The Tribune-Review Editorial Board Is Misleading You On Climate. Again.

(Dammit, I'm still on vacation!!)

Take a look:

Adding more fuel to the fire over man-made global warming/climate change, a former Greenpeace official says carbon dioxide emissions might well be aiding Earth's environment.

Patrick Moore, a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre, a Canadian public policy think tank, reports that 18,000 years ago, CO2 dropped to its lowest level — to the point of actually stunting plant growth. If those levels were to continue at the same rate, carbon-based life on Earth eventually would begin to die, he writes.

Fossil fuels have reversed the CO2 decline and likely will foster increased growth rates for plants, including food crops, according to Mr. Moore. Rather than disrupt the environment, human emissions have restored balance, he says.

Let's start with Patrick Moore.

This is not the first time his name has been wetly plopped onto the pages of the Tribune-Review - we noted his existence there in March, 2014.

Scaife's braintrust called him (incorrectly, as it turns out) "Greenpeace co-founder" then.  Sadly, he's been demoted to a mere "former Greenpeace official" now.

Poor Pat, what's a shill for the nucular industry to do?

Anyway, perhaps this is the reason for the demotion, as I posted almost 2 1/2 years ago:

Patrick Moore frequently portrays himself as a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace, and many news outlets have repeated this characterization. Although Mr. Moore played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace. Phil Cotes, Irving Stowe, and Jim Bohlen founded Greenpeace in 1970. Patrick Moore applied for a berth on the Phyllis Cormack in March, 1971 after the organization had already been in existence for a year. A copy of his application letter and Greenpeace's response are available here (PDF).

But that still doesn't quite get to the braintrust's characterization.  Luckily, Greenpeace has another page devoted to Moore.  On that page we read:

Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance. He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.

While it is true that Patrick Moore was a member of Greenpeace in the 1970s, in 1986 he abruptly turned his back on the very issues he once passionately defended.

1986?  That's 30 years ago!  He hasn't been in agreement with Greenpeace for three frickin decades!

How long ago was 1986?  Let's keep things pop-culturally, shall we?  In 1986

• Diane was still waiting tables at Cheers in Boston
• Denise Huxtable had yet to attend Hillman College
• Rachel Green was in High School and still 8 years away from leaving her fiance at the altar

That's now long ago 1986 was.

But let's get back to what the braintrust leaves out about Moore's "science" shall we?

Here's what he actually said:

This study looks at the positive environmental effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a topic which has been well established in the scientific literature but which is far too often ignored in the current discussions about climate change policy. All life is carbon based and the primary source of this carbon is the CO2 in the global atmosphere. As recently as 18,000 years ago, at the height of the most recent major glaciation, CO2 dipped to its lowest level in recorded history at 180 ppm, low enough to stunt plant growth.

This is only 30 ppm above a level that would result in the death of plants due to CO2 starvation. It is calculated that if the decline in CO2 levels were to continue at the same rate as it has over the past 140 million years, life on Earth would begin to die as soon as two million years from now and would slowly perish almost entirely as carbon continued to be lost to the deep ocean sediments. [Emphasis added.]

If you thought that 30 years is a long time, 2 million is waaaay longer!

For that, Moore says burning fossil fuels right now is a good thing.  It'll save life on earth for the next 2 million years.

It'll also keep the profits rolling.

In the mean time, here's a handy chart plotting out CO2 levels over time.  It's from NASA (where they actually have some real life climate scientists:

You might have to take a look at a bigger image to get all the details. It's here.

See that last low point?  That's what Moore's talking about.  See that last high point?  Its just to the right of that last low point. That's where we are now - that's where our current climate change problems lie.  Moore sees the world's fossil fuel burning as "correcting" the downward trajectory of CO2 (what downward trajectory??) but he curiously omits the fact that CO2 levels are the highest they've been in 800,000 years.  When will they be corrected downward?

Do you see how nuts Moore really is?

But wait, there's one more point where Scaife's braintrust is lying to you.  It's here, in their last paragraph:

What's clear — and has been since climate alarmists tried to convince us about global cooling in the 1970s...

That was never the case.

Another reason another season for Tribune-Review science denial.

Whoopee!