Excerpt:
The Earth’s atmosphere and surface are warmed by solar radiation; the greenhouse effect -- primarily caused by atmospheric water vapor; and other less-understood phenomena. Carbon dioxide and methane are also greenhouse gases, but their physical properties render their greenhouse effects very weak. Neither warms the Earth significantly, and no greenhouse warming caused by these two substances has ever been unequivocally observed. The warming and cooling of the Earth is correlated most closely with fluctuations in solar activity and is entirely uncorrelated with human hydrocarbon use.The article includes this amusing example of "glass half empty" thinking:
This has not, however, troubled Al Gore, the United Nations, and their enviro retainers, who are regaling the body politic with unverified computer projections that purport to predict the weather centuries in the future. These computer models cannot predict the weather next week, nor can they even “predict” the weather last year. In order to make the models conform at least somewhat to past temperature trends, their handlers have introduced 6 and even 7 adjustable parameters into their calculations. As Enrico Fermi famously remarked when quoting his friend, the great mathematician and computer pioneer John von Neumann, “with 3 parameters I can fit an elephant and with 4, I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
A dire prediction was even published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- I am not making this up -- warning that poison ivy is also growing faster.An actual article on the predicted poison ivy "problem" is here.
Excerpt:
"The fertilization effect of rising CO2 on poison ivy ... and the shift toward a more allergenic form of urushiol have important implications for the future health of both humans and forests," the study concludes.If extra carbon dioxide also stimulates growth of wheat, rice, fruits, melons, vegetables, etc, just how important is its effect on poison ivy?
Posts
1 comment:
*L* Reminds me of The Great Warming, a DVD set narrated by Keanu Reeves and Allison Morisette. In one part, they show a greenhouse where they are studying the effects of elevated CO2 on plants. So what do they show? Some ragweed *outside* the greenhouse, and they start talking about how increased growth in ragweed will make it so much worse for people with allergies.
Post a Comment