Carbon Orthodoxy: A Dangerous Ideology and a Stupid Religion

Corporate media tell us that CO2 is THE existential threat, and that only technology will solve the problem. Really?

The most powerful lies are half true. But it’s what they don’t tell you that makes it a lie.

Carbon Orthodoxy: The Story

In the beginning, everything was fine. And then humans started burning fossil fuels. This created too much carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas. This heats the atmosphere. Because of atmospheric warming, we have flooding, drought, wildfires, heat waves, famine and war. 

Does CO2 cause flooding?

Yes! A warmer atmosphere holds more water, so when it does rain, it rains buckets. When it rains buckets, this causes flooding. 

This is--at best--half true. Flooding requires runoff. Not all rainfall causes runoff. It depends on the ground where the rain falls. When two inches of rain falls onto an acre, that’s 54,000 gallons of water. Does it run off or soak in? If it runs off, you get a flood. If it soaks in, there is no flood. The difference is the runoff, not the rain.

You can eliminate runoff with good soil and enough vegetation.

The media rarely tells us how destructive farming practices destroy soil and thereby cause flooding. We subsidize bad farming practices like tillage, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, all of which degrade the soil and compromise the ability of the soil to absorb rainfall. 

But we’re not going to talk about that, because our story mandates that CO2 causes flooding, not bad farming or deforestation or erecting buildings in flood plains.

Does CO2 cause wildfires?

CO2 causes the atmosphere to warm, which causes forests to dry out. This makes them more flammable, which causes catastrophic wildfires. 

But is warming caused by CO2 the only factor that causes catastrophic wildfires? Can we talk about other factors that make forests more flammable, such as overharvesting of timber. 

How does overharvesting timber cause catastrophic wildfires? Because it reduces the ability of the forest to absorb rainfall. It increases the dryness of the forest. It removes trees that would otherwise serve as a windbreak and slow down the winds that cause fires to burn hotter.

By contrast, when we leave a forest alone and let it grow, it absorbs more water and serves as a windbreak that limits the extent of the flames.

But we’re not going to talk about that. Because our story mandates that CO2 be the villain of the plot.

Does CO2 cause drought?

CO2 warms the atmosphere. Hotter air causes the ground to dry out. Plus, with global warming, you have weirder weather, including more sporadic rainfall and longer dry spells. 

But plants and trees and especially mature forests make rain. A mature forest is a sponge that soaks up the rain, releasing it gently into the streams and causing some of the rain to evaporate back into the atmosphere, supplying the water for subsequent rainfalls. 

Also, when plants and trees evaporate water, they also evaporate bacteria and organic compounds that later cause condensation. Most of the rain that falls on land originates from trees and plants, and not from bodies of water.

Thus, if you want less drought and more rainfall, you want to allow trees and plants to prosper, and not constantly bombard them with chainsaws, mowers and herbicides. 

So the presence or absence of drought depends largely on the presence or absence of plants and trees. 

But we’re not going to talk about that, because our story mandates that CO2 be the villain of the plot.

That’s carbon orthodoxy.

What is carbon orthodoxy? 

We are stuck in the wrong story. Let’s call the story carbon orthodoxy.

We are social creatures. We believe what we are told. We follow what we believe.

We are told that CO2 is the reason for climate change, and that climate change is an existential threat, and therefore, we must deal with CO2 first, BEFORE we do anything else, and IN LIEU OF doing anything else.

So we believe accordingly and follow what we believe.

We’ve been told that CO2 is THE reason for climate change--with an honorable mention to methane. Why would we believe any differently? It’s all we ever hear.

And then there are those people we are taught to loathe, the climate deniers.

Who are climate deniers?

We’ve been told that climate deniers are science deniers. We equate science with truth. So the climate deniers are the enemies of truth.

We cannot define science. I mean, we can tell you what the scientific method is, sort of. But we can’t tell you what science is, because nobody has ever asked us to define it. 

So we settle for an emotional definition. Science is whatever the people in authority tell us it is. Science is what the “good people” believe. 

Therefore, science deniers are bad people. And climate deniers are bad people. And you should avoid them. You should shun them. You should not accept them in polite company. You should not talk to them. You should criticize anyone who talks approvingly to them or about them.

The podcasters you like, the ones who believe in The Science™ should not “platform” science deniers. Platforming means giving someone a platform on your podcast. Platforming means you talk to someone … approvingly.

Remember, these people are the enemy. They are part of the wrong political party. And anyone who is not with us is against us. This is war. We have a planet to fight for. And anyone who does not share our exact understanding of how to fight this war is, ipso facto, the enemy.

Nuance is not allowed. There are no shades of gray. 

Our people know the score. Our people know what the deal is. Because our people are listening to The Scientists™. 

I mean, our people read the New York Times. Our people listen to NPR, where they play jazz in the background. So, how could they be wrong? 

The Science™ 

The Science™ says that we must deal with CO2 first, even though we could cool the planet very quickly and very safely by increasing vegetation by 10-20%, or less, by some estimates.

The Science™ says that we must prioritize solar and wind energy, even though they require monumental amounts of land, mining, water pollution and deforestation, and only last 10-20 years before needing serious repair and replacement.

The Science™ says we should build out a whole generation of wind, solar and EVs, even though we lack the necessary raw materials, like lithium, copper, nickel and cobalt. It’s not even close.  

The Science™ says that renewable energy will replace fossil fuels, even though new energy technologies never replace the old ones. They only add to the mix.

The Science™ says we will change HOW we generate energy, and never try to limit HOW MUCH energy we generate.

The Science™ says we need to deal with carbon dioxide before we deal with water pollution or forever chemicals, or save wildlife plummeting wildlife populations or address the massive energy footprint of industrial agriculture.

The Science™ is not science. It’s religion.

CO2 is important. But it’s a stupid religion.