PPM

Parts per Million (PPM). This is how the we measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere ... and, so you know dear reader, this measure has roughly grown from 300 PPM to 400 PPM during the course of our increased use of hydrocarbons during the last hundred years or so. But, you know what? The rarity of this metric escapes most viewers. So let’s reshape things. Assume you enter a banquet hall with 10,000 place settings ... 400 PPM would equate to just 4 place settings in this large hall actually containing food (in this case carbon dioxide canapés)! Pretty sparse, eh?

Now, imagine that our flora (trees, grass, bushes, crops, seaweed, etc., etc.) are dinner guests at this sparse banquet. Our flora would be constrained to these four place settings. Yes, the plates would be constantly replenished ... but the diners would be aggressive in their hunger ... in order to grow and be healthy. (Which flora WE need to have to grow and be healthy.) This, pretty much, analogizes our current global ecology.

”CO2 is our friend.”

Carbon Sequestering

Science is built on unbiased observation ... and I have seen a few things during these last shutdown weeks that have me sitting up and taking notice. Relaxing in my easy chair early every morning drinking my coffee, I have watched the Spring advance from my same observation spot for a number of years. I can see, through our big glass doors how the sun-rise position inches across the horizon from South to North.

Today this bright sunlight is not filtered through our big silver maple tree leaves behind our house ... like in prior years ... and so I have noticed something interesting this year —- the leaves are still in bud ... whereas in previous years at this time, they were in full large healthy green leaves when then I didn’t have to shade my eyes in the brightness. Now I do. Why are things different this year?

Because of the coronavirus lockdown, there is virtually no air traffic ... and very little car traffic. So this must mean substantially less carbon dioxide is being emitted. How much less is uncertain., but I would love to have a number. And, if Al Gore is right, this would be resulting in cooler temperatures. Yes, Spring does seem a little late this year ... but is something else also at work?

Are the trees still in bud because things might be slightly cooler? Or is it because they have not as much to eat? Maybe, just maybe, our flora has gotten used to a groaning larder of CO2 food ... and now we have put them back on a starvation diet? And that is why Spring has been delayed ... and I must shade my eyes in the early morning ... since the silver maple, out of spite, is not doing its shading job this year.

I don’t think that we realize how voracious feeders plants and trees are. With the advent of mankind burning hydrocarbons, we have put much more CO2 into our atmosphere,. Yet our flora is gobbling it up almost as fast as we can produce it. Carbon dioxide, at its low point, was about 0.03% of what we breath ... despite all we many animals exhaling this gas ... and our burning wood and coal to cook and stay warm. Now, burning oil and natural gas have put much, much more CO2 out there ... but our flora keeps digesting it almost as fast as we make it. Its concentration has risen to only about 0.04% (up 10 parts per million) ... showing how hungry our plants are. And, of late is now temporarily going back down because of the coronavirus halting travel.

Bottom line: Why are we spending billions on developing carbon sequestering technologies when Mother Nature has already given us one — flora, hungering to be fed CO2. Just plant a whole bunch more fast-growing trees.

Carbon Life Forms

“CO2 is our friend.” — John B.

- Life on earth is carbon-based. This means that all life is comprised of vital molecules that rely on carbon atoms.

- Despite always being a very tiny portion of our Earth’s atmosphere (currently 0.04%), carbon dioxide has been the ONLY source of all this carbon in living things ... for hundreds of million years.

- The way that living things capture carbon dioxide is through plant photosynthesis ... which, on the side, produces oxygen ... which then animals use ... and they (we) also consume the plants (and each other). Animals then, through respiration, put CO2 back into the air to feed the plants. This is called a symbiotic relationship.

- However, over the eons, plants were voracious ... thought to have reduced CO2 levels ten-fold to levels close to where they are today. It was only when man invented fire and burned wood that plants didn’t starve to death. More lately, internal combustion engines and central heating helped feed plants even more carbon oxide.

- Most carbon-based deposits — oil, natural gas, coal, etc. — derive from the demise of previous carbon-containing living things (mostly plants).

- Carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas” and does, among other variables, contribute to the warming of our planet. As plants drove down CO2 levels to near zero, they could have contributed to our periodic ice ages ... the more dangerous temperature extreme ... as plants and animals have survived much, much higher CO2 levels during the Earth’s Carbonaceous Period.

- When one sees smoke coming out of chimneys and industrial smokestacks, it is NOT carbon dioxide (which is invisible.) It is, in fact, water vapor and soot (tiny carbon particles.)  Don’t confuse them. Getting rid of the soot is OK.

- During the Obama administration, our EPA designated carbon dioxide as an air pollutant. And the current environmental activists have declared a war on “carbon” (suggesting soot to most, but implying carbon dioxide to the woke.)  These are both clear indications of a virulent and suicidal mass hysteria.

Woke Warning

Over 100 years ago, an article about our climate being affected by carbon dioxide produced by burning coal (as opposed to wood? We were keeping warm before coal by burning wood which also produces carbon dioxide.)

Unreal Realities

This blog has pointed out that America has been living with unreal realities ... see: Reality Check. Pre-Trump, the United States was embracing many media- and politician-inspired “truths” that the Orangeman is attempting to kick into a cocked hat. They include:

- We can trust Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions and stop its sponsorship of terrorism

- Once China embraced capitalism, its 1.3 billion people would become huge customers for U.S. companies

- The Chinese model of totalitarian capitalism is superior to free-market capitalism

- Abortion, even right before birth, is moral and a woman’s legal right

- The European model of democratic socialism is superior to the U.S.’s free-market capitalism

- Large numbers of unscreened immigrants (even illegals) enhance American diversity and makes us stronger and safer

- Anti-ballistic missile defense and atomic weapons upgrades were a waste of money

- The Second Amendment is causing mass shootings

- The US. needs to continue to be the major financial supporter of NATO and the UN

- America’s middle working class is a basket of deplorables

- The United States needs to continue to insure peace in the the world ... and even nation-build where necessary

- High taxes and more government regulation is necessary and good for a strong America

- The checkered history of the United States makes it a flawed country not to be revered

- Carbon dioxide emissions from burning hydrocarbons are creating climate havoc that will shortly destroy mankind

- Israel and Great Britain are not America's friends

- Russia is our mortal enemy

- North Korea, even with its nuclear weapons and missiles, can be appeased and safely ignored

- Islam is a religion of peace

- America cannot be and will never be again another manufacturing powerhouse


If you agree with pushing back against even half of these reality illusions, you might ignore his sandpaper personality and reconsider your adversity to the Orangeman.

Mars

I read recently that the atmosphere of Mars is 95% carbon dioxide ... see: Atmosphere of Mars. This surprised me since the atmosphere here on Earth is only 0.04% CO2. Now I understand that the Martian atmosphere is much thinner (1%) than it is on our planet, but it is still revealing and prompts the following observations:

- Mars obviously has no fossil fuels since it is questionable if it ever supported any life that left a legacy of hydrocarbons ... nor does it have any internal combustion engines. So where did this CO2 come from? The answer must be that there is a natural out-gassing from volcanoes and vents occurring there and, not having any plant life to convert this carbon dioxide to sugar and oxygen over the eons, this gas has kept building up. This also strongly suggest that this process must have happened, and probably still does occur, here on Earth.

- Being that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and given its huge percentage there, the temperature on Mars must be extraordinarily high. But no, it is cold enough there to freeze this CO2 into dry ice around it’s polar regions ... see picture above. Huh?

- Elon Musk is pointing to Mars as being the refuge that we must inhabit to escape from our Earth that is destroying itself with CO2-produced global warming. Why would we seek to flee to a planet that has many thousands of times more percentage of atmospheric carbon dioxide than we have here at home? Do government subsidies for electric cars and rocket ships have anything to do with this?

Afterward: Thinking more about Earthlings settling Mars — Mars obviously has no ozone layer like we do on Earth that protects us from the sun’s lethal cosmic rays. This would complicate the habitation process there enormously ... possibly too enormously.

Children Crusades

About nine hundred years ago the elders of Europe sent twenty thousand or so of their children off on a silly, futile and fatal crusade to save Jerusalem from the infidels. This week hundreds of thousands of parents around the world encouraged their equally naive children to rail against that daemon, global warming ... caused by carbon dioxide ... otherwise essential to all life. History surely has a way of repeating its more bazaar moments.

Urban Heat Islands

There is a general understanding that the Earth is warming ... as much as 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the recent Industrial Age. Maybe so, but I doubt that this is an accurate number. To me it is impossible to measure the temperature of our planet ... particularly with any precision. Yes, we can see glaciers melting or permafrost disappearing ... but 2 degrees everywhere? I am skeptical.

One reason for my doubts about the precision of this number is due to the “urban heat islands” effect. When temperature readings are taken at the same locations for a long time, we know that there is a high likelihood that there have been environmental changes ... more asphalt pavings, fewer trees, running air conditioners and refrigeration that pump heat out to where it wasn’t before, etc. ... that causes bias in these readings ... thus the term, ”urban heat islands.”

Multiply this by thousands of measuring locals ... means that there is clearly a bias in this famous 2 degree global temperature increase.

Now, as to whether any change is due to our good friend, carbon dioxide ...

Snow White

When I was a child in Western Pennsylvania if it snowed, the next day there would be a layer of black soot covering what had fallen. Three days ago here in Boston we had six inches of global warming fall. And today I noticed with pleasure that it was still crystal white as snow.

Granted we no longer have coal furnaces and coke ovens here in Massachusetts. But it is clear that our air, even in Pittsburgh, is a lot cleaner than it once was. And, if we could pipe natural gas into the Bay State, we might be even cleaner. Even if we are still “polluting” our air with carbon dioxide ... the basis of all life ... things are much better than in Beijing.

Carbon

Soot is not carbon dioxide (it’s invisible) and carbon dioxide is not soot. Those that conflate the two by saying, “we are polluting our atmosphere with carbon” are either crafty charlatans or babbling buffoons ... or a bit of both. — Anon.

Must Be ...

Because pterosaurs were so much larger than today's flying animals, one must conclude that our atmosphere was much denser then. And  how could this be? One explanation is that our atmosphere is getting thinner. But the opposite seems true ... see Science Magazine Article.

Thus, our atmosphere then must have been infused with many more carbon dioxide and other complex (heavier) molecules such as methane and water vapor.

Therefore, if life flourished then, we must have far more latitude for changes to our current atmospheric mix than climate scientists, like Al Gore, give us credit for.

Green Energy

Wishing won't make it so. -- Anon.

After two decades of proselytizing and billions of dollars of investment, solar and wind energy still represent  only 10% of our total needs. California recently mandated that 100% of its electricity must be "green"  by 2045. Without nuclear or hydroelectric power sources, this objective will never be met ... because solar and wind cannot provide base-load power on calm nights. Carbon-dioxide-based electricity will still be an obvious requirement. Sorry Moonbeam ...

Afterthought: The above assumes normal demand growth. IF electric cars and trucks become the norm, then all bets are off.

Tilt

The tilt of the Earth's axis  off of the plane of its travel around the sun is currently 23.5 degrees. Scientists have somehow determined that this has varied throughout history from 221 degrees to 24.5 degrees. The greater the tilt, the greater are the temperature swings between seasons here in the Earth's temperate zones.

Looking outside today at sub-zero wind-chill factors, I can't help but suspect that our Earth's tilt may have recently gotten slightly larger. If we go all the way to 24.5 degrees, I think we may be  in for another Ice Age ... not too happy a thought.

Perhaps we can convene another Paris Climate Meeting to stop our Earth from tilting any further? Or, that lacking, to increase our production of carbon dioxide to counter this frigid trend? Just thinking out loud ...

Today's Question

What is more likely to bring us down ... the DC swamp miasma or carbon dioxide?

Surprising Facts

- George Orwell was a rabid Socialist

- Well over 30 million Facebook accounts are for people who have died

- Mount Everest is not the highest mountain on Earth (Mauna Kea is)

- Donald Trump gets his haircuts from his wife, Melania

- Carbon dioxide represents only 40 parts per million (0.004%) of the Earth's atmosphere

- Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) would be considered a racist using today's standards

- Fresh water represents only 3% of the Earth's supply of water

- Hydroelectric power makes up over 98% of Norway's energy usage

- Angela Merkel is terrified of dogs

- A hummingbird weighs less than a penny

- Emmanuel Macron is married to a woman 25 years his senior

- Solar power produces less than 1% of total U.S. energy usage ... wind power, less than 2%

The Greening of America

Environmentalists have used "greening" as a proxy for the process of improving our environment ... but what is happening ... have you noticed? ... is there seems to be a real increase in the verdant vegetation in our fields and forests. In his famous discourse on global warming, Princeton Professor of Physics Emeritus, Freeman Dyson, said that the world's vegetation has been long living on a "starvation diet of carbon dioxide". This meager diet of CO2 in our atmosphere got as low as 36 parts per million (that's 0.0036%) at its low. Now it is closer to 0.004% and one can almost here our shrubs and trees licking their lips and burping.

Not that this current level is a bacchanalian feast because hundreds of million years ago (the Carboniferous Period) CO2 got as high as 0.04% (400 parts per million). Even nurserymen today pump equivalent or higher levels of CO2 into their greenhouses to enhance the plant growth there. So we see, boys and girls, that our Industrial Age can be viewed as a great benefit to our plants as we are clearly helping them grow and stay healthy. Our plants are gobbling up the carbon dioxide we are producing almost as fast as we can pump it out ... possibly why Al Gore's bugaboo "global warming" has defied the computer models of 97% of our environmental scientists. They seem to have forgotten about ol'  Mother Earth's feedback mechanisms.

Perhaps our environmentalists might wake up soon and start loving CO2, like I do, for all the good that it does in "the greening of America."

Civilization

Over the weekend I wrote a pithy comment on the Diplomad blog site which received some favorable comment. Here it is:

As a reaction to the intermural savagery of the twentieth century, it would seem that the EU and many of its holier-than-thou members have inadvertenly composed a new lesson for us all -- there is such a thing as too much civilization.

Then, this morning, I read the follow-on comment which more than supported my observation:

Thank you, DiploMad, excellent piece.We had a terror attack in Stockholm this weekend. Four dead, among them, an 11 year old girl on her way home from school. She was deaf, probably didn´t hear the approaching truck. There you have a victim and a story that, if MSM brought it up, could change politics , at least in our country. But MSM is quiet here , media is just very neutral, "four victims", that´s it. They collude with the progressive politicians. Compare this with the picture of the drowned boy that contributed to the open border policy that now torment us and cause our many problems. Progressive media and politicians with their insane ideas direct this. They have caused the situation in Europe, they, very protected themselves, preach that terror is now "part and parcel" of life, we have to adjust, society must remain open. We the people have another opinion about the solutions, that´s why , hopefully, another brand of politicians will appear soon. 

The patina of civilization in much of Europe is reactionary and delusional. Is there such a thing as too much civilization? I can give you a few symptoms of this societal malady -- a flight from common sense, "safe spaces" at universities, an unwillingness to utter the term "Muslim terrorist", a fanatical obsession with open borders, naming carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, spending national treasure on anything and everything but self-preservation, an unelected governerning body, a media that runs away from objectivity, a society obsessed with "diversity" and "inclusion" ... you can take it from here.

Perhaps the notion that President Trump is crass and uncivilized is not such a bad thing. And I am suspicious of those forces that are trying to "civilize" him.

Savant Idiot

On CSPAN this morning there was a MIT professor, Jason Pontin, espousing on the 10 breakthrough technical developments occurring today ... see: CSPAN Video. He was quite knowledgeable and interesting until he got around to global warming. He then said that there are 40 parts per million of carbon in our atmosphere (correct, if he means carbon dioxide by volume ... actually just carbon would be less). Then he said something that had me shouting at the TV. He said that he would bet all the money in his pocket that, in his lifetime, all this carbon would be removed from our air! This, of course,would mean that we would not have any plants since this carbon dioxide is what they feed on. No plants means no sustenance for animals ... for plants are the basis of all life ... and thus no MIT professor.

And then no one to either pay or collect his idiotic bet.

Paradoxes

Here are a few paradoxes that defy reconciliation in my little gray cells:

How come productivity growth is so slow today in America when robots are supposedly taking over everywhere? Shouldn't robotics and AI be increasing output per man hour dramatically?

US tariff barriers in the 1920's are blamed for causing the Great Depression. Why have equally onerous tariffs erected by China, the world's second largest economy, not resulted in an equivalent economic meltdown?

Venezuela has a huge oil reserve worth trillions of dollars. If socialism is such a benign and beneficial economic system, how come Venezuela is going bankrupt and its people are starving? Where is all this national wealth disappearing to?

Why is it that Donald Trump is so often right, but seldom loved ... while Barack Obama is so dearly loved, but so rarely right?

How come the Southern Hemisphere is getting colder when it has a higher concentration of carbon dioxide than the Northern Hemisphere? Shouldn't it be getting warmer?

If women on average make less than men for equivalent work, how come that they now control well over 50% of the nation's private wealth?

If politicians are humble "pubic servants," how come most who enter office are of modest means yet leave office rich as Croesus?

You Mifght be a Liberal if ...

- You wore pajamas for your fraternity picture

- You tithe to the ACLU

- You wear a tie-dye tee shirt under your business suit

- Your Tesla bumper stickers say "Dump Trump" and "DIVERSITY"

- You often wear a dashiki to Starbucks

- You confuse carbon dioxide with chimney smoke

- Your wear Birkenstocks to shoot hoops with Obama

- You hate circuses because of their elephants

- You fly a rainbow flag above Old Glory

- You have twice been nominated for a "Profiles in Courage" award

 - You refuse to watch Fox News ... even for the weather

- You have promoted Al Gore and George Soros for sainthood