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.

Mass Hysteria?

Does the Diplomad have things right about the mass hysteria we are immersed in? See: China Virus. Obviously, we, who are the most vulnerable, think not. But are our lives worth a negative GDP?

Obvious Truth

To date, the societal damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is far far greater from mass hysteria and the resulting economic dislocations than from the actual medical crisis.

Mass Hysteria

A good clue that things are spinning out of control is that Donald Trump now seems the normal one. -- Anon.

Who's Nuts?

Ward Cleaver and the Beaver

To me there was, and to a lesser extent, still is a mass hysteria surrounding global warming. When I say "mass" I am referring to a large enough portion of the world's population that, once bought into this concept, refuse to let logic or physical evidence sway them from this meme. All they need to see is smoke coming from a factory stack to reinforce the notion that carbon (soot) is carbon dioxide and it is killing us all. (Obama's EPA labeled carbon dioxide, the basis of all life on Earth, a "pollutant.")  Their ears and minds are shut to any dissonance. But fortunately this "mass" is atrophying with every sub-zero day and every polar bear who survives our "planer's fever."

I see a similar mass psychosis surrounding the notion that President Trump is crazy. This meme is driven by much of the media and appeals to a large swath of those who didn't vote for Trump. They dislike this man so much that they want some way to take him down -- Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, the 25th Amendment, anything to cause this man to be gone out of their lives. The poster child of this mass psychosis is Maxine Waters who has been calling for Trump's impeachment since even before his inauguration. And this chorus of irrationality ebbs then grows again with any act by this president that cuts across their political grain.

And Trump reinforces this psychosis diagnosis with his unorthodox behavior ... his early morning tweets, his eccentric tastes (well-done steak with ketchup, ugh!), his taunts of those with whom he disagrees, his tendency toward OCD behavior. But is this nuts? I'm not a psychiatrist (most of whom I have found to be unbalanced anyway), but I don't see Trump to be much further out than one sigma from the Ward Cleaver (the Beaver's dad) notion of "normalcy."

So, boys and girls, is Trump nuts? I would rather point to that parade headed by Maxine Waters ... full of many media types and rabid Democrats as being unstable in their Captain-Queeg-like attempt to take down our president. There is but one small problem .... it's going to take a very large couch and lots of therapeutic introspection for this mass of unbalanced Trump haters to find their sea legs.

Perhaps in Trump's second term?

Come on Carbon!

Instead of the Earth having a fever … as Al Gore has so dramatically proclaimed … we may be entering another mini ice age … see: Daily Mail Article (a very interesting read). Yes, that very country, England, which started the mass hysteria about our increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) causing the Earth to come to a boil, now is warning that the sun has entered a solar lull … which then might cause excessively low temperatures around the globe.

If this were to occur, would the charlatans who have extracted billions of dollars from our world’s chicken little’s then be forced to give back all this pelf?  Perhaps we can undo things and start offering “carbon debits” to the world’s polluters in order to keep us from freezing?  Or perhaps now many climatologists will blame this solar lull on increasing CO2 levels here on Earth?

To me, this revelation says nothing but that the original models of our Earth’s changing climate were seriously flawed in that they were single-variant and not multi-variant.  They focused on the only variable, CO2, which was (partially) man-made and therefore (partially) man-controlled.  In doing so they conveniently ignored many other variables (such as solar cycles) of which man is at their mercy … and therefore, to these silly "climatologists," could be of no consequence … see one of my previously blogs (from 2006!) making this very point …  Junkier Science Blog.

Perhaps now we can get down to the serious scientific business of trying to build multi-variant models that try to predict our Earth’s climate future?  This will be an extremely difficult scientific task and will take possibly generations of true unbiased effort to achieve even somewhat accurate results.

In the meantime … come on carbon!