{"id":350186,"date":"2024-11-05T12:25:43","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T11:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=350186"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:25:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T11:25:46","slug":"alberta-co2-gas-of-life-not-pollutant-media-outrage-ensues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=350186","title":{"rendered":"Alberta: \u201cCO2 Gas of Life, Not Pollutant!\u201d Media Outrage\u00a0Ensues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Actually I discovered this news by way of Desmog whose report was in the spirit of Greta\u2019s reaction to disbelief in CO2 hysteria.  Alberta Conservatives Pass Climate Denial Resolution 12 to Celebrate CO2 Pollution<\/strong><\/a>.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UCP pledges to abandon the province\u2019s net zero targets,
and remove the designation of CO2 as a pollutant.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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UCP members voted in favor of a resolution to \u201crecognize the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta\u2019s prosperity.\u201d Credit: Danielle Paradis [Participants numbered over 6000]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alberta\u2019s United Conservative Party has passed a resolution to rebrand carbon dioxide<\/strong> \u2014 the chief gas whose overabundance in Earth\u2019s atmosphere is causing the climate emergency \u2014 in a brazen display of climate science denial<\/strong> that harkens back to the 1990s fossil fuel industry playbook.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resolution 12,<\/strong> which falls under the \u201cenvironmental stewardship and emissions reduction\u201d area of the policy discussion, will \u201crecognize the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta\u2019s prosperity.\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In approving the resolution, the UCP resolved to abandon the province\u2019s net zero targets, remove the designation of CO2 as a pollutant,<\/strong> and further \u201crecognize that CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe must prioritize policies that protect our economy and our way of life. CO2 is an essential nutrient for mass, driving growth and boosting plant production.<\/strong> According to the CO2 Coalition, higher CO2 levels have led to healthier crops and improved food security worldwide,\u201d<\/strong> said a UCP member speaking in favour of the policy who cited the notorious CO2 Coalition<\/a>. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resolution passed by a wide majority. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I searched in vain for any news report citing reasons favoring such a resolution.  Instead, the journalists repeated the activist mantras, like lemmings impervious to any POV not proscribed by the canon.  Before getting into that content, let\u2019s remember that this political party is faithful to its constituents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015 Canadians were asked for their candid views of global warming\/climate change.  The two principle questions were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. \u201cFrom what you\u2019ve read and heard, is there solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past four decades?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. [If yes, solid evidence] \u201cIs the earth getting warmer mostly because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels or mostly because of natural patterns in the earth\u2019s environment?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The responses were quite diverse, to the pollsters\u2019 surprise, yet Trudeau claimed the results justified his push for a carbon tax and other measures to regulate and reduce CO2 emissions.  Buried in the supporting documents, and ignored by him and the media was this finding:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This process did determine a survey result about the size of the population who believes warming is happening and mostly caused by humans.  Everything else is subject to interpretation, including how much is due to land use, urbanization or fossil fuel emissions.  The solid finding is displayed in the diagram above.  Yes, the map shows I am living in a hotbed of global warming believers around Montreal; well, it is 55%, as high as it gets in Canada. Yet Trudeau went on to impose his anti-hydrocarbon agenda despite most of the nation opposed to the idea. More to the point, that dark blue province in the west is none other than Alberta.  Clearly, their common sense skepticism of climate alarm is not a recent position. [For more on that survey see Uncensored: Canadians View Global Warming<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Offenses Taken by Warmists from Alberta\u2019s Resolve<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Media reports repeated the claim that CO2 is a pollutant because it has caused rising temperatures.<\/strong>  For example, from Desmog:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carbon dioxide is the gas principally responsible for exacerbating the greenhouse effect<\/a>, the consequence of which is global warming. Whereas carbon is a foundational building block of life on Earth, carbon dioxide is an asphyxiating gas whose atmospheric proportions are so high they\u2019re disrupting the normal function of the carbon cycle.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That reference to \u201cgreenhouse effect\u201d ignores the fact that changes in CO2 follow changes in global temperatures on all time scales, from last month\u2019s observations to ice core datasets spanning millennia. Since CO2 is the lagging variable, it cannot logically be the cause of temperature, the leading variable. It is folly to imagine that by reducing human emissions of CO2, we can change global temperatures, which are obviously driven by other factors. [See Mid 2024 More Proof Temp Changes Drive CO2 Changes<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n

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It also exaggerates the importance of the trace gas CO2 upon planetary heat transfers dominated by H2O.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The asphyxiating  label denies scientific knowledge about the properties of CO2 in our environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Advocates also disputed that CO2 is the \u201cgas of life\u201d, claiming that CO2 diminishes rather than enriches plant life. <\/strong> For example, again from Desmog:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the \u201crationale\u201d section of the resolution, the United Conservative Party document argues that \u201cCO2 is a nutrient foundational to all life on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While plants need both light and carbon dioxide to thrive, the over-supply of CO2 in recent decades is leading to plants being deprived of their nutrients. One biologist was quoted in a 2017 Politico<\/em> article describing this as akin to \u201cthe greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history,\u201d and that injection is diluting the nutrients in the food supply<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Firstly, there is no doubt more CO2 is good for plants.\u00a0 That\u2019s why operators of greenhouses for growing them add CO2 up to three or four times our present 420 ppm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Experiments have confirmed the botanical principle of limiting factors. At present concentrations, rising CO2 always increases plant productivity unless another factor is sub-optimal and constrains growth. The researchers, aided and abetted by the media are spinning this to say more CO2 is not good for plants. In reality, the lack of phosphorus or other nutrients is not the fault of CO2, and will not be enhanced by somehow reducing CO2. [See CO2 Destroys Food Nutrition! Not.<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. And media reports added the fear of extreme weather events, attributing them to CO2 emissions.  Again from Desmog:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the principal driver of the climate crisis and global warming, increasing CO2 levels will exacerbate droughts, wildfires, and floods, among other disasters, in turn resulting in loss of life and major disruptions to global supply chains. The consequent economic disturbances and their aftereffects will worsen the affordability crisis and result in increasingly negative economic outcomes for all, not just Albertans. Rather than stimulate Alberta\u2019s agricultural sector, climate change will destroy it, and the evidence this is already happening is quite clear.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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This is again the doomsday litany that rising CO2 will destroy life as we know it.\u00a0 None of the data support that narrative.\u00a0 Just one of many examples of facts vs. fears is the above showing how droughts and flooding have always happened.\u00a0 These events are within the past range of variability and have not increased with rising CO2.\u00a0 Rather than show more such graphs, this video is a brief realistic summary of our climate circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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