Carbon footprint: still at it?

A news report says that the Cebu subsidiary of Ayala is pushing a "green" management system. Well and good. Then comes the part that says:

Carbon footprint

As part of its sustainability program, CHI will start calculating this year the carbon footprint—or the amount of carbon dioxide one generates, measured by the amount of electricity consumed, distance traveled on a motorized vehicle (car or plane)—of each employee. The activity is meant to raise the awareness of CHI employees on how their activities contribute to climate change.

Monera said CHI will eventually require employees to reduce their carbon footprint. But the company has to educate employees before establishing benchmarks and setting targets, he added.

What? They are still at it.

I have no problem with the protection of the environement, but as Steven Milloy says, despite "lack of evidence, the solitary term "man's carbon footprint" manages to concretize the notion of mankind producing indelible damage upon the Earth while in the process of stampeding its flora and fauna."

Milloy says:

CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas in the atmosphere that is measured in parts per million, or ppm. The vast majority of CO2 emissions, about 97 percent, comes from Mother Nature.

CO2 is nowhere near the most important greenhouse gas; water vapor holds that distinction. An astounding 99.9 percent of Earth's greenhouse gas effect has nothing to do with manmade CO2 emissions.

If that's not enough, we can look at graphs of the historical relationship between carbon dioxide and global temperature. Ice core data going back 650,000 years show that global temperatures increase before CO2 levels. Data from the 20th century indicate no particular relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperature.

Finally, there is no scientific proof that the current level of atmospheric CO2 or that levels projected by the United Nations -- about 700 ppm by 2095 if no greenhouse gas regulations are put in place -- has or will cause any harm to the environment.

Alarmist gloom-and-doom forecasts also are based on nothing more than the rankest speculation dressed up as computer models that remain wholly unverifiable.

Yet, despite all this lack of evidence, the solitary term "man's carbon footprint" manages to concretize the notion of mankind producing indelible damage upon the Earth while in the process of stampeding its flora and fauna.

For any effective critique of global warming hysteria, we have to move beyond these powerful yet baseless buzz words that undermine any rational case in which they are found.

For another protest about carbon footprint, see Wendell Krossa.

In part:

CO2 does not cause dangerous global warming. Rising levels of CO2 follow warming periods and do not precede or cause warming periods. See the Vostok Ice Core research at http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N26/EDIT.php (http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N26/EDIT.php) . Oceans, which hold 90 times the CO2 that is in the atmosphere, release CO2 as they warm and this increases atmospheric CO2 levels. The CO2 increases tend to lag behind warming periods by about 800 years.

CO2 is a tiny part of the greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect ( http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html (http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html) ). The warming effect of CO2 gets lost among other much larger natural climate drivers. Human emissions of CO2 are even tinier (1 part per 100,000 parts of the atmosphere) and a human fingerprint causing warming is even more lost among natural influences. The human contribution to climate warming, if it were statistically detectable, would amount to nothing more than “a fart in a hurricane”. Natural climate drivers with strong, clear correlations to warming/cooling periods include cosmic rays ( see Henrik Svensmark’s The Chilling Stars ), solar flare cycles, related cloud cover, ocean current decadal oscillations ( changing current patterns ), earth’s 100,000 year wobble, and others.

CO2 levels have been as high as 7,000 ppm in the past and no dangerous global warming occurred. During the Late Ordovician Period ( some 400 million years ago ) CO2 levels were 4,400 ppm and Earth was as cold as it is now.

There is no scientific reason for us to worry about contributing to increasing CO2 levels. We do not need to reduce our carbon footprint. We do not need to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere or decarbonize our economies. As the 31,000 plus scientists who signed the Protest Petition have stated, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth” ( http://www.petitionproject.org/ (http://www.petitionproject.org/) ).

To demonize carbon/CO2, as environmentalists have done, is to demonize life itself. This is ridiculous hysteria and entirely unscientific. The only way to fully understand this movement is to recognize that it is ideologically-driven extremism gone utterly mad. The real goal of green activism is to slow, halt, and even reverse economic growth and development. The anti-carbon movement uses carbon as a proxy to fight growth and the human enterprise. But the Green movement in demonizing carbon has become anti-green, anti-life, and anti-nature.