Good Carbon Dioxide

Maybe it’s my imagination but I seem to discern that trees and other vegetation are particularly lush this year.  Yes, here in Boston, we have had lots of rain, but could it also be that the flora here is feasting on our elevated levels of CO2?  In case you are not up on paleontology, during the Carboniferous Period (280-340 million years ago), CO2 levels were about ten times higher than what they are now. This is when plant life was oversized and rampant and when most of the coal, natural gas and petroleum was squished away underground for our current use.  Of course, this then presaged the gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs which then presaged the carnivorous dinosaurs which ate the plant-eaters.

As opposed to the teachings of the Cult of the Global-Warmers and the Environmental Protection Agency, CO2 is a good gas … not a pollutant.  It is a plant food and absolutely essential for floral life … even though it represents well less than 0.04% of our atmosphere (see: MI Stupid Site).  Are you surprised by such a small number?  If you ask the average person on the street for this percentage, I’m certain you will get a number hundreds of times larger (I know because I’ve done it.)

So why is there such global angst over a very small increase in this beneficial aerosol?  I think that we humans are rightfully concerned about our environment … and yet have very little understanding of how it works.  Therefore, we are easily panicked by self-serving charlatans and equally-ignorant politicians who take advantage of this anxiety. Interestingly the Chinese seems to have taken a much more pragmatic attitude toward this so-called impending global disaster … see: Powerline Blog and note many of the provocative queries therein

So, CO2 feeds all the world’s plants, makes our bread rise, and adds sparkle to our soft drinks and champagne.  It is not poisonous (that is carbon monoxide, CO) and is in much higher concentrations in our globe’s southern hemisphere (where it is getting colder) than in the northern hemisphere (where it might be getting slightly warmer).  This is not only counter-intuitive … but I think proves that there are many other things affecting our world’s climate than the callously castigated CO2.