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Carbon Dioxide: The Green Greenhouse Gas of Life (and ‘miracle molecule’)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#p_dreissen">Paul Driessen</a> -- August 13, 2013

“CO2 is also a pollution fighter that reduces the harmful effects of ozone, nitrous oxides and other pollutants in the air, or too much nitrogen fertilizer in the soil.”

It’s amazing that minuscule bacteria can cause life-threatening diseases and infections – and miraculous that tiny doses of vaccines and antibiotics can safeguard us against these deadly scourges.

Equally astounding, trace amounts of selenium in our bodies protect us against the harmful effects of methylmercury. Just as incredible, this same element added to a manmade formula helps ensure that musk oxen calves survive their first year of life in an Alaskan wildlife conservation area where soils and thus forage are so deficient in selenium that their mothers’ milk cannot nourish them adequately.

It may thus not be too surprising that, at the planetary level, carbon dioxide is a miracle molecule for plants – and the “gas of life” for most living creatures on Earth.

‘The Greening of Planet Earth’ (the 1992 video, updated in 1998, needs another update)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 25, 2013

“[M]any industry groups have maintained that putting carbon dioxide in the air would produce a general ‘greening’ of the planet. In fact, that’s the thesis of a famous 1992 video, “The Greening of Planet Earth,” which riled the environmental community more than just about anything else [because] … big-name scientists were willing to appear and argue that carbon dioxide will enhance global plant growth.”

– Patrick Michaels, Global Warming Produced a Greener, More Fruitful Planet, September 13, 2001.

Today, President Obama sounds the climate alarm and calls for more regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2). Throwing bad regulation after bad in the name of climate change is all about costs without commensurate benefits. Simple math shows that unilateral action by California or the U.S. or North American will not have a discernible influence on climate decades out.