The term “exercise in futility” comes to mind -- among other, more colorful, expressions.
But it sure is apt to see “researchers” at three tax-funded universities release a “study” warn humanity that carbon emissions will cause cognitive decline in mankind.
*Insert snide rejoinders here.*
The research paper, entitled, “Fossil fuel combustion is driving indoor CO2 toward levels harmful to human cognition” (lower-case expression included in the bargain for this brilliant study on human cognition), comes to us by way of University of Colorado Boulder, the Colorado School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania. And, shocker, it sounds the alarm that if carbon emissions aren’t curbed, not only will sea levels rise and polar bears be forced to move into one of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ multiple homes, human beings will lose the ability to think.
Of course, some of us already wonder about this human cognition problem when we look at how the Climate Change Cult is given a pass by pop media despite repeated methodological errors and revelations of data manipulation. But that’s okay. Intelligence is based on what the pop media says is okay nowadays, and woe unto he who is “unintelligent” in the face of pop media and politically-pushed agendas.
The study (yes, I read it, Merry Christmas!) begins with the typical harangues about climate disaster, including an increase in ocean temperatures (which is only shown by NOAA lifting the ocean thermometers to higher depths than previously established, because, yeah, you got it, the thermometers WEREN’T showing the temperature increases they wanted to fit their theories) which could be a cause of dangerous acidic water. Then the authors take us on a carnival funhouse tour of further alarmism based on sketchy theories and questionable data.
For example, they claim that, “Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are reaching levels never experienced by Homo Sapiens.”
Which is absolutely right, if one defines “Homo Sapiens” as shape-shifting creatures from the Planet Xar. But for real humans, this is simply false. As Marc Marano notes in his book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” CO2 levels are actually 10 times lower today than they were thousands of years ago.
But that’s not for you to contemplate. You’re supposed to get scared, alarmed, and consider carbon emissions a “crisis” that must be handled by controlling human freedom and syphoning cash off the productive of the planet who help make life better and less expensive for their neighbors.
So the researchers give us the next installment in their trilogy of fear-mongering speculation:
Recent experiments have linked high indoor carbon dioxide concentration to reduced cognitive function.
Which leads us by the hand to this:
Our models predict that future carbon emissions will increase indoor concentrations to levels harmful to human cognition.
Well this sure would make it easier to sell their Climate Change alarmism, and help many of the unscrupulous politicians backing it to stay in office.
As Mike Wehner offers for The New York Post:
It’s just a theoretical experiment, but the scenario the researchers used assumes that humans are unable to curb their CO2 emissions by the year 2100. We’d hope that wouldn’t be the case, but things were to play out in this way, the amount of CO2 in the air would lead to a 50 percent reduction in cognitive ability.
Strangely, it doesn’t take a study at tax-subsidized universities to figure out that increased CO2 in an enclosed space can cause mental problems. Since the human brain needs oxygen, and both carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in high enough levels can cause the blood to become so oxygen-starved that the people grow delirious, sluggish, and, eventually, the nervous system shuts down, this problem is pretty well known.
But, as with those who confuse the geological and atmospheric reaction cycles of Venus and Earth to claim that if carbon emissions here aren’t curbed, our planet will experience the same “greenhouse effect” as the second planet from the sun, this new attempt to spur climate alarmism misses some huge empirical points.
First, as noted above, carbon emissions are not at their highest level in human experience.
Second, the carbon levels today are so low, relative to much of human history, that an increase would be helpful for plant life. As Dr. Patrick Moore explains for The Heartland Institute:
At 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide. The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today. Greenhouse growers inject carbon-dioxide to increase yields. Farms and forests will produce more if carbon-dioxide keeps rising.
The dynamism of Earth’s life cycle is such that naturally-occurring factors rise according to available inputs. As such, plant life becomes more abundant as carbon levels rise, and these help attenuate downward the amount of atmospheric carbon itself. Likewise, with the very same technological advances that the industrial revolution has allowed – with machinery, in particular – humans have been able to dramatically reduce the amount of arable land needed to grow life-sustaining crops and livestock.
This has improved nutrition the world over and has allowed for forests to return across places such as North America.
Far from fearing the use of internal-combustion-based machines, we should applaud them, and notice that free market forces constantly inspire engine makers and those who buy their products to become more and more efficient, reducing waste, and increasing output.
We don’t need to fear the future towards which human use of the internal combustion engine leads. We need to applaud it as bright and beneficial.
Something to think about as the fearmongers tell horror stories without offering a wider picture.