Environment
Scientific Report Pours Cold Water On Major Talking Point Of Climate Activists
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The purveyors of climate doom will not tolerate the good news of our planet thriving because of modest warming and increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, a recent scientific paper concludes that an optimistic vision for Earth and its inhabitants is nonetheless justified.
Widely accepted data show an overall greening of Earth resulting from a cycle of natural warming that began more than 300 years ago and from industrialization’s additions of CO2 that started in the 19th century and accelerated with vigorous economic activity following World War II.
Also attributed to these and other factors is record crop production, which now sustains 8 billion people—ten times the population prior to the Industrial Revolution. The boost in atmospheric CO2 since 1940 alone is linked to yield increases for corn, soybeans and wheat of 10%, 30% and 40%, respectively.
The positive contribution of carbon dioxide to the human condition should be cause for celebration, but this is more than demonizers of the gas can abide. Right on cue, narrators of a planet supposedly overheating from carbon dioxide began sensationalizing research findings that increased plant volume results in lower concentrations of nutrients in food.
“The potential health consequences are large, given that there are already billions of people around the world who don’t get enough protein, vitamins or other nutrients in their daily diet,” concluded the The New York Times, a reliable promoter of apocalypse forever. Among others chiming in have been The Lancet, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the National Institutes of Health.
Of course, such yellow journalism lacks context and countervailing facts —elements provided in “Nutritive Value of Plants Growing in Enhanced CO2 Concentrations” published by the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia.
Any deficiency of nutrients from the enhancement of plant growth by elevated carbon dioxide “are small, compared to the nutrient shortages that agriculture and livestock routinely face because of natural phenomena, such as severe soil fertility differences, nutrient dilution in plants due to rainfall or irrigation and even aging of crops,” says the paper.
And while there is evidence of marginal decreases in some nutrients, data also show that higher levels of CO2 “may enhance certain groups of health-promoting phytochemicals in food crops” that serve as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, says the paper, which lists seven authors and more than 100 references. The lead author is Albrecht Glatzle, a member of the Rural Association of Paraguay and a former international researcher of plant and animal nutrition.
Among other points made by the paper are the following: Throughout a majority of geological history, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been several times higher than today’s, which are less than optimum for most plants; atmospheric warming from even a quadrupling of CO2 concentrations would be small compared to natural temperature fluctuations since the last glacial advance more than 10,000 years ago.
Having virtually no scientific basis, the “green” movement’s hostility to carbon dioxide seemingly ignores the gas’s critical role as a plant food. As the paper notes, “CO2 is the only source of the chemical element carbon for all life on Earth, be it for plants, animals or fungi and bacteria — through photosynthesis and food chains.”
The so-called greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide— perversely exaggerated to support climate fearmongering— is a life-saving temperature moderator that keeps Earth from freezing over.
The obvious benefits of CO2 is “an embarrassment to the large and profitable movement to ‘save the planet’ from ‘carbon pollution,’” write the authors. “If CO2 greatly benefits agriculture and forestry and has a small, benign effect on climate, it is not a pollutant at all.
More CO2 is good news. It’s not that complicated.
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist; executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va.; author of “Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know” and “A Very Convenient Warming: How modest warming and more CO2 are benefiting humanity” and a co-author of “Nutritive Value of Plants Growing in Enhanced CO2 Concentrations.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
From Clintel.org
By Vijay Jayaraj
Underestimating Clouds: A Climate Mistake We Cannot Afford
A new paper by physicists W. A. van Wijngaarden and William Happer, Radiation Transport in Clouds, suggests that clouds affect atmospheric temperature more than CO2, says Vijay Jayaray of the CO2 Coalition.
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) has been predominantly portrayed as the chief culprit driving global warming. For decades, this misconception has guided international policies, prompted ambitious targets for reducing CO2 emissions and driven a shift from reliable and affordable energy resources like coal, oil, and natural gas toward problematic wind and solar sources.
However, this theory overlooks important factors that influence Earth’s climate system, including a critical variable in the climate system – the role of clouds, which remains woefully underestimated.
Recent work by physicists W. A. van Wijngaarden and William Happer challenges this prevailing paradigm: Their new paper, Radiation Transport in Clouds, suggest clouds affect atmospheric temperature more than CO2 because they have a greater impact on the comparative amounts of solar energy entering Earth’s atmosphere and escaping to outer space.
The Overshadowed Influence of Clouds
Clouds simultaneously reflect incoming sunlight back to space (cooling the Earth) and trap outgoing heat (warming the Earth). This dual nature makes clouds both powerful and perplexing players in our climate system. The net effect of clouds on climate is a balance between these opposing influences, thus a central component of the Earth’s energy budget.
A recent study by van Wijngaarden and Happer, titled “Radiation Transport in Clouds,” delves into this complexity. The 2025 paper says the radiation effects of clouds can easily negate or amplify the impact of CO2. The researchers highlight that clouds have a more pronounced effect on Earth’s radiation budget than greenhouse gases like CO₂.
For instance, their research reveals that a modest decrease in low cloud cover could significantly increase solar heating of the Earth’s surface. In comparison, a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations reduces radiation to space by a mere 1%: “Instantaneously doubling CO₂ concentrations, a 100% increase, only decreases radiation to space by about 1%. To increase solar heating of the Earth by a few percent, low cloud cover only needs to decrease by a few percent.”
This stark contrast highlights the disproportionate influence of cloud dynamics compared to CO2 fluctuations. Most state-of-art climate models are still in their infancy. We need more accurate measurements of clouds’ properties and their influence on the electromagnetic components of solar radiation if they are to be useful inputs for climate models.
Implications for Energy Policy and Reliability
Current strategies assume a direct and dominant link between CO2 emissions and global temperatures to justify aggressive “decarbonization” efforts and an increase in the use of solar and wind energy.
However, solar and wind are inherently intermittent, rendering them unreliable and very expensive as components of a power grid. The infrastructure required to support these technologies entails substantial upfront investments, higher operating costs and increasing utility bills for consumers.
Blackouts, energy shortages and price spikes are becoming increasingly common in regions that have prematurely decommissioned fossil fuel plants without adequate backup solutions. This trend disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, exacerbating energy poverty and hindering economic development.
The major justification for using solar and wind has been that they counter global warming by reducing CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. If small variations in cloud cover actually overwhelm the effects of CO2, then the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases is being significantly overestimated. This has profound implications for policy.
Attributing global warming predominantly to CO₂ emissions from the use of fossil fuels is a gross oversimplification. While CO2 undoubtedly has a warming effect, it is relatively modest and beneficial, mainly moderating the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. On the other hand, clouds, with their multifaceted interactions and feedbacks, represent a critical and underappreciated component of this puzzle.
The findings of van Wijngaarden and Happer highlight a broader issue within climate science: the tendency to oversimplify complex systems for the sake of political expediency. As the global energy landscape continues to evolve, it is imperative that decisions be based on sound science rather than political dogma.
The time has come to reassess our approach to both climate science and energy policy. The stakes are too high to continue down a path of destructive policies based on erroneous analyses. We must prioritize reliable, affordable energy sources and grid stability over useless reductions in emissions of a harmless gas.
Click here to access the entire Radiation Transport in Clouds paper.
This commentary was first published at BizPac Review on February 10, 2025
From LifeSiteNews
Outgoing President Joe Biden announced a new climate target of reducing American carbon emissions from 61-66% over the next decade, even though President Trump would be able to undo it as soon as next month.
Outgoing President Joe Biden announced December 19 a new climate target of reducing American carbon emissions of more than 60% over the next decade, even though returning President Donald Trump would be able to undo it as soon as next month.
“Today, as the United States continues to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy, President Biden is announcing a new climate target for the United States: a 61-66 percent reduction in 2035 from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions,” the White House announced, the Washington Free Beacon reports. The new target will be formally submitted to the United Nations Climate Change secretariat.
“President Biden’s new 2035 climate goal is both a reflection of what we’ve already accomplished,” Biden climate adviser John Podesta added, “and what we believe the United States can and should achieve in the future.”
The announcement may be little more than a symbolic gesture in the end, however, as Trump is widely expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement upon resuming office in January, in the process voiding related climate obligations.
Trump formally pulled out of the Paris accords in August 2017, the first year of his first term, with then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stating that the administration would be “open to re-engaging in the Paris Agreement if the United States can identify terms that are more favorable to it, its business, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers.”
Such terms were never reached, however, leaving America out until Biden re-committed the nation to the Paris Agreement on the first day of his presidency, obligating U.S. policy to new economic regulations to cut carbon emissions.
In June, the Trump campaign confirmed Trump’s intentions to withdraw from Paris again. At the time, Trump’s team was reportedly mulling a number of non-finalized drafts of executive orders to do so.
Left-wing consternation on the matter is based on certitude in “anthropogenic global warming” (AGW) or “climate change,” the thesis that human activity, rather than natural phenomena, is primarily responsible for Earth’s changing climate and that such trends pose a danger to the planet in the form of rising sea levels and weather instability.
Activists have long claimed there is a “97 percent scientific consensus” in favor of AGW, but that number comes from a distortion of an overview of 11,944 papers from peer-reviewed journals, 66.4 percent of which expressed no opinion on the question; in fact, many of the authors identified with the AGW “consensus” later spoke out to say their positions had been misrepresented.
AGW proponents suffered a blow in 2010 with the discovery that their leading researchers at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, East Anglia Climate Research Unit, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had engaged in widespread data manipulation, flawed climate models, misrepresentation of sources, and suppression of dissenting findings in order to make the so-called “settled science” say what climate activists wanted it to.
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