As an antidote to Earth Hour, an organization that calls itself Grassfire.org, is calling on people around the globe to dramatically increase their carbon dioxide emissions and thereby the so-called Carbon Footprint on Carbon Belch Day, June 12.

“It’s time (…) to purge ourselves of the false guilt that Al Gore and the Climate Alarmists have placed on us,” says Grassfire.org President Steve Elliott. “The fact is, reducing my personal carbon output has no impact on the so-called planetary emergency. That’s why for this one special day we are encouraging every American to unleash a historic Carbon Belch that will be symbolic of our release from the absurdity of green extremism.”

On the Carbon Belch Day website, there is a 21-question calculator to help us quantify our personal carbon belch.

“There’s something for everyone in our calculator”, says Elliott. Some of the examples given are hosting a barbie, going for a long drive, taking a plane trip and drinking bottled water.

As a skeptic to AGW I did not take part in the Earth Hour. But neither did I try to exaggerate my energy use in order to counteract this initiative. A Carbon Belch Day, when everyone skeptic of man-made climate change tries to maximize his or hers energy consumption and CO2-emissions seems an exceedingly juvenile idea. I just don’t get why we should regress an adult sandpit just to make a statement. Surely, there must be better and more sound ways to change public opinion.

I am sorry, Grassfire.org, this is just plain stupid.

The Guardian tells us today that world CO2 levels have reached a record high. Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stand at 387 ppm, the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14 ppm – the fourth year in the past six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5 ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.

But now comes the big question. With the CO2 levels soaring, why won’t the temperatures rise? There is something rotten with this global warming…

According to Press TV, scientists from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu have discovered that the Earth’s climate was stabilized by a natural carbon thermostat regulating the carbon dioxide levels. Now, however, these slow cycles have been disrupted by man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Scientists also found that the long-term change in the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been only 22 parts per million (ppm) over a period of 610,000 years, but two centuries of human industry have raised the levels by about 100 ppm.

Let me only say - what a load of bullshit!

1. Long term change of 22 ppm? Excuse me, if the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts? Use the 610,000 years that suit your purpose?

2. CO2 levels have been far higher in prehistoric periods than even the most pessemistic forecasts from the UN and had no greatly detrimental effects on the whole. Life thrived 200 million Paleozoic years above 3000 ppm and another 200 million Mesozoic years above 1000 ppm.

Incidentally, Earth’s temperature and CO2 levels today have reached levels similar to a previous interglacial cycle of 120,000 - 140,000 years ago. From beginning to end this cycle lasted about 20,000 years. This is known as the Eemian Interglacial Period and the earth returned to a full-fledged ice age immediately afterward.

3. Research shows plants function best with CO2 levels between 1,000 and 1,200 parts per million (ppm). Greenhouses inject CO2 to reach these levels and achieve significantly higher yields as a result. This suggests that plants evolved to suit levels around 1,000 ppm and are CO2 starved at today’s 385 ppm. In fact, at 200 ppm plants begin to suffer and at 120 ppm they start to die.

4. 350- 1,000 ppm - typical level found in occupied spaces with good air exchange.

Roger A. Pielke Jr., an environmental policy expert at the University of Colorado at Boulder, argues global warming over the rest of this century will have a much smaller impact than most scientists think. He believes that it is cheaper and more effective to adapt to global warming than to fight it. So, instead of spending huge amounts of money to stabilize carbon dioxide levels across the planet, we should work on reducing current problems such as hunger, storm damage and disease.

Read the entire article in Los Angeles Times.

In today’s Times Argus, a Vermont publication, Dr. Alan Betts reflects on the analogy between smoking and the “global carbon-dioxide pollution” that comes from the burning of fossil fuels.

We now have public health advertising to warn teenagers of the long-term hazards of smoking. Why? Because for decades the tobacco industry encouraged teenagers to start smoking as a way of building its future market. (…) The biggest consequences from all our carbon dioxide emissions are also in the future, so it’s hard to grasp the significance of our addiction to fossil fuels for our children.

Dr. Alan Betts is Vermont’s leading climate scientist and the past president of the Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering. He received his B.A. in Theoretical Physics in 1967 and his M.A. in 1971 from Cambridge. He received his PhD. in Meteorology in London in 1970. From 1971-1979, he was a professor at Colorado State University before founding Atmospheric Research in Pittsford, Vermont, in 1979. Now how can such a well-educated man call carbon dioxide a pollutant and compare its effect with that of nicotine fumes?

All animals, including us humans, breathe out carbon dioxide, which is then used by plants during photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is the principle food of plants. When the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increases the food available to the Earth’s plants increases. Carbon itself is the basis of all life on Earth and carbon atoms continually move through living organisms, the oceans and the atmosphere. When you watch your child grow, you actually watch CO2 being further processed. So why all those horror stories about CO2 poisoning the planet?

Another climate change scientist, Dr James Lovelock of Great Britain, predicts Apocalypse in The Daily Mail.

We’re all doomed! 40 years from global catastrophe – and there’s NOTHING we can do about it.

What is it with all those scientists? Are their predictions of total disaster just clumsy efforts to get noticed and published? And are journalists really so ignorant to the basic facts of biology?

A friend of mine got very upset at a recent news item in Wall Street Journal. Obviously, US bankers have just begun discussing development of lending guidelines similar to the new “carbon principles” that make it tougher to build coal-fired power plants. The carbon principles pledge the banks to investigate and analyze the risks associated with CO2 emissions and integrate that analysis into lending and underwriting decisions. The rise of global warming hysteria leads to one brainless decision after another. Perhaps all entrepreneurs will soon have to factor in climate change when seeking private funding.

Many seem to think that going back to the Stone Age is the only right resolution. In Minneapolis, for example, all lights in municipal buildings will be turned off for one hour on a Saturday evening as part of the Earth Hour, initiated by WWF. Earth Hour is an initiative “to finding solutions for climate change”. I tell you one thing - it will be damn hard to find any solution in complete darkness.

In Petaling Jaya, showing some extraordinary intelligence, the Malaysian Qualifications Agency shut down all electrical appliances in its premises for 2.5 hours as part of efforts to combat global warming. All computers, printers, scanners, lights and air-conditioners were switched off. As if prayer and contemplation rather than technology and invention would save the planet.

It is also amazing how global warming is overheating the brain. In an instantaneous poll, the Wall Street Journal asked the audience to select the most pressing societal problem from a list of five that included infectious disease, terrorism and global warming. Global warming was the most popular response, receiving 31 percent of the vote, while infectious disease came in last with only 3 percent of the vote.

My mother, a very wise woman by the way, can’t understand how we can speculate over what might happen in 50 years from now while 854 million people go to bed hungry every day. While every five seconds, one child dies from hunger related causes. The world today is more prosperous than it ever has been. New technological advances create opportunities to improve economies and reduce hunger and poverty. Why, oh why do we keep insisting on financial sacrifices that are a pointless waste of money?

Porsche’s manager for energy and the environment, Herbert Ampferer, has told Automotive New Europe that it is impossible for the company to meet the goals that the European Commission is targeting for carbon dioxide reduction.

Although the EC is proposing a 130 g/km CO2 fleet average, the paper says Porsche will have to cut average CO2 emissions from its new cars to 144 g/km from 242g/km, or face progressive fines of up to €95 per gram over the limit. If the EU approves the Commission’s proposals, Porsche executives say every Cayenne S premium SUV sold in 2015 and beyond would carry a fine of €9,702.

Then again, if you are in the market for a Porsche, perhaps a few hundred dollars extra don’t matter.