We should be proud of carbon emission rather than ashamed. According to one of the original Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore. Read his excellent presentation on October 2015, Annual GWPF Lecture, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London.
Quote:
Here is the shocking news. If humans had not begun to unlock some of the carbon stored as fossil fuels, all of which had been in the atmosphere as CO2 before sequestration by plants and animals, life on Earth would have soon been starved of this essential nutrient and would begin to die.
Given the present trends of glaciations and interglacial periods this would likely have occurred less than 2 million years from today, a blink in nature's eye, 0.05% of the 3.5 billion-year history of life.
No other species could have accomplished the task of putting some of the carbon back into the atmosphere that was taken out and locked in the Earth's crust by plants and animals over the millennia.
This is why I honor James Lovelock [proponent of Gaia hypothesis] in my lecture this evening. Jim was for many years of the belief that humans are the one-and-only rogue species on Gaia, destined to cause catastrophic global warming. I enjoy the Gaia hypothesis but I am not religious about it and for me this was too much like original sin. It was as if humans were the only evil species on the Earth.
But James Lovelock has seen the light and realized that humans may be part of Gaia's plan, and he has good reason to do so. And I honor him because it takes courage to change your mind after investing so much of your reputation on the opposite opinion.
Rather than seeing humans as the enemies of Gaia, Lovelock now sees that we may be working with Gaia to "stave of another ice age", or major glaciation.
This is much more plausible than the climate doom-and gloom scenario because our release of CO2 back into the atmosphere has definitely reversed the steady downward slide of this essential food for life, and hopefully may reduce the chance that the climate will slide into another period of major glaciation.
We can be certain that higher levels of CO2 will result in increased plant growth and biomass.
We really don't know whether or not higher levels of CO2 will prevent or reduce the eventual slide into another major glaciation. Personally I am not hopeful for this because the long-term history just doesn't support a strong correlation between CO2 and temperature.
It does boggle the mind in the face of our knowledge that the level of CO2 has been steadily falling that human CO2 emissions are not universally acclaimed as a miracle of salvation.
From direct observation we already know that the extreme predictions of CO2's impact on global temperature are highly unlikely given that about one-third of all our CO2 emissions have been discharged during the past 18 years and there has been no statistically significant warming. And even if there were some additional warming that would surely be preferable to the extermination of all or most species on the planet.
You heard it here.
"Human emissions of carbon dioxide have saved life on Earth from inevitable starvation and extinction due to lack of CO2".
Updated link 08/01/2016: Researchers Predict That A “Mini Ice Age” Is Coming Very Soon
2 comments :
Terrific lecture. I, too, was an environmentalist - in 1973, in college. I outgrew it.
True. I too was hugely impressed by his presentation. It is a good balanced mixture of data, knowledge of science, experience and love of Nature. I have rarely seen people who are able to mix intelligence with heart and have guts to speak out.
Stan (Heretic)
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