Middle Miocene Volcanism, Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change
“Neither assumptions about the present, nor model-predictions about the future, constitute observations of geological processes.” That’s the key phrase and I cannot even remember how many times I have repeated that assumptions and models are no data. They are opinions. I flag my opinions as such. Hell, everything I write is opinions. I leave it to people smarter than I am to provide the facts and fortunately, there are many great minds out there doing exactly that. I submit my opinions to the world to take aim and shot them down if they are faulty. That’s just fair. Alarmists never do that. They erect their opinions as rigid monuments that can never be criticized lest they are not blemished by the inquisitive eye of a doubtful soul. Cults do that, not scientists. A red-blooded scientist who respects him/herself would not take a theory about the causes of something that happened after the midpoint of the Phanerozoic as confirmation of some hypothesis of the future.
The assumption that mid-late Cretaceous warmth and sea level rise were due to high atmospheric CO2 levels and that the high CO2 levels can be directly related to increased volcanic activity are what’s wrong with it.
