From a paper that takes its arguments — literally — from Mein Kampf.
In its paean to hokey stick inventer Michale Mann, the Los Angeles Times editorializes:
…To understand why [the current atmospheric CO2 level of 393 ppm is] a very sad number, it helps to know that from the dawn of human civilization until the 19th century, the concentration was about 275 parts per million, and that many scientists believe 350 parts per million is a sort of tipping point: Irreversible impacts and feedback loops start to kick in, and the cost of repairing the resulting damage from such things as sea-level rise and droughts not only skyrockets, the cost of adapting to the changes does too. But we’ve already sailed past that point. And we’re heading inexorably toward another one that’s far worse: 450 parts per million, the truly scary level at which 3.5 degrees of warming above pre-industrial global average temperatures is locked in. The predicted result: centuries of weather extremes, drought-fueled global famine, mass migration, the vanishing of low-lying islands and territories as sea ice melts away, wide-scale species extinction and other horrors too numerous and depressing to list.
To global warming denialists, the above paragraph constitutes the “alarmist” perspective on climate change. Never mind that it is backed by a wealth of research, the world’s most state-of-the-art climate models (whose accuracy in predicting the recent effects of climate change has been repeatedly demonstrated), the national science academies of the world’s developed nations (including the U.S. National Academies), the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other prominent academic and scientific organizations. To the denial set, these groups and individual scientists are part of a global liberal cabal that is scheming to impose its radical environmentalist agenda on the entire planet via government programs to cut carbon emissions; as proof, denialists point to their own research and studies — typically funded by fossil fuel interests, performed by non-climatologists and published in non-peer-reviewed journals — that pick away at the scientific consensus. You wouldn’t think such an anti-intellectual and grossly irresponsible movement would have much success in the court of public opinion. You would be horrifyingly wrong…
Scientists, like journalists, really are more credible when they stick to the evidence, report the facts and let society come to its own conclusions. You handle the science, professor Mann; we’ll handle the punditry.
So much for LATime to claim, that “from the dawn of humanity etc”., the level of CO2 was only about 275 p.p.m., but ignore the fact, that some 600 million years ago, that level was 7,000 p.p.m. and complex life on earth and in the oceans began. Even now, the many hundreds of thousands of owners of glass-houses, who grow flowers, plants, trees and vegetables, increase the heat to obtain approx. 1,000 p.p.m. to enable richer crops. They also totally ignore the fact, that the U.S. Supreme Court in june of last year, ruled that CO2 is a totally harmless trace-gas, which is vital for life on earth. The Green idiots do not see the difference between CO2 (carbon dioxide) and CO (carbon monoxide), but what would you expect from the corrupt and hare-brained zealots? Like the Supreme Court decided CO2 is vital to life on earth and why should anyone be scared for a life-giving substance. It is only the very corrupt “scientists” and their cronies, who know that doomsday predictions keep them in the very profitable tax-payers’ grants and journalists, who know, that bad news is good news for their media-outlets and thus money in their pockets. They do not have any morals and will do anything possible to retain their positions. Please read: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/06/23/lawrence-solomon-supreme-skeptics/
So, what’s going to happen now that we’ve passed 350 ppm (and when wil l it happen)and most important, what’s going to happen (and when will it happen) when we pass 450ppm? Also, will all this occur before or after the next ice age?