Climate change cannot be stopped.

And what am I supposed to make of this?

Google 'Carbon is making the world greener'

Yes, carbon dioxide (CO2) is making the world greener through a process called "CO2 fertilization," which boosts plant growth by increasing photosynthesis. This has led to a global greening trend, particularly in the last 30 years, with satellite data showing a significant increase in leaf cover. However, while greening seems positive, this phenomenon has consequences, including potential impacts on water supplies and ecosystems. 

CO2 is making Earth greener for now
http://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/

Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
http://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/

With CO2 Levels Rising, World’s Drylands Are Turning Green
http://e360.yale.edu/features/greening-drylands-carbon-dioxide-climate-change

Well I'm no climate scientist, so I don't know.
Seems to me if the world is becoming greener then that's a good thing.
Better a green planet than a dry dead one.

That’s a fair point, AC.

Now that you point it out, I can completely understand the discomfort - feeling like big changes are being driven from a distance, or that the full picture isn’t being made clear until after the fact.

Whether it’s foreign funding or domestic lobbying, the concern over who’s really steering the ship is valid. The fact that most of us don't have the time to properly familiarise ourselves with the science showing the need for the changes wouldn't exactly help matters either.

On the China question, you’ve touched on a tension that confuses a lot of people: why would the world’s biggest producer of solar panels still be building coal plants?

The short answer is: China is trying to do everything at once.

They’re leading the world in renewables investment and still building coal. Not because coal is cheaper long term, but because:

- Their grid is fragmented. Some provinces are mostly renewables, others are still highly industrial/coal-reliant.
- They’re obsessed with energy security. Coal is domestic and predictable - even if it’s inefficient.
- Their "new" coal plants are often designed with impermanence in mind, and are only there as a back up for renewables. For this reason, they're specially designed to fire up and shut down very quickly.

It’s a massive, messy, state-directed transition - not a clean ideological pivot.

Ironically, when China does keep building coal, it’s often used as a talking point against renewables here. But in China’s case, they’re not doing it because renewables have failed. They’re doing it because they’re trying to engineer control at every layer - supply chain, energy mix, and geopolitical insulation.

It’s not a model we’d want to copy - nor need to - but it does make sense within their system.

You're keeping me on my toes, AC.

I went through the 'CO2 greening' bit in quite some detail with mhaze last month. Unfortunately, he was too busy trying extract a contradiction from my comments to really absorb any of it:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10656&page=0

CO2 fertilisation is a known short-term effect. But here’s the key thing: greening =/= climate benefit.

Why?

- It's uneven and temporary. The gains are concentrated in specific plant types and regions. Many ecosystems - especially tropical forests - are already showing signs of diminishing returns from CO2 fertilisation.

- It doesn’t offset warming or biodiversity loss. You can have more leaves and more ecosystem stress. Some greening comes from invasive species, or short-lived growth that collapses in drought.

- It comes with trade-offs. More plant growth means more water demand in some areas, which can worsen water stress. It also doesn’t stop the loss of cold-dependent ecosystems or permafrost melt.

- And most importantly, the greening effect doesn’t cancel out the damages from heatwaves, sea-level rise, extreme weather, or disrupted agriculture - which are driven by the same CO2.

The NASA and Yale sources you linked both explain that. In fact, one headline literally ends with: "…for now."

So yes, CO2 fertilisation is real. But it's not a reason to keep burning fossil fuels. It's more like a short-term side effect of an overdose that hasn’t hit full swing yet.

Unfortunately, it gets cherry-picked by bad-faith actors to cast doubt on the bigger picture.

But I need to go to bed now...

Since it came under the purview of the CSIRO, the Australian Academy of Science seems to have forgotten that “knowledge is built on observation, experimentation and evidence”. (Dr. Bill Johnston in ‘The Australian Academy of Nonsense’).

The AAS has over-relied on complex models, invoking “The Science”, leading to questionable conclusions about climate change.

It chooses advocacy over science, and activists rather than scientists have written such twaddle as:

“Heatwaves, bushfires, storms and coastal flooding, have become more frequent and intense in recent times … risks are likely to escalate as global temperatures continue to rise …our capacity to respond becomes compromised as frequency increases”.

Many - too many to list - of the “terrible” effects of climate that have ‘never occurred before now’, have been debunked by history. They have occurred before now, when Australia’s piddling little emissions were higher than now.

The claims that hideously expensive government action will stop climate change are absurd.

Climate change cannot be stopped.

Net Zero is a failure of science.

On the contrary, ttbn, Net Zero is based on the core principle of climate science.

//Net Zero is a failure of science.//

That being that atmospheric CO2 traps heat, and that human activity has driven its sharp increase over the past century. That conclusion isn't based on models - it's based on direct observation, experimentation, and evidence: precisely the method you quoted.

//The AAS has over-relied on complex models…//

Models aren't crystal balls. They're tools for projecting possible futures, constrained by physical laws and empirical data. And they're tested against historical outcomes for validation. But the evidence for climate change doesn't rest on models alone. We've already observed:

- Rising average temperatures (land, sea, air)
- Melting glaciers and sea ice
- Rising sea levels
- Ocean acidification
- Shifts in species migration and habitat collapse

None of those are predictions. They're happening now.

//Many of the 'terrible' effects... have been debunked by history.//

No, they haven't.

Yes, Australia has always had heatwaves, droughts, and fires. What's changed is their frequency, intensity, and overlapping occurrence. Historical comparison doesn't disprove worsening risk - it provides the baseline that lets us detect it. It's not about individual events being "unprecedented." It's about statistical shifts in the overall pattern.

//Climate change cannot be stopped.//

True - it's already underway. But rate and scale matter. The point of Net Zero isn't to freeze the planet in place - it's to limit further destabilisation and avoid runaway effects. That's not utopian, it's risk management.

//The claims that hideously expensive government action will stop climate change are absurd.//

What's more absurd is pretending that inaction is free. The damage bill from floods, fires, droughts and heatwaves is already astronomical - and it's still growing.

Net Zero isn't a gamble. Ignoring it is.