The Greening of Planet Earth

by Justin

Like Midas, I recently ventured to my local multiplex to check out Al Gore’s lesson in effective presentation skills: An Inconvenient Truth.

Now, being the skeptical sort of guy that I am, I naturally started looking for movies that show the other side of the story. Fortunately, I found two!

“Is carbon dioxide a harmful air pollutant, or is it an amazingly effective aerial fertilizer?”

Great question! The answers are provided in the following documentaries, available at the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change:

The Greening of Planet Earth

I mean, they’re not called Greenhouse Gasses because they make everything brown, are they? No!

“Evidence is presented to show how current CO2 levels, which are 35 percent higher than in the pre-industrial era, have greatly enhanced the growth of trees and other plants. Results from controlled studies show how a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is expected to occur over the next century, will boost crop yields, increase the water-use efficiency of much of earth’s vegetation, and enhance the productivity of forests. The impact and implications of such change are far-reaching.”

Plus, we get to swim any day in November! But one documentary isn’t enough – don’t miss The Greening Of Planet Earth Continues: Cruise Control!

TGoPE2: Green Harder!

“In The Greening of Planet Earth Continues, expert scientists assert that CO2 is not a pollutant, but a nutrient to life on earth.”

God bless the Indian summer, indeed! Look at, for example, these lush, healthy green trees absolutely bursting with life, thriving in their natural habitat!

Look how green!

But I want more details. Does the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change have some science and/or facts to back up their documentaries? Well, what do you know! They sure do! Check this sucker out, you lightbulb changing hippies:

There Has Been No Net Global Warming for the Past 70 Years

“This latter conclusion may sound incredulous to some; but it follows directly from the likely fact that there has been no net warming from 1979 to 2000, as we indicated in our editorial of 15 June 2000, plus the fact that even the contaminated surface air temperature records depict no warming (they actually show a cooling!) from 1930 to 1979, as can be verified by visiting the World Temperatures section of our website and computing the surface air temperature trend from 1930 to 1979 from both the Global Historical Climatology Network and the Jones et al. data bases.”

Just take a look at the data! I did, and it’s obvious that the temperatures are no higher than they used to be. Check out this graph I created, using the default options from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) dataset linked above:

Obviously there\'s no warming.
Remember: this is the data to back up the article called “There Has Been No Net Global Warming for the Past 70 Years”

As the article says, “It’s essentially a no-brainer.” All you have to do is ignore all the places where the line goes up, and the whole problem goes away! They go on:

“For the past two decades at least, and possibly for the past seven decades, earth’s true surface air temperature has likely experienced no net change.”

Now, I know that data can be fickle, and graphs can be manipulated. I need to see more than one set of graphs to convince me that the global temperature isn’t rising. And fortunately, the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change comes through with more. This time, lets look at the Jones, et al data cited to back up the claim that the global temperature isn’t going up. Again, the default options show the lack of warming clearly:

The numbers are convincing!

How can you argue with that? Put your hand over the right part of that graph, and global warming just disapears! Al Gore can’t fool me, not when I’ve got the great folks at the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change on the case! (Read more about them here!)