I have been actively engaged on social media for the last year, challenging climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. My opponents begin with a particular argument on climate science to which I respond with a different view. (For example, here at MasterResource, I promote the benefits of CO2 fertilization from the peer-review literature summarized by Craig Idso.)
As we go back and forth, inevitably the ‘argument from authority’ is resorted to. For example:
But the IPCC reports are compiled from the work of hundreds of independent scientist’s peer reviewed works. The views your organisation are expressing are not. In effect you/your organisation is the one playing politics and spreading misinformation that doesn’t stand up to peer review.
Then, when I rebut the shortcomings of the peer review process and how our side has opted out (‘Atlas Shrugged’), my critics then go ad hominem.…
Continue ReadingThe Individual and Combined Impacts of a Real Pollutant versus an Imagined One: How Elevated Ozone and Elevated CO2 Affect Chickpea Growth and Yield
Tropospheric ozone (O3) is a gaseous air pollutant that results from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels. It negatively affects plant growth, gaining entry through stomatal openings where it dismutates and generates reactive oxygen species that damage cell components and disturb metabolic processes.
In the United States alone, crop losses due to ozone pollution presently are estimated at $1-3 billion annually. But for much of the developing world, which lacks the pollution-control technologies employed by developed countries, the percent of ozone-related crop damage is much greater due to higher regional ambient or background levels of ozone pollution. And to make matters worse, ozone-related crop damage is expected to increase worldwide in the future, with ozone concentrations rising at a rate of 0.5 to 2 percent annually over the next century (IPCC, 2007).…
Continue Reading” … it is time for an energy awakening – for the natural gas and oil supply chain and the government at all levels to open a new era of working together to ensure that essential energy resources are unlocked; to encourage investment opportunities and accelerate infrastructure development; and to strengthen global energy security, affordability and reliability.” (API, below)
The American Petroleum Institute (API) has represented the larger integrated oil companies since its founding just over a century ago. Much of its early mission was to standardize machinery specifications as well as accounting practices to modernize and streamline the industry. But API’s other major function has been politics, which became so great that the trade group moved from New York City to Washington, D.C. in 1969.
Often, the self-interest of the majors was the free market, particularly in the troubled 1970s.…
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