Global warming scare industry suppresses benefits of CO2

Bombarded by the incessant fear-mongering of the global warming industry, many people now see carbon dioxide (CO2) as evil incarnate – the bane of civilization and source of an ever-growing list of planetary problems – from erupting volcanoes and tectonic earthquakes to shrinking sheep and reduced circumcision rates.

The climate experts, joined by their lazy and interminably gullible allies in the mainstream media, have managed through guile and deception to orchestrate a successful fear campaign against a trace atmospheric gas that is essential to all life on earth.

Around the clock, these self-anointed saviors of Mother Earth hector mankind, scolding the thoughtless masses for increasing CO2 to “climate tipping” levels that will eventually bake our planet unless we cork our gaseous emissions, shut down industry and hand over more of our paychecks to the Gods of Cap and Trade.

Hypnotized by their “science is settled” theory, the self-professed climate experts have abandon the practice of science and morphed into political-scientist advocates, manipulating and fine-tuning their research so it matches their pre-ordained conclusions. (A brief look at the Climategate e-mails, made public last November, illustrates the abysmal level to which climate science has descended.)

The snakeoil scientists have worked indefatigably to give CO2 – a molecular friend of mankind – a dirty name. They have hidden the facts of CO2 from the people, lest they awake to the grand AGW deception. And they have studiously engaged in a premeditated attempt to deceive the innocent (they have already deceived themselves), always with a finger to the wind and an eye on the next juicy research grant.

Here are a few truths about the benefits of CO2, routinely suppressed or glossed over in the hysterics-laden propaganda about catastrophic global warming (a term renamed “climate change” as global temperatures leveled off and began to decline) disseminated by agenda-driven scientists and politicians and their chief ally, the negligent and slothful reporter.

CO2 not a pollutant – Atmospheric CO2 is essential to life on earth and is directly responsible for the food we eat and the oxygen we breathe. Plants feed on CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste gas, and humans and animals breathe oxygen and exhale CO2. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more CO2.

Current CO2 deficiency – With a current CO2 concentration of 388 ppm, Earth’s atmosphere is CO2 deficient. (During the last 600 million years, only the Carboniferous Period and our current age, the Quaternary Period, have experienced CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.) Millions of year ago, when CO2 concentrations were 10 times higher than today, plant life flourished. Falling, not rising, CO2 levels, would seriously impact life as we know it, reducing agricultural production for a growing population and increasing the likelihood of food shortages and famine.

CO2 non-threatening at 10,000 ppm – CO2 is not a threat to humans unless it reaches 50,000 ppm (exhaled breath is about 45,000 ppm). Sailors in U.S. submarines experience no harmful effects while routinely working in spaces where CO2 concentrations reach 8,000 ppm. Concert-goers in a packed auditorium are steeped in 10,000 ppm. The recommended level in workspaces for an eight-hour day is 5,000 ppm, and the typical office worker inhales air containing up to 2,500 ppm. So why the fuss about the potential doubling of life-enriching CO2? (Contrary to the AGW theory, runaway temperatures are not a catastrophic side-effect of CO2 increases.)

Higher CO2 equals more food – Rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2 stimulate plant grown, resulting in higher agricultural yields. As Dr. Craig Idso and Dr. Keith Idso have shown, a 300 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 will increase the yield of nearly all food crops by 30 to 50 percent. According to both researchers, the expected rise in CO2 concentrations by 2050 will increase world agricultural production, but to levels that barely will be enough to prevent widespread famine. Efforts to limit CO2 would retard both industrial and agricultural production.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has determined that a one percent increase in CO2 boosts crop yields by eight percent, translating into a 33-pound-per-acre yield per 1-ppm rise in CO2. The USDA also found that a field of corn in full sunlight consumes all of the CO2 within three feet of the ground. The corn will stop growing unless the surrounding air is stirred constantly by wind currents. In fact, the plants are harmed at CO2 concentrations of 240 ppm, and they die at 160 ppm.

In short, more CO2 puts more food on the table. Human life, in terms of length and quality, has improved dramatically since the massive burning of fossil fuels. In their zeal to curb CO2 emissions, the Green movement seeks to deprive humanity of life-sustaining nutrition.

Rising CO2 is natural – Atmospheric CO2 has risen steadily for the past 18,000 years – long before fossil-fuel-burning factories and power plants dotted the landscape. Most of the greenhouse effect is natural – resulting from water vapor and other trace gases. Human-generated greenhouse gases account for roughly 0.28 percent of the greenhouse effect.

Man-made CO2 comprises about 0.117 percent of this total, and human contributions of other gases – for example, methane and nitrous oxide – add another 0.163 percent. Compared to water vapor, which makes up 95 percent of greenhouse gases, CO2, at roughly 3.6 percent, is a piddling amount. Capping CO2 emissions in a vain attempt to “stop global warming” would hobble industrial output and lower our standard of living, while having almost no impact on the Earth’s climate, which, according to recent reports, has entered a “cold mode” that could last 20 to 30 years.

Short atmospheric lifetime – The residence time of bulk atmospheric CO2 is roughly five years, a fact previously acknowledged by former IPCC Chairman Dr. Bert Bolin. This figure is steadfastly ignored or disputed by scientists who base their findings on carbon-cycle computer models that project theoretically longer lifetimes – 50 to 200 years, or longer – than those actually measured in the real world. Their model-manipulated conclusions are contradicted by observational data and geo-chemistry.

As Tom V. Segalstad, associate professor of resource and environmental geology at
the University of Oslo, notes:

“The . . . non-realistic carbon-cycle modeling and misconception of the way the geochemistry of CO2 works simply defy reality, and would make it impossible for breweries to make the carbonated beer or soda ‘pop’ that many of us enjoy (Segalstad, 1998).”

With such short CO2 residence times (about one fifth of the CO2 pool is exchanged every year between different sources and sinks), it is impossible for human activity to be the cause of rising CO2 levels.

As Segalstad observes: “Concerning the Earth's carbon cycle, the anthropogenic CO2 contribution and its influence are so small and negligible that our resources would be much better spent on other real challenges that are facing mankind.”

Contemptuous of any scientific data that would derail their globalist schemes, the international banking establishment and their political cronies are moving ahead at flank speed to fleece American citizens through a cap-and trade system that will drive their energy bills through the roof – all in the name of fighting a conjured-up bogeyman called “global warming.”

Initially, the cap-and-trade swindle will drive up energy costs by as much as $1,700 per year for many families. By 2035, those costs could escalate to more than $6,000 annually. And what about the economic losses caused by soaring energy costs and declining industrial output? Some independent analysts are projecting the loss of millions of jobs as the nation’s GDP reverses direction, throwing already hard-hit Americans out of their homes and onto the street.

As Lord Christopher Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, observes:

“To prevent that half a Fahrenheit degree of [predicted] warming imagined by the UN, we’d have to shut down -- and shut down completely -- the entire world economy for a decade. Right back to the Stone Age, and without even the right to light a carbon-emitting fire in our caves . . .

“The economic cost of trying to mitigate imagined ‘global warming’ by reducing our CO2 emissions must in all circumstances extravagantly, monstrously, absurdly outweigh any conceivable climatic benefit. It is this central economic truth . . . that the media and the politicians can no longer ignore.”