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.)

Obama’s Piss Poor Presidency

A commenter asked on Presidential what I meant by Obama’s “piss poor” presidency. I gave it short shrift and it deserves better ... so here is more — the urine that the “chosen one” managed to spread around during his pampered eight years:

- His initial apology tour ... disparaging his country
- Gutting our military
- Significantly deepening the domestic racial divide
- Doubling our notional debt burden by $10 trillion
- Spending $1 trillion on [non] “shovel-ready jobs”
- Cash for clunkers
- Attempting to destroy our coal and oil industries
- Relying on monetary and not fiscal levers for economic recovery
- Tens of billions lost on Solyndra and other crony  “investments”
- The stupid Paris Climate Accord
- Oblivious to huge trade deficits with China, Mexico and the EU
- Frequently disrespecting Israel
- The Benghazi debacle
- Allowing Hillary’s private email server
- Politicizing our intelligence agencies
- Obamacare which is slowly being fixed by Congress and the courts
- The Iranian nuclear deal giving it $150 billion and  $1.6B in hard cash
- Giving lip service to defeating ISIS ... possibly even arming them
- Reneging US commitment to put missiles in Poland
- Colluding with the Muslim Brotherhood and Black Lives Matter
- Unconstitutional DACA executive order
- Pardoning spy Chelsea Manning
- Swapping deserter Bowe Bergdahl for five senior Taliban bad guys
- “Fast and Furious” gun running to Mexico cartels
- IRS discrimination against Tea Party groups
- Spying on political opponents and the media
- Selling 20% of US uranium to the Russians
- Russian reset including allowing them to annex Crimea
- Not arming the Ukraine with anti-tank missiles against Russia
- Not making NATO countries meet their committed military spending
- The very expensive Afghanistan “surge” producing nothing
- Not confronting North Korea’s for its bad behavior

Enough? And I’m sure I forgot quite a few!

Fever-Ridden?

We’re not warming folks ... we’re actually slightly cooling. When the effects of urban “heat islands” has been removed from NOAA’s measurements, the new data show that, since 2005, the United States-has actually gotten slightly cooler ... see: Commentary Magazine Comments.

If one accepts the fact that CO2 is the bogeyman, then this may be because of our continuing conversion from coal-powered electricity production to natural gas instead ... or maybe even due to some of the wind and solar stuff. But, for whatever reason, do not believe all those banner headlines ... they’re just scare-mongering.

The best data available now says that, at least here in America, we do not “have a fever.”

Batteries

Batteries store energy.  Hydrocarbons (natural gas, oil, coal) also store energy ... much more energy and much more efficiently than batteries. Why can’t we just call hydrocarbons “batteries?” That small semantic tweak would solve all our economic and technological problems in short order ... but not, according to the greenies, our environmental problems. But two out of three ain’t bad.

Headlines

It’s open season on Joe Biden

Trump says US has ‘indefinitely suspended’ planned tariffs against Mexico after reaching a deal

Tariffs already wiped out tax savings for average Americans ...

Trump deal with Mexico likely ends catch-and-release, defund cartels

White House tried to block Kris Kobach from testifying about census

‘We’re at an impass’ with China, says Canadian Finance Minister Morneau

Space Station open for tourists!  $50 million trip

Blue state blues: Trump has improved relations with every U.S. ally

Administration officials pushing to strip convicted terrorists of citizenship

Xi calls Trump his friend and says US won’t disconnect with China

Big tech unfazed by antitrust threat ...

Bloomberg has pledged $50 million to get rid of coal, slow natural gas production

Apolitical Science

It would seem to this observer that there are a number of reasonable and apolitical steps that should be taken by real scientists when investigating the future energy needs of our world:

- For hundreds of million years hydrocarbons (coal, oil, tar and natural gas) were created as a result of plants capturing the energy of the sun and then, through natural forces, storing it underground for our future use. We need to know what might be the sum total of BTUs that were created during this period (a truly huge number) and how much of this energy might be realistically recoverable given probable scientific advances. And what are the possible error boundaries of these estimates?

- How much of this hydrocarbon energy has already been expended since we stopped depending on wood, wind and whale oil ... and how many years, decades or centuries might this energy reservoir sustain the entire world given realistic demographic and per-person usage projections. And what are the possible error boundaries to these estimates?

- Given these estimates and their error boundaries, at what point will the world likely need significant new energy sources and what might these energy sources be? Hydroelectric? Nuclear? Fusion? Tidal? Geothermal? Wind? Solar? or the possible requirement for some new energy technology? What are the possible risks and error boundaries associated with each of these options?

- What are the realistic apolitical economic and social implications of each of these paths to supplying our longer-term energy needs and what are the error boundaries therein?

- What are the chances that this will occur?

Just Rewards

Santa's coal for Congressional stocking stuffing ...

Headlines

All from internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Kelly struggling to make sense of Kushner's Wesr Wing role

Schumer: Trump said, 'We will not do the wall during negotiations'

Obama officials also took pricey non-commercial places ...

Report: China orders Muslim families to hand over Qurans, prayer mats

Wealthy, not middle class, would be big winners under GOP tax plan, study says

Pope launches crusade against fake news

Austria moves to ban burqa ...

Kaboom/ New poll shows NFL favor ability rating sliced in half

Silicon Valley all in on tax reform

Energy Department proposes changes to electricity pricing that would boost coal, nuclear plants

OJ hiding millions offshore?

With stagnant sales, Kellogg's CEO steps down

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

White House aide [Miller] blasts CNN reporter for 'cosmopolitan bias'

Asia group comes out in support of DOJ effort to curb affirmative action

European court tells Germany it can't deport dangerous jihadist

Podesta still losing sleep over Clinton loss

In Trump's White House, the women are the survivors

Trump says US 'losing' Afghan war in tense meeting with generals ...

Zuckerberg hires pollster ...

Report: Al Gore's home burns 34X more electrify than avg. U.S. household

Scottish leader: Trump is 'a complete and utter nincompoop'

Coal will power Germany for decades despite push to kill carbon

Massive lines at Amazon job fair in struggling Illinois ...

 Trump unveils merit-based immigration reform

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

Germany: Muslim migrant with four wives and 23 children receives $390 thousand a year in benefits

Hillary proposes $2 billion to combat bullying

VOX Poll: People are more afraid of clowns than climate change

WaPo: Republicans already treating Clinton presidency as illigitimate

Clinton accepts cash from CAIR

German school forces children to chant 'Allahu Akbar'

Hillary promises to take care of Michelle's garden

Despite green hype, coal still makes 55 times more power than solar

Suspect orders at fast-food drive thru during police chase ...

Bruce Springsteen: blue-collar have made Trump rock star ...

Scientists say weird signals from space are 'probably' aliens

Prof claims Christianity bigger threat than Muslim terror

What if ...

the Donald Trump/Mike Pence ticket wins in November? This upset victory might result in a number of interesting and maybe attractive developments:

- Hellary will divorce Bill and marry Huma

- Bill will devote his life to investigating female sex slave trafficking

- Barbara Streisand might move to Australia as promised

- Obummer will start his Family Foundation with the eventual intention of buying Kenya

- Newt Gingrich will be named Chief of Staff

- Mark Cuban will have lost a close friend

- Mar-a-Largo might become the summer White House

- Construction will start on the Keystone Excel pipeline

- Justice Ginsburg will not resign from the SCOTUS even when on a respirator

- Mexico will refuse to pay for the Wall

- Chris Christie will be named Attorney General

- The Clinton Foundation will have lost its major funding sources and may fold

- Rosie O'Donnell and Lena Dunham will move to Canada

- Melania Trump will attempt to buy back all her nudie photos

- Coal and other energy companies' stock prices will soar

- Paul Ryan and/or Jeb Bush might slit their wrists

- Bernie Sanders will retire to his new beach-front home

Our Once King Coal

According to authorities, the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal resources.  Over one half of all U.S. electricity is produced by coal-fired power plants.  Yet, President Obama has been diligently working to keep his campaign promise to kill the coal industry (see: Washington Times Article) just as he is apparently trying to kill oil production on government-owned lands and off shore (and stop cheap oil from reaching our refineries via the Keystone pipeline.)  So there is at least one campaign promise that our imperial President is keeping.  He says that he is working overtime to create jobs yet is pulling out all stops to kill them. 

Surely all those green-energy companies that The Barry has so richly subsidized (and have gone belly-up) are not going to supply the jobs that his Pollyanna-ish Energy Department has claimed.  Nor are they going to fill the electricity gap that the closing of existing coal-powered plants and the moratorium on building new ones would produce.  The Chinese are building one (dirty) new coal-powered plant a week and, as a result have become by far the largest producer of CO2 emissions in the world (not that there is anything wrong with that.)  See the below 2009 chart to understand the dramatic dynamics of world CO2 production (click on the chart to make it bigger):

Our President is perfectly happy with our exporting coal to China (see: AP Story) so that they can produce more electricity and loaning money to Brazil so that they can off-shore drill for more oil, yet not allow his own country to do the same.  He can cripple us with a debt burden that even our great-grandchildren will be paying back.  He can try to nationalize 1/6 of our economy.  He can take over the student loan industry and more than half our car industry.  He can sub-rosa try to kill our missile-defense system.  He can cozy up to the Islamic radicals of the world (when he isn't killing them) while abandoning our allies (such as Israel).  And he can attack the Supreme Court with bombastic rhetoric.  Is Obama really so anti-us that he would purposely make such bone-headed moves?  The sad conclusion is unfortunately, yes, and four more years of his smiling chicanery will certainly leave us in a hole from which we likely cannot extract ourselves.

L.I.C.

These L.I.C. initials stand for Luddite-in-Chief, an appropriate appellative for our President. This is because Barack Obama had, during his campaign, sworn to put the U.S. coal industry out of business (the major supplier of energy to our electric utilities). He has stopped all new drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. He has also extended the moratorium of drilling for oil off of Florida and all along the East coast of the U.S. … and, of course, in ANWR, Alaska. (Oil is used as our second biggest source of energy for generating electricity.) And there has not been a start to the construction of a single nuclear power plant under his two-year watch … despite his feeble oratory to the contrary. And the building of even ordinary power plants has become dificult under this new administration.

And now this great nation is beginning to suffer the consequences of this Presidential hostility with rolling blackouts (see: U.S. Blackouts). This is not the posture that one would or should expect for the leader of our great and exceptional country. It feels like the United States is on its way to becoming Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein … when electricity was only available for a few hours a day.

In the meantime, you would think that, if Obama can finally witness his Christian devotions, that he could also avow his patriotism and encourage our country better to develop our energy resources and electricity production.