Althouse: "In praise of CO2."

June 9, 2008

"In praise of CO2."

The pro-global warming view.

12 comments:

rhhardin said...: I've lost track of what crisis we're on.

Nobody is doing any physics, is all I know. Show me the Navier Stokes equations and I'll believe it.

But no, instead there is model-building. Model builders are known in research establishments as on management career tracks.

They say any damn thing they want.; 6/9/08, 10:21 AM
Roger J. said...: I am not a doubter about global warming--Thats an empirical question. One of my criticism about the global warming advocates is they never discuss the potential benefits of global warming. I am glad to see someone is looking at that side of the coin.; 6/9/08, 10:40 AM
Sloanasaurus said...: Maybe if we advocated collective action to produce more CO2 we would get some converts from the left.; 6/9/08, 10:44 AM
MadisonMan said...: Is the greening producing useful plant material? I think that's an interesting question. Or is it all Kudzu and Japanese Knotweed?

I find myself in the curious position of agreeing with some things the author writes. However, his understanding of Earth Science is so incomplete that it's hard to be sympathetic to his viewpoint.; 6/9/08, 10:50 AM
Palladian said...: I prefer cold weather. Where's that next "little ice age"?; 6/9/08, 10:55 AM
blake said...: I think global warming would be great were it actually happening. (Not for me, personally, since this city is already too damn hot.) Huge masses of land are under ice.

In the past, warmer weather has always meant more food. But curiously, colder weather seems to correlate with civilization advances. (The brain seems to prefer colder temperatures, so perhaps there's a connection.)

Either way, I'm pro-CO2, too.; 6/9/08, 11:50 AM
blake said...: Palladian--

Here.; 6/9/08, 11:51 AM
Anthony said...: Interestingly, several years ago archaeologist Brian Fagan wrote an entire book on the Little Ice Age and just how godawful bad it was for most of humanity, at least in and around Europe and the Americas. He argued against virtually all of the doomsday scenarios currently being touted as a result of a warmer climate (less disease, higher crop yields, etc.). He also matter-of-factly shows how little controversy there is empircally that the LIA was global in nature, which the AGW crowd has worked to deny.

Of course, he's had to rethink a lot of that. He's recently written another book that more or less poo-poos all of his earlier stuff. "Well, yes, Europe and the Americas had it fine during a warming climate, but most of the rest of the world had it worse, by golly."

Sad to see the intellectual hoops one must jump through when placing the ideological cart well before the scientific horse.; 6/9/08, 12:30 PM
Icepick said...: Madison Man wrote: Is the greening producing useful plant material? I think that's an interesting question. Or is it all Kudzu and Japanese Knotweed?

Hey, Kudzu is really damned useful to Kudzu, you damned speciest!; 6/9/08, 2:43 PM
Salamandyr said...: It's not exactly like reducing CO2 would only hurt "bad" plants like kudzu. The article didn't mention it, but increased warming leads to more moisture in the atmosphere, which leads to less desertification.; 6/9/08, 4:34 PM
Revenant said...: Is the greening producing useful plant material? I think that's an interesting question. Or is it all Kudzu and Japanese Knotweed?

What do you mean by "useful"? For example, a lot of environmentalists consider agricultural vegetation (crops, orchards, etc) to be less "useful" than unspoiled wilderness, but unspoiled wilderness is far less useful to *humans* than farmland is.

Kudzu, for example, crowds out other species but prevents erosion quite effectively. Whether or not that qualifies as "useful" depends on what you want out of the landscape.; 6/9/08, 7:32 PM
knox said...: Time for some enterprising soul to come up with "carbon onsets"; 6/9/08, 7:45 PM