutant" is based upon raw political ambition. Not physics. Indeed, CO2 is essential for life. As is water and warmth. Some 650 million years ago, ice and snow covered virtually all of our planet. From pole to pole making conditions inhospitable for most forms of life. Indeed, until the recent promotion of climate fear, warming trends have been beneficial to life.  So, how does the blatant promotion of CO2 as a threat to life and our ancient planet end?  Through promotional exhaustion surrendering to common sense and popular rejection.  Again, something from speculative markets. So long as the stock is going up participants will believe the most preposterous of stories. And enthusiastically repeat it to others, but when the price breaks, suddenly it's – "I've been had!".  Plant food is not, repeat not, pollution. Authoritarian commandments pollute politics.

---

---

Declining solar activity has always been associated with long-term cooling trends

Declining solar activity has always been associated with long-term cooling trends. On the nearer term, it's been La Nina's and increasing volcanic activity. These now are suggesting cooling and the last two months have posted the sharpest temperature drop on the satellite chart record.  In the 1990s, solar physicists, Penn and Livingston, concluded that the lengthy increase in solar activity would reverse to a significant decline. Solar Cycle 23 was the weakest in a hundred years and SC 24 is weaker.  Days without sunspots for this year are at 77% and for all of last year at 77%. The lowest count for SC 23 was 73% and 71% for the full years 2008 and 2009. Since March, there have been four big volcanic eruptions that blasted stuff up to the 14 km level. This is high enough to disperse heat-reflecting gases and particles over a large region. In April, the infamous Krakatoa blew-up to 14.3 km, as Shiveluch blasted to 15 km. From Kamchatka to Indonesia to Iceland, volcanic activity has been increasing. Another near-term influence was the very warm El Nino of 2016. The previous one reached its best in 1998. Both show up in the Christie-Spencer chart of temperature. Without those weather-spikes in temp the essentially flat-lining trend may have been a decline. Note the latest plunge.

---

---

Temperature of Global Lower Atmosphere It is timely to compare temps in the Far North now to those with the last El Nino. Summer averages show a consisitently tight band. Winter temps, while variable, were much higher. More Normal Winter: El Nino-- Normal Winter El Nino Mild Winter: El Nino Mild Winter  And the current chart shows that the lingering El Nino seems to be rolling over. How much cooling will the pending La Nina provide? Nino 3 SST Index Nino 3 SST Index Mother Nature continues to confound the experts with increasing snow mass as well as cover. The important feature has been that it reflects more heat to outer space. Thus, reinforcing a cooling trend. Two out of the last three "melt seasons" have had above-normal snow cover. The current charts for North American and Northern Hemisphere snow cover are well above the high side of the typical range. Will it continue through the melt season? Snow Cover Extent-- North America 2019-2020

---