ATMOSPHERIC CARBON IS A PROBLEM, BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS WE ARE TOLD
The mainstream climate movement misapprehends the role of atmospheric carbon and misunderstands the true causes of climate change.
I disagree that atmospheric carbon is the primary cause of climate change, flooding, drought, wildfires, soil degradation or wildlife extinction. These phenomena are much more readily explained by land degradation, via deforestation, industrial agriculture and a type of real estate development (residential, commercial, governmental, agricultural and military) which emphasizes rapid drainage of stormwater rather than hydration.
An absence of plant matter and functioning ecosystems in our forests, farms and landscapes, causing soil degradation and atmospheric (urban and agricultural) heat domes is a better explanation of climate change, flooding, droughts, wildfires, soil degradation and wildlife extinction.
Atmospheric carbon is not half the greenhouse gas as excess atmospheric water and has much less impact on climate than the condition of the land and the presence or absence of functioning ecosystems, which by definition include diverse plant matter and healthy soil, and a relative absence of environmental toxins such as pesticides and industrial pollutants.
The narrative that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that will cause catastrophic climate change has been a distraction from myriad local problems that are easily fixed if government and citizens would stand up to industrial polluters and degradation of land-based ecosystems.
In fact CO2-as-a-greenhouse-gas and the primary factor in catastrophic climate change is increasingly used as a scapegoat, and a distraction and therefore a poor substitute for effective local action against pollution and land degradation.
HERE IS HOW CO2 ACTUALLY IS A PROBLEM.
CO2 is a problem primarily because of ocean acidification, which is a grave threat to ocean life because it prevents mollusks, arthropods and bony fishes from forming skeletons. This same phenomenon also compromises the health of coral reefs, on which 25% of ocean species depend at some point in their life cycle.
As such excess CO2 is also a grave threat to ocean-based carbon sequestration.
This would be very understandable, more measurable and more easily embraced by the lay public—as compared with CO2 as a factor in climate change—if it were communicated with any consistency. But it’s not, which is a poor statement of the ability and willingness of the scientific community and climate journalists to actually make positive change by enlightening the public and cultivating a dynamic consensus and an energized populace.
For these reasons, I conclude that the mainstream climate movement fails on its own terms. By focusing obsessively on carbon, it is paralyzed and neutralized and therefore unable to actually address the problem of excess atmospheric carbon.
I also conclude that it’s more about control and manipulation than understanding or enlightenment.