▪️I saw this FB “fact check” in my feed today. I consider Alex Epstein to be pretty solid on his claims, but was curious why the fact checkers thought this was “partly false” so clicked on the link, which takes you to a USA Today article. Which is a total train wreck and laughable.
▪️First, they agree with Alex’s point that increased CO2 stimulates plant growth. After all, CO2 is plant food. But they quote experts saying there’s a limit to this. What’s the limit? The article never says, because it would undermine their entire point and sham “fact check.”
▪️Alex never says there’s no limit to the fertilizer effect, that is a red herring, his graphic clearly states “well into the thousands of parts per million.” Currently, the earth is near a historic low in CO2, going from 0.03% (280 ppm) in 1850 to 0.04% (420 ppm) today.
▪️Plant life flourished on earth when CO2 levels were far higher, in the thousands of ppm. The earth was far more lush and green (and warm) in the age of dinosaurs, what do you think fed the giant animals? And we couldn’t reach those CO2 levels now if we tried.
▪️In their fact checking attempt, the USA Today article says plants are “substantially compromised" when CO2 levels reached a certain point. But when you click the link of their cited study, it only looks at one crop (winter wheat) and basically confirms Alex’s point.
▪️Their cited study found that increased CO2 levels “dramatically enhanced winter wheat growth through the CO2 fertilization effect.” This benefit was reversed above ~900ppm, which seems to be the optimum winter wheat level. Note, that’s more than double the current CO2 levels today!
▪️Meanwhile, Alex cites a study in his book showing substantial tree and crop yield increases for a variety of plants under a 300 ppm increase of CO2. Which is a more realistic level if CO2 emissions went unchecked through 2100.
▪️The article then tries to argue that CO2 increase doesn’t help plants because it causes global warming and could change the weather. But this is special pleading and ignores the fact that the earth was much more tropical and green when it was warmer. It also ignores they just admitted CO2 increase does help plants!
▪️No one is arguing that CO2 can increase plant growth ad infinitum, but the fact is that the small increase expected from human causes will be good for overall plant growth. That doesn’t mean there are also potential negative effects of climate change, but the inability for the climate catastrophists to ever acknowledge any potential benefits of climate change shows their total lack of objectivity on the subject.
Here’s the link to the “fact check”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/02/03/fact-check-excess-co-2-harms-plants-more-than-helps-them-experts-say/11128639002/
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
▪️The left keeps using this meme but they don’t actually believe it. If you believe SNAP subsidizes companies to pay below a “living wage” this implies that if you take food stamps away they would suddenly pay a higher, “living” wage. So why not get rid of food stamps, then?!
▪️Except they know, and everyone knows, this isn’t true. Wages are set by supply and demand, not some mythical “living wage” metric. Absent food stamps there would actually be downward, not upward, pressure on wages, because the reality is food stamps subsidize the poor to not work as much as they might otherwise need to.
▪️Without SNAP, some low income people would need to work more hours to make ends meet, increasing the availability of low-skilled labor and lowering wages (all else being equal).
▪️Plus, we all know the left loves and supports food stamps. Which means, by this meme’s logic, they love to subsidize corporate profits. But they don’t really, they just think this ...
