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Greenpeace Co-Founder Declares Himself a Climate Change Skeptic
New submitter PensacolaSlick writes that [Patrick Moore a], co-founder of Greenpeace, and seven-year director of Greenpeace International, with other very pro-environmental credentials, has come out with a brief rationale for why he is "skeptical that humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future." He argues instead that in a historical context, human activity has saved the planet, declaring that "at 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide."
(Consider the source, which according to the New York Times is "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism.") Moore breaks with what might be expected of a Greenpeace founder as well in that he is currently chair of Allow Golden Rice.
But of course that fact won't get people to click on your article.
... follow the money.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If we were to engage in climate engineering, warming things up and adding a little CO2 is exactly what we'd want to do.
It would increase the range of latitudes for food production and mitigate future ice ages, which are much more catastrophic than any effects from warming.
He laughably accuses scientists of being in the pay of vested interests all the while being a PR front for fossil fuel interests such as the Heartland Institute that published this very piece.
His 'argument' amounts to long debunked talking points.
He shows he hasn't read an IPCC report when he says IPCC will "consider only the human causes of global warming". IPCC outlines scientific consensus on all sources of climate change from solar cycles to milankovitch cycles.
He shows he hasn't looked at paleoclimate reconstructions which show that the Earth has been generally cooling for the last 8000 years and that the current temperatures are likely higher than at least the last couple thousand.
The rest of his argument boils down to simple incredulity, which is not very compelling.
why didn't you suggest this graph instead?
http://data.remss.com/msu/graphics/C12/plots/RSS_TS_channel_C12_Global_Land_And_Sea_v03_3.short.png
which actually suggests a trending downward?
To berate a person for wanting to investigate non-human causes is political, not scientific
Non-human causes have been investigated, and are still being investigated. Claiming that this is not the case, is simply lying or ignorance.
1. Yep, the historic low was about 150 to 200 thousand yeas ago (the lowest was around 300 million years ago...give or take).
2. Yep, its been trending "down" that way for the last 600 million years. Nifty chart from the University of California
3. They do, but it varies from plant to plant. During the late Pleistocene, CO2 concentrations were 25% to 50% lower than at present, declining to values of 180 ppm during glacial periods. Studies have been done on plants growing with less then 50ppm (to find fast growing breeds). I would say under 30ppm would be the breaking point but could be as low as 25ppm...or even 15 on some high altitude/slow growing tree strains like firs and redwoods (some plants can go much lower but only like 5% of the ones we know of).
Which checks would those be? The checks from Goldman Sachs for pushing the AGW reverse robin hood credit default swaps...err I mean ":carbon credits". Or would those be the checks from Al Gore who is in bed with Goldman Sachs and has set himself up to become carbon billionaire if he and GS get their giant scam that won't do shit but make them even richer made into the law?
Dude if you believe EITHER side gives a single fuck about the environment? I have some genuine Arkansas anti global warming crystals I'll be happy to sell ya, only $499.99 so act now! BTW if you actually DO give a shit about the environment? DO NOT BUY THE SCAMS, talk to somebody that actually walks the walk...Ed Begley Jr. unlike Rev Al who lives in a McMansion whose indoor basketball court uses more AC than a family home? He lives in a modest 3 bedroom, Rev Al drives a fleet of SUVs to his one man Lear jet? Begley drives an electric car to a commuter flight.But if you were to look up Begley's thoughts on the subject? You'd find an overdose of COMMON SENSE, make it easier for folks to use electric cars, promote renewables in places like AZ where solar works really well, invest in tech that will let us do more with what we have and recycle easier...its ALL common Goddamned sense!
But of course you can't become a billionaire with sensible logical approaches which is why you are getting pounded with "ZOMFG teh sky is fallin! You HAVE to do this thing (which won't do a damned thing because we filled it with more loopholes for our 1% pals than a Coke has HFCS) because we have to SAVE TEH EARF!"
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Not historic (read on about low levels in the Wisconsin), but probably low in the Holocene. Part of the issue (and the reason for "probably") is that plant stoma give a different answer than ice cores. Both methods of determining Holocene CO_2 levels have their problems, but arguably the ice cores have more. Since it is low in the Holocene, yes, they were slowly descending. The climate was cooling, culminating in the Little Ice Age, which is still recorded as being very likely the coldest stretch in the last 11,000 years post the Younger Dryas. Since the ocean takes up more CO_2 as it cools, it is not implausible that CO_2 was as low as it had been for order of 12,000 years, BUT plant stoma show CO_2 level varying by almost an order of magnitude more than ice cores, and with a somewhat different mean behavior. So it is possible that it actually varies naturally on a century timescale by at least 30 or 40 ppm and it wasn't an actual low. Still, both are plausible and supported by evidence.
Plants get very sad (IIRC) at around 160 ppm, which is the level at which mass extinction of at least some kinds of plants becomes possible. During the last glaciation (the Wisconsin) the low-water CO_2 level was around 180 ppm, which is, in fact, really, really close to the critical point. Since carbon tends to be systematically removed from the environment by a variety of processes (such as shellfish growing their carbonate shells and a colder ocean absorbing more) we (the planetary ecosystem) might or might not have been in serious trouble in the next glacial episode. More than the trouble caused by the fact that there are all of these kilometer thick glaciers where things like New York and Montreal are today and the pretty serious effect of global cooling by 5 to 10 C in a stretch of time as short as a century, if we can believe parts of the fossil record and icepack cores from places like Greenland.
Finally, there is absolutely no doubt that plants are much happier with 400 ppm than they were at 280 or 300 or 320 ppm. Plants grow faster, are healthier, and are more productive at higher CO_2 levels. This is known both from lab work (greenhouses with controlled CO_2) and from observations of crop yields and tree growth rates in the real world. Plants would be happier still with 1000 ppm. Over almost all of the last 600 million years, atmospheric CO_2 has been anywhere from 1000 ppm to 7000 ppm. Levels as low as 300 ppm are extremely rare and yes, probably dangerous to the biosphere.
We will now return to your regularly scheduled rants about "warmists" and "deniers" and hatin' "C-AGW" without questioning the "C".
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
except that is not what is happening.
Can you see the green line ?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...