In 2009, after 12 years
of climate science
reading as a hobby,
I bought Plimer's
nearly 500 page book,
and later typed
a list of quotes.
The following article
contains most
of those quotes.
As a geologist,
and real scientist,
Plimer admitted to
uncertainty,
and did not make
wild guess long
term predictions
of the future climate
( ... that are
always wrong,
like most climate
"scientists"
do these days
... as if wrong
predictions are
real science ! )
I couldn't find the
book at any Michigan
library, back in 2009,
so I spent $21.95
on my paperback
copy.
Which to this
long retired
cheapskate
( retired since
January 2005,
at age 51 )
meant thirty minutes
reading the book
in a local bookstore
before buying it !
I read it again this year.
The main problem
I found was enthusiasm
about the 80,000 chemical
measurements of CO2
done long ago.
They were local
measurements,
not representative
of a global average,
which has been
measured in Hawaii
since 1958.
Pre-1958
CO2 levels
are very rough
estimates from
Antarctica
ice cores
... while global
temperature estimates
from the same ice cores
are ignored.
They are ignored
because temperature
peaks derived
from ice cores
led CO2 level peaks
by hundreds
of years --
that's right,
the temperature
changes, caused
by unknown
natural causes
in the past
500,000 years,
were FOLLOWED
by CO2 level changes
hundreds of years later.
No one ever tried to
to replicate those local
CO2 measurements,
as Plimer points out,
but I can't see how doing
so would tell us much
of value.
Humans have added
lots of CO2 to the air,
which is not in doubt,
and more CO2 is
expected to cause
some amount
of mild global
warming, based on
lab experiments.
But our current CO2
level is unusually low,
relative to the CO2 history
of our planet, so adding
CO2 to the air, boosting
green plant growth,
is good news.
Adding CO2, however,
is only good news when
done with modern pollution
controls.
Adding CO2 without those
controls, which pollutes
the air in Chinese and
Indian cities, is bad news.
Asian pollution
is a real
environmental
problem,
which tends to be
completely ignored
by the so-called
"environmentalists",
who used to care
about real pollution
in the 1970s.
For those who
demonize CO2,
a gas that's really
the staff of life
on our planet:
Offshoring
your nation's
manufacturing
to Asian nations,
does NOT reduce
global CO2
emissions,
and most likely
increases real
pollution !