This is no different than wealthy Catholics paying indulgences to the church to clear their souls. Just one of the items addressed by Martin Luther that led to the Protestant Reformation.

Bill Gates has the $$$$ to buy any amount of carbon credit ; it’s painless for him .
Meanwhile the “unwashed masses” have to pay higher electric or natural gas rate due to policies supported by him.

Once again, a rich liberal is immune and exempt from the consequence of the policies he espouses.

Oh, by the way, did you know he has several private airplanes and a 60,000 sq foot home and a massive car collection.
Yep, we all need to listen to the climate change prescriptions of Gates and his ilk, but just don ‘t expect them to follow them.

I meant: “. . . because results that undercut the narrative are curtailed.”

1) CO2 is saturated except at high altitude. Where it is saturated it can’t further contribute to warming. Hence only CO2 at very high altitude can contribute to further warming.

2) A doubling of CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm will only reduce outward thermal radiation by ~ 3 Watts/square meter, and only increase the average temp by ~0.5 C.

3) CO2 levels are increasing by a linear 2.3 ppm, so this doubling takes over 170 years at the present rate.

4) If you present the above in an argument, the reply is “feedbacks!”. In one online debate I saw where someone stated “they have identified seven feedbacks!”. LOL, how many feedbacks have not been identified. The effects of clouds are not fully understood.

5) The other thing is climate models. These are rather course models of a chaotic system, and in a chaotic system small changes to inputs can have huge changes to the outputs. Physicist (climate scientist) Richard Lindzen once said they can probably make their models have whatever outcome they want.

In conclusion, CO2 itself can’t do much. They sell the issue as “settled science” because “greenhouse gas”, but the real issue is with respect to the feedbacks they don’t fully understand.

And, on feedbacks, Richard Lindzen identified a negative feedback that exists at least in the tropics (where the greenhouse effect matters the most), which he called the “iris effect”. But they seem to ignore that particular feedback because it is negative (negative feedbacks create stable systems and prevent ramping up, positive feedbacks are the type that would amplify warming).

He couldn’t claim it isn’t happening.

Also, one needs to consider the narrative related to “climate change”. At the level of the accepted “science”* there is uncertainty and mild warming. But the warming is amplified at each step of the chain, until it is reported as being the worst threat we face.

His current stance is basically to be a “science denier” at the levels reported by the MSM and establishment politicians.

*”science” because results that undercut the narrative are not curtailed.

I’m afraid this didn’t happen. Rather, Gates rejected an extreme position within climate change orthodoxy which I doubt he personally ever held.

Here’s his actual words. tl dr: still believes in the reality of climate change, still intends to make money from fighting it.

I know that some climate advocates will disagree with me, call me a hypocrite because of my own carbon footprint (which I fully offset with legitimate carbon credits), or see this as a sneaky way of arguing that we shouldn’t take climate change seriously.

To be clear: Climate change is a very important problem. It needs to be solved, along with other problems like malaria and malnutrition. Every tenth of a degree of heating that we prevent is hugely beneficial because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people’s lives.

I’ve been learning about warming—and investing billions in innovations to reduce it—for over 20 years. I work with scientists and innovators who are committed to preventing a climate disaster and making cheap, reliable clean energy available to everyone. Ten years ago, some of them joined me in creating Breakthrough Energy, an investment platform whose sole purpose is to accelerate clean energy innovation and deployment. We’ve supported more than 150 companies so far, many of which have blossomed into major businesses. We’re helping build a growing ecosystem of thousands of innovators working on every aspect of the problem.

Vastness, yes, but arable?

Northern latitudes, short summers, long winters don’t make for great farming (arability).

Kate, mainly it’s Christian Sudanese who are getting massacred. Mainly in the south. Animists also.

Until my health problems arose I was tangentially involved in assisting the Sudanese Christians. Worked with a group/individuals who were working to provide military assistance. Not so much now. But I remain on call. And informed.

I can’t remember where I read it, but apparently the searches of GOP members of Congress were the work of 6 lawyers at the DOJ who were fired or left of their own accord some time ago.