What If They Are Wrong?

Here is a thought: what if our atmosphere needs more CO2 as opposed to less? Harrison Schmitt, former astronaut and current professor at University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Professor William Happier of Princeton wrote recently, “Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.” This is the complete opposite of what we are being told, but it does make sense for three reasons. The first reason is as Schmitt and Happier point out: this is what commercial greenhouses do when they have carbon dioxide levels nearly three times what we are seeing on the planet, increase plant growth.

The second reason is historical as our planet has seen far greater levels of CO2 in our atmosphere with no negative effects on life. The scientists concluded, “We know that carbon dioxide has been a much larger fraction of the earth’s atmosphere than it is today, and the geological record shows that life flourished on land and in the oceans during those times.” The biggest advantage of those who view our climate as mostly natural as opposed to strictly manmade is the historical records support their contentions and not the more extreme on the issue, like James Hanson. The consensus of climate change over the past two thousands year is that our climate has both been warmer and cooler. Despite attempts by some on the man-made climate change advocates side challenging this, this consensus has been strengthened and no rewriting of climate history can change that. The attempt of those believing man is the root of all climate change to change climate history has proven to be similar to Holocaust deniers attempting to rewrite the history of Nazi Germany by leaving out the murder of six million Jews or discussing Josef Stalin and leaving out the purges. Schmitt and Happier again have shown that geological history has demonstrated that our carbon dioxide levels have been 10 fold higher with no negative effect on life! When you combine the fact that we have seen no real warming over the last fifteen years despite rising CO2 levels, it simply demonstrates that there is much we have yet to learn about climate change. It also puts to rest the idea we have scientific consensus on what is causing climate change and it does point out the weakness of what passes for science on climate change. Much of the basic science promoted by those supporting man as the root of evil in climate change production is wrong based on historical records.

Considering that many climatologists have gone from one extreme of a coming ice age to one where we are going to fry to death over the past four decades or how many of the computer models and measuring methodology have shown serious flaws in predicting short term climate change, one would simply conclude we don’t know everything just yet. To base policy on flimsy science is political malpractice! Recently, a group of Russian scientists predicted a new ice age, returning to the similar prediction of four decades ago!

Here are the facts. Climate is changing because of natural events, and we know natural events have caused similar changes over millions of years from ice ages, where much of the Midwest and Northeast United States were under a mile of ice to much warmer temperatures. If anything, we may be witnessing an interlude of mild temperature change over the past 10,000 years where humans have taken advantage of the lack of extreme changes. This is not say that humans don’t have an effect on climate change or that humanity’s impact is either good or bad but there is no doubt that natural events are responsible for much of climate change since natural events have caused similar changes in the past. There is that much we don’t know about how nature affects climate change but we do have theories.

Schmitt and Happier point is that carbon dioxide level rising is good because basic science shows it to be so. They concluded, “Driven by the need to conserve water, plants produce fewer stomata openings in their leaves when there is more carbon dioxide in the air. This decreases the amount of water that the plant is forced to transpire and allows the plant to withstand dry conditions better. Crop yields in recent dry years were less affected by drought than crops of the dust bowl droughts of the 1930s, when there was less carbon dioxide.” Maybe what we are being told about climate change is wrong, or even worse, a lie!