From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

by Chris Morrison

Eight billion humans living on the Earth breathe out two pounds of carbon dioxide every day, yet Net Zero fanatics have long argued that this gas of all planetary life is a pollutant. Despite all the observable evidence going back at least 600 million years, the activists link increasing levels of the gas to runaway high temperatures and concoct a politically-inspired story that suggests that humans control a chaotic and non-linear climate. Their computer models tell them so, particularly when provided with all the correct data. One vital cornerstone of all this nonsense is an ‘Endangerment Finding’ from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that in 2009 termed CO₂ a ‘pollutant’ of something termed clean air. The pollution scare has been influential around the world and has been used to justify countless regulations and bans in the interest of the Net Zero fantasy. Such is the totemic nature of this finding it is perhaps not surprising that it hasn’t taken long for the Trump Administration to strike at the heart of the Green Blob with the new head of the EPA reported to be urging the White House to rescind the ruling.

Back in 2007, the EPA charged that greenhouse gases “endangered both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations”. It said that emissions from motor vehicles contributed to greenhouse gas “air pollution” that endangered public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act. The science was suspect then, it is even more dodgy now.

As it did with medical matters over Covid, so with Net Zero, the Daily Sceptic has always taken a keen and investigative interest in the underlying science backing any major political course of action. It is obvious that any acceptance that human-caused CO₂ does not control the climate thermostat would lead to the entire Net Zero edifice, cherished particularly by control freaks on the Left, falling like a House of Cards. As with Covid, the need to keep populations onside with the scare means that every effort is taken in the mainstream to shut down debate.

Carbon dioxide is a so-called greenhouse gas that has warming properties in the atmosphere. But it has long been known that these properties diminish with higher atmospheric volumes, an observation that explains why runaway global temperatures have not been recorded in the past when levels were over 10 times higher. Plants have evolved to thrive in CO₂ amounts three times higher than current denuded levels. There is still widespread speculation as to the rate of global temperature increase that will occur if CO₂  doubles in the atmosphere, with estimates ranging from a ‘saturated’ low around 0.5°C to the alarming claims of 10°C or more. Many computer models are deliberately fed with ‘pathways’ that assume very high future temperature rises, all the better to produce clickbait stories of imaginary climate ‘tipping’ points.

Because nobody knows what the correct figure is, although much of the evidence points to lower, even negligible amounts, it is reasonable to state that the hypothesis (opinion) that humans control significant climate change by releasing CO₂ is unproven without a single science paper to validate the claim. It is for this reason that political activists invented the lie that there is an overwhelming consensus on anthropogenic warming and the science is hereby ‘settled’. Not only was it deemed settled, but any further discussion risked comparison with denying the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Every now and then some idiot can be relied on to suggest the deniers should be sent to jail. As a result the activists, aided by mainstream media, have been able to promote the fantastical notion that the world can do without hydrocarbons and rely instead on breezes and sunbeams backed by controls and lifestyles more suited to a pre-industrial, less civilised age.

Such is the essential silliness behind Net Zero that, coupled with a growing realisation that much of the ‘settled’ science is based on models and junk data, it is unsurprising that it is unravelling so fast in the United States and elsewhere. Unlike Trump 1.0, the latest incarnation of the Donald has been long in the planning. The entire woke agenda including Net Zero has been struck hard and with devastating precision. The EPA endangerment finding is the “holy grail” of the climate agenda, noted Marc Morano of Climate Depot. “If you want to permanently cripple the United States climate agenda you have to go at the heart of it”, he wrote. “This is the heart of it.”

There is still some way to go to remove the CO₂ endangerment finding since it is tied into the Clean Air Act. Changes of the law, in addition to executive action, might be needed to protect against the inevitable lawsuits funded by the almost unlimited amounts of money provided by the still powerful Green Blob. However, hearings in a Republican Congress could help clear the air and define the actual ‘danger’ that human-caused CO₂  presents. The suggestion that CO₂ is a risk is ubiquitous in the original EPA finding but considerably more scientific information is now available on the actual ‘risk’ posed by the gas. It is getting more difficult to argue that CO₂ is a clear and present danger when a little extra warmth has saved lives and increased food supplies, while the gas itself has boosted global leaf growth by up to 15% in recent years. Activists will no doubt claim that there is now more extreme weather such as hurricanes, flooding, droughts and wildfires, a line of argument that might be hampered by an almost total lack of evidence to back up their contentions.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

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