Climate delusion: Washington Post claims more plant growth is bad



Is it better or worse to have a global climate that benefits plant growth? The obvious answer would be, better. However, now that it is has been shown that global warming benefits plant growth, climate activists and their media allies want us to believe more plant growth is bad.

The Washington Post is the latest to assert that more plant growth is bad, consistent with other ridiculous claims seeking to advance the alarmist Climate Delusion. In a January 25 article, titled, “We can’t recall the planet if we mess up: Climate change is risky business,” the article’s first asserted example of an ongoing climate crisis is, “The [National Climate Assessment] says there is at least a two-thirds chance that your asthma or hay fever will get worse because of climate change.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/01/25/we-cant-recall-planet-if-we-mess-up-climate-change-is-risky-business/)

Each spring, as plants emerge from winter dormancy and spring to life, the alarmist media publishes articles about how global warming makes allergies worse. For all the benefits of plant life, more plant life means more pollen in the air, so people who suffer through allergies tend to experience more symptoms in the spring. This is a Climate Delusion opportunity the media won’t miss.

While pollen and its effects on people with allergies is unfortunate, few rational people would argue that a more difficult climate for plant life is a good thing. A greening of the Earth is a thing to celebrate. So, too, is more bountiful crop yields. Yet the establishment media ignore these benefits and talk only about allergies, making the argument that when the Earth’s climate benefits plant life, that is a bad thing.

And that is yet another example of the twisted logic of the ongoing Climate Delusion.

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Alarmist scientists urge dialing back scares

Two prominent climate scientists who adhere to United Nations climate assessments are scolding the media and alarmist scientists for claiming worst-case scenarios are the most likely climate outcome. In a January 29 commentary (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3) published in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature, Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth and Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate Research explained that worst-case scenarios, typically presented as the default likely future climate, are extremely unlikely.

“Happily — and that’s a word we climatologists rarely get to use — the world imagined in RCP8.5 [the “business as usual” scenario of substantially increasing emissions and negative impacts] is one that, in our view, becomes increasingly implausible with every passing year,” the scientists wrote.

“A sizeable portion of the literature on climate impacts refers to RCP8.5 as business as usual, implying that it is probable in the absence of stringent climate mitigation,” the scientists explained. “The media then often amplifies this message, sometimes without communicating the nuances. This results in further confusion regarding probable emissions outcomes, because many climate researchers are not familiar with the details of these scenarios in the energy-modelling literature.”

The scientists emphasized that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios of weak or modest emissions mitigation – rather than no emissions mitigation or strong mitigation – are most likely. The scientists noted the weak or modest mitigation scenarios project a temperature increase of 2.5-to-3.0 degrees above pre-industrial levels in 2100, versus the worst-case 5.0-degree increase frequently presented by activists and the media.

“We must all — from physical scientists and climate-impact modelers to communicators and policymakers — stop presenting the worst-case scenario as the most likely one,” the scientists wrote. “Overstating the likelihood of extreme climate impacts can make mitigation seem harder than it actually is.”

With a general belief existing that temperatures are currently about 1 degree Celsius warmer than was the case during the depths of the Little Ice Age prior to the Industrial Revolution, the two scientists believe the Earth is on pace for approximately 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius warming during the next 80 years. Temperature measurements from NASA satellites (http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/) show warming of merely at a pace of 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade during the past 40 years, suggesting that unless something changes, we can expect merely 1.0 degrees warming as the most likely scenario during the next 80 years.

Interestingly, Scientific American published an article about the two scientists’ findings and titled it, “The Worst Climate Scenarios May No Longer Be the Most Likely.” As if the worst climate scenario ever was the most likely….

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Eco-extremists attack crucial pesticides, punish the poorest in Kenya

One has to wonder why Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are funded by Left-wing financiers attempt to thwart the poorest in our world from achieving an adequate diet and sufficient income to climb above poverty. Yet, without a convincing positive reason for their actions, they do it around the world. We frequently see villages in Africa, for example, deprived of conventional power from coal and natural gas in favor of expensive and undependable wind and solar power favored by the anti-fossil fuel community.

Now in Kenya a story is shaping up that takes an even more ugly turn. There some ill-informed and deceitful Green groups are asking the Kenyan government to outlaw the use of important chemical pesticides that protect its crops from the ravages of pest infestations. The numbers are difficult to assimilate.

Two of these NGOs — the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya and the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network — tip off their goals in their titles. The third is too vague and obtuse to bother naming. They have collectively asked that 262 useful pesticides be outlawed by the Kenyan Parliament. For the moment the Parliament is not in session, so there may be time to educate them about the lies and innuendos being spread against pesticide use by the environmental extremists.

Many of the targeted pesticides by these activist groups have been tested and approved by foreign governments, and others have not been because they aren’t useful against the native pests in other countries. Of greatest concern to Kenyan agriculture would be the end of the use of effective chemicals that kill the locusts ravaging Kenya on a regular basis.

Every successful killing of a locust swarm, which is how they attack, saves gigantic quantities of food for a nation like Kenya without abundance. At the risk of causing your eyes to glaze over, I will define “gigantic” with the use of some simple arithmetic. Stay with me and you will well understand why I often use the word evil for those who finance such radical environmental fearmongering.

Locusts swarm at densities of 40 to 60 million thick over an acre of crop land. Obviously, it is impossible to spray the entire agricultural acreage of Kenya, but let’s see what we could accomplish if we spray half a square mile of farmland or 320 acres. I will give you the simple cumulative numbers, and if you wish you too can do all the arithmetic to be sure I am not exaggerating.

From birth to full maturity a locus will lay an average of 80 eggs. Each locus eats about 2.5 grams a day for a life span averaging 4 months which is 300 grams per locust. Then their 80 progeny eat about 150 grams while alive during the last two months of the mother’s life, and half of them have laid 60 eggs by the end of that time. Without a calculator you can figure out that every locust will account for 744 kilograms, or about three quarters of a ton, of food per month by a single locust and its offspring over 4 months of its life cycle. In four months the total is 3 tons of food. Now assume an average of 50 million locusts per acre and you will find spraying 320 acres saves, wait for it, 480,000 tons of food! That feeds a lot of folks and earns a lot of money.

The NGOs lobbying the Kenyan government hope to eliminate the opportunities to grow this food by allowing the locusts to run free and unhindered by the pesticides that can eliminate them. They have thrown up a smoke screen of complaints on chemicals not substantiated by research investigations. It is quite easy to scare the public by listing strange sounding chemicals of which the people have no understanding. They do this all over the world, but due to Kenya’s severe problem with locusts the damage that can occur as a result of their despicable actions, this could have a catastrophic impact on that nation’s food supply and economy.

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Students demanded divestment from fossil fuels, a professor offered to turn off the gas heating

Professor Andrew Parker of St John’s College at Oxford University is my new favorite person. The Times of London reports that a group of students wrote to Professor Parker to discuss demands being made by student protesters about fossil fuel divestment. His response wasn’t what they were expecting:

Two students at St John’s College wrote to Andrew Parker, the principal bursar, this week requesting a meeting to discuss the protesters’ demands, which are that the college “declares a climate emergency and immediately divests from fossil fuels”. They say that the college, the richest in Oxford, has £8 million of its £551 million endowment fund invested in BP and Shell.

Professor Parker responded with a provocative offer. “I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice,” he wrote. “But I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect. Please let me know if you support this proposal.”

One of the students wrote back and said he would present the proposal but he didn’t think Parker was being appropriately serious. Professor Parker responded to that note saying, “You are right that I am being provocative but I am provoking some clear thinking, I hope. It is all too easy to request others to do things that carry no personal cost to yourself. The question is whether you and others are prepared to make personal sacrifices to achieve the goals of environmental improvement (which I support as a goal).” The best part of the story is the response from the organizer of the protest:

Fergus Green, the organiser of the wider protest, who is studying for a master’s degree in physics and philosophy at Balliol College, said: “This is an inappropriate and flippant response by the bursar to what we were hoping would be a mature discussion. It’s January and it would be borderline dangerous to switch off the central heating.”

Yes, it would be rash and “borderline dangerous” to do something like that.

Now step back and take notice how closely this small debate at one college is a microcosm of the larger debate taking place around the globe. The teenage face of the anti-fossil fuel movement, Greta Thunberg, recently demanded “real zero” emissions starting right now. Following her advice would be the equivalent of cutting off the gas that heats the campus in the middle of winter. It wouldn’t just be “borderline dangerous” it would almost certainly be catastrophic for millions of people. Despite this, I bet protest organizer Fergus Green thinks she’s part of a “mature discussion.” In any case, a lot of people like him seem to think so.

Professor Parker’s response focuses the mind on the fact that this isn’t a game. There are significant costs to real people associated with eliminating fossil fuels. Natural gas, for instance, isn’t something we can simply cease using overnight or even in ten years. If we’re not careful about how we proceed, a lot of people could get hurt. So a fair response to people demanding an end to the use of fossil fuels is the one the professor put to these protesters: You first.

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Melbourne will RUN OUT of fresh water by 2050 if nothing is done about global warming

Another prime example of how a total lack of thinking on the part of Greenies gets things backwards  Global warming would HELP Melbourne's water supply.

I don't know how much longer I will have the heart to repeat it but we have known at least since the ancient Greeks that warming water gives off water vapour (steam). And two thirds of the "planet" (to use the Greenie term) is covered by water. So global warming would warm that water and increase its tendency to give off water vapour.  And what happens to that water once it is evaporated off?  It comes down again.  We call it "rain".  So a warmer world would be a rainier world.

Why do Warmists keep ignoring something they should have known since Grade school?  It shows that they are not thinking at all.  They just pump out propaganda according to a simple recipe: "Warming bad".  They are not honest debaters


Melbourne will be at risk of running dry by 2050 if no measures are taken to slow global warming and improve water security, a study has found.

The city ranked fifth in a list of global cities that will be most affected by climate change in 30 years' time. The list - which measures sea-level rising, water shortages and weather changes - was compiled by accommodation website Nestpick based on existing climate data.

Perth ranked 56th and Sydney was 66th but no other Australian cities were in the top 100.

Melbourne was ranked so high because its demand for water is predicted to vastly outweigh current supply as its population soars.

In 2018, the Australian Bureau of Statistics predicted that Melbourne will become the largest city in Australia by 2031 - and will have a population of 12.2million by 2066.

Jono La Nauze, CEO of Environment Victoria, said Nestpick's results are roughly accurate - but that drought in Melbourne can be avoided by sensible policies.

'It certainly stacks up with what the climate science is showing will happen, if you don't do anything about it,' he told radio 3AW on Thursday.

'But the key messages is that these are risks we can manage - both in terms of stopping the planet getting any hotter but also by making sure we have secure drinking water supplies whatever happens.'

Melbourne's water is supplied from ten reservoirs which are topped up by rain and a desalination plant that removes salt from seawater.

The Victorian Desalination Plant at Dalyston on the Bass Coast in southern Victoria opened in 2012 after the Millennium Drought and now supplies one third of the city's water.

For the 2019-20 financial year, the Minister for Water ordered 125 billion litres from the Desalination Plant, the largest order that has been made to date.

At the moment, Melbourne is not in danger of drought.

The city's total storage capacity is at 62.6 per cent and its largest reservoir, the Thomson Dam which can hold 1,069 megalitres of water, is 55.8 per cent full.

But experts are generally agreed that the city will need to shore up its water security as its population expands.

There are three main ways to do this: by building more dams, creating more desalination plants, and by recycling water for drinking purposes.

Recycling water for drinking is already done in Namibia, South Africa and the US but the only Australian city that currently follows suit is Perth. Melbourne has two recycling plants but the recycled water is not used for drinking.

State ministers could follow Brisbane's lead after the city in 2010 designed the Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme to recycle almost all of its water.

The scheme has not been needed but if stores drop below 40 per cent it could be recommissioned.

In September federal Water Resources Minister David Littleproud said more dams should be built - but Victorian ministers rejected the idea.

He said the federal government has offered $1.3bn for new infrastructure projects but state governments are too reluctant to build dams due to cost and environmental issues.

'They're just not keeping up with their growing populations,' he told The Australian.

But Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville hit back, saying there was no point building new dams because there is very rarely enough rain to fill them.

'The dams we have already are in the best places to collect a high yield of water - any new dams would be unlikely to capture enough water to be worth it,' she told the newspaper.

'For Minister Littleproud to suggest otherwise demonstrates a complete lack of understanding when it comes to water and climate change, especially in Victoria.'

Ms Neville pointed out that Victoria's Thomson Dam has only filled three times since it was built in 1984, most recently in 1996.

She said a better alternative is to expand the state's desalination plant even though this would increase water bills by at least $10 per household because desalination uses lots of electricity.

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