Excerpts

  A major theme that I have come to embrace is the enormous benefits that are accruing to humanity from modest warming and increasing carbon dioxide. By nearly every metric, Earth’s ecosystems are thriving, and the human condition is improving. This notion of a prospering planet is entirely contrary to the claims of a climate crisis and looming disaster around every corner proclaimed by the Climate Industrial Complex. 

In this book we will explore these benefits and learn that extreme weather events are not increasing, how we are feeding the planet’s growing population through expanded crop growth, that islands around the world have survived hundreds of feet of historic sea-level rise and that modest warming is saving lives. 

The evolutionary arrival of the first woody plants and trees occurred in the late Devonian. This new type of plant greatly accelerated the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and accelerated a planetary decline of this important gas.  

The enzyme to break down lignin did not exist during this time, so the trees lived, died and accumulated in vast coal swamps without decomposing. Near the end of the Permian, a new fungal species evolved called white rot fungus that now allowed the breakdown of the lignite. 

The arrival of this new organism ended the era of vast worldwide coal swamps 

We are told that  CO2  is the control knob of Earth’s thermostat. If that is the case, then a review of temperature and CO2 through geologic time should either confirm or disprove this to be so. Let’s find out. 

 A comparison of the temperature record to atmospheric CO2 concentration reveals that at least the first 250 years of the warming since the depths of the Little Ice Age occurred during a period of historically low CO2 levels. 

This warming was necessarily driven by natural forces and not by increasing CO2.  

 Whether viewed on a time scale of tens, hundreds, thousands or millions of years, the global temperature and the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exhibit no clear relationship. 

If you do an internet search for “worst year ever,” you will find that the overwhelming consensus is the year 536 A.D. The worst of the Dark Ages cold centered on that year and was probably associated with a giant volcanic eruption of unknown origin in the previous year. 

"Widespread famine, hunger and bubonic plague followed once the abundant supplies of the year before were consumed… Snow fell in Mesopotamia; crops failed throughout Italy and southern Iraq; Britain experienced its worst weather in a century."

— Brian Fagan (2004)

The awful nature of the Dark Ages cold is particularly well documented in Europe. There, the population declined to levels not seen since the last cold era, which took place 1,000 years earlier. Entire areas were depopulated. In the year 784, one-third of the population perished, according to estimates.

On a mild early October afternoon in the year 1256, Elizabeth Nash could see her husband and four sons working in their fields, reaping ripened wheat. She and some 15 generations of her ancestors had been blessed with a generally favorable climate and bountiful harvests. Some years were better than others, but proper planning and storage could see them through lean times. 

Little did Elizabeth realize this era of plenty was nearing its end. Famine and disease would be her and her progeny’s constant companions as the Earth plunged into the death-dealing cold of the Little Ice Age. That story of horror and massive population loss will have to await its turn for the next chapter in this book because we first must review the blessed centuries of warmth and prosperity known as the Medieval Warm Period.  

Likely the most remarkable thing that I have discovered in my research for this book is not the rampant—and apparently willful and deliberate—disinformation predicting climate catastrophe. Rather, I was struck by the wonderful, good news of a planet whose ecosystems are thriving and people prospering from modest warming and more CO2. Humanity is taking advantage of these planet-wide processes while incidentally aiding in ecosystem renewal by liberating vast amounts of beneficial carbon dioxide that are replenishing the gas to more optimum levels. 

Humanity and the Earth are benefiting wildly not in spite of rising temperatures and increasing carbon dioxide but because of them. 

If you have a child or grandchild who is distraught over a climate crisis, please consider having them read this final section. It may well open their eyes and encourage them to read the first two sections to learn the truth about our changing climate. 

Enjoy the truth and sleep well: There is no climate crisis.