Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

As readers at this site are well aware, the field of climate “science” and alarmism is subject to an extraordinary degree of orthodoxy enforcement, where all information supporting the official narrative gets enthusiastically promoted, while all information disagreeing with the official narrative gets suppressed or attacked.  For just one recent example of the latter, see the Wall Street Journal editorial in the current weekend edition reporting on a bogus Facebook “fact check” of the Journal’s recent review of Steven Koonin’s new book “Unsettled.”

In this context, an article just out on May 6 in the journal Science is truly remarkable.  The article is titled “Does ocean acidification alter fish behavior? Fraud allegations create a sea of doubt.” It has the byline of Martin Enserink, Science’s international news editor.  Science has a long history of publishing every sort of climate alarmism, and of being an unreceptive forum for anything expressing any sort of skepticism, let alone alleging fraud in claims of climate alarm.  Something serious must be going on here.

But what if the warming doesn’t happen, or turns out to be far less than the fear-mongers have projected?  That’s where “ocean acidification” comes in.  “Ocean acidification” is the one allegedly harmful effect of rising atmospheric CO2 that does not stem initially from warming temperatures.  Instead, the idea is that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will somewhat increase the level of CO2 dissolved in the oceans, which in turn will lower the pH of the oceans.  How much?  Some projections suggest at the extreme end that average ocean pH may go down from a current 8.1 or so, all the way to maybe about 7.75 by 2100.  If you know anything about this subject, or maybe took high school chemistry, you will know that pH of 7 is neutral, lower than 7 is acidic, and above 7 is basic.  Thus a pH of 8.1 is not acidic at all, but rather (a little) basic; and a pH of 7.75 is somewhat less basic.  The fact that anyone would try to apply the scary term of “ocean acidification” to this small projected shift toward neutrality already shows you that somebody is trying to manipulate the ignorant.

See what happens next New Scientific Scandal.

------------

Ever Deeper And Deeper Into “Climate” Fantasy
April 24, 2021/ Francis Menton

It never ceases to amaze me how the very mention of the word “climate” causes people to lose all touch with their rational faculties. And of course I’m not talking here just about the ordinary man on the street, but also, indeed especially, about our elected leaders and government functionaries.

The latest example is President Biden’s pledge, issued at his “World Climate Summit” on April 22, to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 - 52% from the levels of 2005, and to do so by 2030.

In my last post a couple of days ago, I remarked that “Biden himself has absolutely no idea how this might be accomplished. And indeed it will not be accomplished.” Those things are certainly true, but also fail to do full justice to the extent to which our President and his handlers have now left the real world and gone off into total fantasy.

---------

Biden And Kerry Get Humiliated On Earth Day, But Are Too Dumb To Realize It
April 22, 2021/ Francis Menton

Once again, it’s Earth Day.  The first such day was 51 years ago, April 22, 1970.

Since that first one, Earth Day has served as an annual opportunity for sanctimonious socialist-minded apocalypticists to issue prophesies of imminent environmental doom.  Here from the Competitive Enterprise Institute is a great list of some 50 or so such predictions uttered since the late 1960s, all of which have since been proven wrong.  Interestingly, the ones from the time of the first Earth Day mostly concerned overpopulation, famine, and global cooling.  Today, those things seem ever so quaint.

Somewhere along the line, the prophesy of a coming ice age faded away, and global warming surged forth as the much more fashionable doomsday prediction.  Today, fealty to the global warming apocalypse orthodoxy is a prerequisite for admission to polite society.  Our President goes around repeating the mantra that climate change is an “existential threat,” even as he signs Executive Orders and re-directs half the energies of the vast federal government to fight it.

And what better opportunity than the annual return of Earth Day for our great leaders to demonstrate their deep climate change sincerity?  Thus last week we had President Biden’s personal climate emissary to the world, John Kerry, traveling to Shanghai to triumphantly welcome China on board with the official plan to “save the planet” through ending the use of fossil fuels; and today, Biden himself has followed up with his Earth Day Climate Summit, a virtual event said to be attended by leaders of some 40 or so nations, including the likes of China, India and Russia.  Surely, things have now completely changed course since the evil Trump has been banished, and the world will shortly be saved by the re-invigoration of the glorious Paris Climate Agreement.