No rise of atmospheric CO2 fraction

Skeptics of the IPCC climate consensus have asked whether increased CO2 from manmade sources would just mean bigger trees. Not warmer air — just more green, larger-than-usual plant life. That question is typically dismissed as so absurd as to not justify a response. But an interesting study just came out:

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems.

So, it turns out all that CO2 might not be increasing global temperatures. But wait! It doesn’t mean the science was wrong. Okay, it does, but see, there’s another conclusion they’re sure of — at least, to the extent that one can be sure of “some” studies that “suggest” the following:

[The] ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

Right. Forget about that hockey stick. Temperatures haven’t risen much, if at all, as a result of the CO2 that was supposed to have been getting trapped in the atmosphere but was instead being sucked up by plant life. But they’re going to; those temperatures are going to rise — that’s what matters.

Just trust us, they say.

Awakening China, the sleeping giant — over carbon?

I’m no foreign-policy expert, but something tells me forcing China to agree to intrusive, IAEA-like, overbearing inspections of their carbon controls — which necessarily requires treating China like an enemy, or at least an antagonist, worthy of skepticism/cynicism — isn’t a good idea. And all over a greenhouse gas that might be harmful in the long, long, long run? Forget about their human-rights abuses; forget about the oppressive ideology that guides its government: what we’re worried about is a nebulous, uncertain, possible threat from their smokestacks!

If we’re going to back China into a corner over something, all I’m saying is, greenhouse gases probably ain’t it.