We need more CO2 in our lives, not less.
“CO2 is basically plant food, and the more CO2 in the environment the better plants do,” Roger Bezdek
“CO2 increases over the past several decades have increased global greening by about 11 percent,” Higher carbon levels in the atmosphere will boost worldwide agricultural productivity by $10 trillion over the next 35 years.
And this doesn’t include the indirect benefits of good-ol’ CO2. “Over the past two centuries, global life expectancy has more than doubled, population has increased eightfold, incomes have increased 11-fold. At the same time, CO2 concentrations increased from 320 ppm to about 400 ppm,” Bezdek said, using the abbreviation for parts per million. The benefits of CO2, he said, exceed its costs by ratios of between 100-1 and 900-1. Illustrating this “Close Link Between CO2 & GDP.”
Even if we could reduce CO2, we shouldn’t. “If these benefits are real — and there have been five decades and thousands of studies and major conferences that pretty much have proven they are — then maybe we shouldn’t be too eager to get rid of CO2 in the atmosphere.”
“These days, CO2 seems to be blamed for everything,” he lamented, but the much-maligned gas is what’s keeping the world from an economic collapse so deep “you’d look upon North Korea as an economic consumer’s paradise, literally.” He mocked European efforts to use renewable fuels (“You can’t check your e-mail today because the wind isn’t blowing”) and he said that in the United States, “inability to pay utility bills is the second-leading cause of homelessness.”
Clearly, more CO2 would make us all breathe easier. “Controlled studies indicated that twice today’s levels would be very good for agriculture,” he said, “and below certain levels . . . plants wouldn’t grow and we wouldn’t live.”
Luckily, we need not worry about that, because Bezdek is confident fossil fuels will continue to prevail. In “2070 will we have a new and different energy source?” he asked. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“CO2 is not harmful and is actually good for the planet…”
“The federal SCC [social costs of carbon] estimates do not adequately consider the benefits 27 of fossil fuels andCO2 emission.”
“In reality, the ‘scientific consensus’ is a manufactured myth…”
“… there is no convincing evidence that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) will produce catastrophic climate changes.”