▪️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/
It’s funny to see the left use the same conspiratorial rhetoric as the right did a year ago regarding the jobs numbers being downwardly revised. So many on the right, who knew nothing of how the jobs numbers are calculated or why they revise them, were convinced the downward revisions were a conspiracy to help Biden win.
If people want to have a debate about the birth death model or the survey methods, ok, but that’s not what’s happening here. Most people are under the delusion that the BLS report is the govt reporting every job created and lost, and are thus easily swayed it’s rigged when it suits their political ends.
This is almost laughingly misleading, as it leaves out everything before the letter.
▪️After being repeatedly lampooned by the Smothers Brothers over Vietnam, Johnson finally had enough. One night at 3 am he called the head of CBS William Paley, demanding that he “get those bastards off my back.”
▪️Paley then asked the heads of CBS entertainment to get them to back off of LBJ. However, instead of backing off the Smothers Brothers doubled down, booking a folk musician performing “Waist Deep,” an anti-war song about a soldier being stuck in the mud while “the big fool says to push on,” clearly a dig at LBJ.
▪️At the last minute, CBS cut the song from the pre-taped show to the outrage of the Smothers. They continued to push the boundaries off and on for the rest of his presidency, with CBS sometimes cutting segments that they thought went too far. Basically, it was a soft form of censorship.
▪️It wasn’t until Johnson made his surprise announcement not to run in 1968 ...
