Posted on 02/26/2025 7:14:47 PM PST by House Atreides
Today, the Washington Post is reporting the EPA Administrator is considering recommending to the White House that the EPA’s 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding be rescinded. Let’s look at a few of the reasons why this might be a good thing to consider.
The Science
The science of human-caused climate change is much more uncertain that you have been led to believe. The globally-averaged surface temperature of Earth seems to have warmed by 1 deg. C or so in the last century. The magnitude of the warming remains uncertain with a 30% range in different thermometer-based datasets, and considerably weaker warming in global “reanalysis” datasets using all available data types. But whatever the level of warming, it might well be mostly human-caused.
But we don’t really know.
As I keep pointing out, the global energy imbalance caused by increasing human-caused CO2 emissions (yes, I believe we are the cause) is smaller than the accuracy with which we know natural energy flows in the climate system. This means recent warming could be mostly natural and we would never know it.
I’m not claiming that is the case, only that there are uncertainties in climate science that are seldom if ever discussed. The climate models that are the basis for future projections of climate change are adjusted (fudged?) so that increasing CO2 is the only cause of warming. The models themselves do not have all of the necessary physics (mostly due to cloud process uncertainties) to determine whether our climate system was in a state of equilibrium before CO2 was increasing. (And, no, I don’t believe the warming caused the oceans to outgas more CO2 — that effect is very small compared to the size of the human source).
As most readers here are aware, for many years I’ve been saying the science of “climate change” has been corrupted by big government science budgets, ideological worldview biases, and group-think. Even my career has depended upon Congress being convinced the issue is worthy of big budgets.….
… I’ve read the technical support document for the 2009 EF. It is full of gloom and doom. Any benefits to more CO2 are downplayed while costs are trumpeted. Its authorship appears to have been heavily influenced by environmental activists, most of whom have their own agendas. Much of the science in it now sounds more like Al Gore’s original alarmist book Earth In The Balance (which referenced me, but couldn’t get my science contributions right) than a balanced assessment of the science of climate change.
Fifteen years since the 2009 Endangerment Finding, we now know much more. None of the scary scenarios originally predicted have actually come to pass, or at a minimum they were greatly exaggerated. Ten-year deadlines to “do something” about the “climate crisis” have come and gone since this mess started in the 1980s… a few times over. Even the IPCC (which only allows alarmist-leaning scientists to participate) has admitted it is unlikely we will experience significant changes in severe weather by the year 2100 that can be tied to increasing CO2.
It makes sense to now reconsider the Endangerment Finding. Let the free market (including consumer preferences) decide which forms of energy we use.
Read more at the linked site.
Yes!
If you kowtowed to the Watermelon’s rebranding of “Man-Made Global Warming” into the infinitely more ambiguous “Climate Change,” you are PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Follow the grant money. Our money.
Here’s what makes CO2:
1. Ocean-atmosphere exchange
2. Soil respiration and decomposition
3. Plant respiration
4. Volcanic activity
5. Wildfires
6. Permafrost thawing
7. Animal respiration
8. Decomposition in wetlands and peatlands
9. Termite activity
10. Forest dieback
11. Seasonal leaf litter decomposition
12. Grassland and savanna fires
13. Geological carbon release
14. Microbial activity in oceans
15. Decomposition of marine organic matter
16. Natural methane oxidation
17. Peat bog emissions
18. Soil erosion
19. Natural forest decay
20. Wetland methane emissions
21. Oceanic dissolved organic carbon decomposition
22. Natural grassland decomposition
23. Savanna ecosystem respiration
24. Natural river and lake emissions
25. Phytoplankton respiration
26. Natural wetland respiration
27. Decomposition of dead marine algae
28. Natural soil carbon release
29. Forest floor respiration
30. Natural peat decomposition
31. Oceanic phytoplankton decay
32. Natural wetland decomposition
33. Marine sediment decomposition
34. Natural grassland respiration
35. Decomposition of dead seaweed
36. Natural forest soil respiration
37. Wetland plant respiration
38. Natural marine respiration
39. Decomposition of dead coral
40. Natural lake sediment emissions
41. Grassland soil respiration
42. Natural mangrove decomposition
43. Decomposition of fallen trees
44. Natural marsh emissions
45. Decomposition of dead fish
46. Natural bog emissions
47. Decomposition of dead insects
48. Natural fen emissions
49. Decomposition of dead birds
50. Natural swamp emissions
51. Decomposition of dead mammals
52. Natural mire emissions
53. Decomposition of dead reptiles
54. Natural moor emissions
55. Decomposition of dead amphibians
56. Natural pocosin emissions
57. Decomposition of dead microorganisms
58. Natural wet meadow emissions
59. Decomposition of dead fungi
60. Natural salt marsh emissions
61. Decomposition of dead lichens
62. Natural tundra emissions
63. Decomposition of dead jellyfish
64. Natural floating vegetation decay
65. Bacteria respiration in soil
66. Algae bloom decomposition
67. Dry riverbed carbon release
68. Underground fungal decay
69. Freshwater aquatic plant respiration
70. Dissolution of carbonate rocks
71. Thermal vents releasing CO₂
72. Hydrothermal vent emissions
73. Ice sheet microbial respiration
74. Glacial melt exposing organic carbon
75. Decomposition of sunken driftwood
76. Oceanic dead zones decomposition
77. Coastal dune plant decay
78. Seasonal tidal marsh respiration
79. Methane seeps oxidizing to CO₂
80. Carbon release from exposed sediments
81. Coral reef organic decay
82. Decay of floating seaweed mats
83. Carbon cycling in deep-sea trenches
84. Microbial respiration in hot springs
85. Fungal decomposition of fallen logs
86. Seasonal decay of tundra vegetation
87. Organic matter breakdown in river deltas
88. Carbon release from ancient organic deposits
89. Bacteria processing deep-sea organic matter
90. River sediment decomposition
91. Rotting kelp forests
92. Natural landslide-exposed carbon release
93. Thermal degradation of organic matter in deserts
94. Methane bubbling from lake bottoms
95. Coastal plant decomposition after storms
96. Carbon release from volcanic soils
97. Deep cave microbial respiration
98. Organic matter decomposition in underground aquifers
99. Seasonal flooding decomposing organic material
100. Carbon emissions from ancient, exposed fossil beds
People breathing/living
Mammals breathing/living
When CO2 levels are high plants flourish. When they are low plants do not flourish. High CO2 levels in the past allowed plants to flourish and great beasts of many tons roamed the earth long before man. If one looks at extinction levels based on high or low CO2 levels we are near extinction levels now due to low CO2. At about 180 ppm we are talking extinction levels due to poor plant growth.
CO2 levels were in the 4 to 8 thousand ppm depending on the individual researcher, they really do not know with certainty but agree on levels in the thousands. This was in the times of the dinosaurs. Life flourished on Earth.
With an extinction level of about 180 ppm I would be more concerned with our present level of 427 than a level many times higher into the 1000s of ppm.
ps
The problem with science research today is government funding of anything that can be political. The man writing the check gets to call the song played. Thus we have articles published that are not science but political manipulation. They do lie.
sulfur dioxide, volcanoes
Some of those are repeated. You also didn’t mention nitrogen interactions with cosmic rays which are responsible for 12.333% of all of the carbon in the atmosphere. (Approximately)
bookmark
Because the settled science says Carbon is bad and Black Holes are apparently the source of Cosmic Rays we obviously need to ban Black Holes! Raising taxes and regulations ought to do the trick. /s
CO2 is plant food. Feed the plants!
If 70% of the earth’s surface is water and the core is solid and liquid nickel/iron,
why is the ‘warming’ of the earth measured by the low mass atmospheric insulation layer?
Just wondering.
CO2...It’s what plants crave!
“ban black holes”?
I don’t think getting rid of Don Lemon will solve this.
Worth a try though!
You mean, other than the fact that it never was a problem?
The last two summers the unchecked Canadian wildfires have so polluted the air in our hemisphere that there was a very visible haze reducing sunlight for months. Somehow this environmental catastrophe was largely unreported and certainly not portrayed with the climate change hysteria that has been heaped on such things as natural gas water heaters and coal fired pizza ovens. I don’t recall any climate protests outside Trudeau’s office
The recent California wild fires not only wreaked havoc on homes and businesses but dumped tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases gases into the atmosphere. Again I don’t recall any climate protests in front of Governor Newsom’s office.
Seems like hypocrisy to me.
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