Good Carbon Dioxide

Maybe it’s my imagination but I seem to discern that trees and other vegetation are particularly lush this year.  Yes, here in Boston, we have had lots of rain, but could it also be that the flora here is feasting on our elevated levels of CO2?  In case you are not up on paleontology, during the Carboniferous Period (280-340 million years ago), CO2 levels were about ten times higher than what they are now. This is when plant life was oversized and rampant and when most of the coal, natural gas and petroleum was squished away underground for our current use.  Of course, this then presaged the gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs which then presaged the carnivorous dinosaurs which ate the plant-eaters.

As opposed to the teachings of the Cult of the Global-Warmers and the Environmental Protection Agency, CO2 is a good gas … not a pollutant.  It is a plant food and absolutely essential for floral life … even though it represents well less than 0.04% of our atmosphere (see: MI Stupid Site).  Are you surprised by such a small number?  If you ask the average person on the street for this percentage, I’m certain you will get a number hundreds of times larger (I know because I’ve done it.)

So why is there such global angst over a very small increase in this beneficial aerosol?  I think that we humans are rightfully concerned about our environment … and yet have very little understanding of how it works.  Therefore, we are easily panicked by self-serving charlatans and equally-ignorant politicians who take advantage of this anxiety. Interestingly the Chinese seems to have taken a much more pragmatic attitude toward this so-called impending global disaster … see: Powerline Blog and note many of the provocative queries therein

So, CO2 feeds all the world’s plants, makes our bread rise, and adds sparkle to our soft drinks and champagne.  It is not poisonous (that is carbon monoxide, CO) and is in much higher concentrations in our globe’s southern hemisphere (where it is getting colder) than in the northern hemisphere (where it might be getting slightly warmer).  This is not only counter-intuitive … but I think proves that there are many other things affecting our world’s climate than the callously castigated CO2.

The Three Rs

New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg has a lot on his mind these days … transfats, too much dietary salt, 16 ounce + soft drinks, open access to homeless shelters (see: Weekly Standard Story), etc.  But what he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about is that 80% of this City’s high-school children are graduated as being functionally illiterate … see: CBS Local Story … and this is just for the ones who graduate.  35% of high-school students there don’t even graduate (see: Gotham Schools Story).  This means that only 13% (20% of 65%) of students who enter high school in NYC (how many even even get this far?) can really read a fast-food menu. How can this be?  New York spends almost $19,000 per student (see: CBC NY Story ) to “educate” their students but with clearly catastrophic results (and they say we need to spend more money on education) … yet Gotham’s mayor seems distracted with all these other "vital" matters.

Supposedly the “rubber rooms” that were once used to warehouse incompetent teachers have been closed down … but this seems another teacher-union fiction (see: Huffington Post Story).  What has clearly happened is that past generations of uneducated students have been promoted to union-dues-paying teachers and the vicious cycle is ever continuing and worsening.  In my opinion, pretty nearly all the teachers in Gotham should be fired as a result of the above damaging statistics (or at least sent back to real schools to be truly educated).  I would also sh..tcan that billionaire Mayor who doesn’t understand where his priorities should be.

So, unfortunately, in New York City, the three Rs apparently stand for “Recess and Rubber Rooms.”