February 2, 2007
Carbon dioxide is good
By Fred Hutchison
Letter to the Editor, The Columbus Dispatch
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant or a greenhouse gas. It is a wholesome, naturally occurring, colorless and odorless gas. In fact, if carbon dioxide suddenly disappeared, at least 99% of the species on earth, including man, would die. Without carbon dioxide, there would be no photosynthesis of green plants, and without photosynthesis, we would have no oxygen to breathe and no food to eat.
Chemists tell us that carbon dioxide molecules retain heat a bit longer than does the nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air. Chemists also tell us that if you combine gasses of different temperature, convection currents will equalize the temperature of the gas molecules. As the air cools during the night, the temperature of the nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules equalize. Therefore, the amount of heat released from the atmosphere into outer space during a twenty four hour cycle would be the same for nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Affect on global warming — zero.
Where does carbon dioxide gas in the air come from? 1) Oxidation of living and dead plant and animal life, 2) Volcanoes, and 3) Forest fires. The amount of carbon dioxide coming from industry is immaterial in comparison to these three sources.
Is the earth warming? Yes, the earth is recovering from the “Little Ice Age.” We have enjoyed two centuries of intermittent recovery from the bitter cold which the American Founding Fathers suffered through. However, the warming earth has not yet reached the temperatures of the Medieval Warm Period or the Roman Warm Period. Northern Europe enjoyed bumper crops during the Medieval Warm Period, the population tripled and European civilization revived. Europe had suffering a Dark Age during a time of cooling but civilization revived late in the subsequent warming phase. When a new cycle of global cooling began in the fourteenth century, the mild, relatively stable weather of Europe during the Medieval Warm Period gave way to fierce storms, flooding and famine.
© Fred Hutchison
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/hutchison/070202
True, but irrelevant. 1 and 3 are part of the carbon cycle, by which carbon goes in and out of the atmosphere but the total in the ecosystem does not change significantly.
Very much like the hydrologic cycle, by which water changes phase and location but not in quantity.
Fossil fuels are ancient parts of the carbon cycle that got isolated from the ecosystem. When they are burned they increase the total of carbon, not just move it around. Even a slow, gradual increase in a constituent of the atmosphere may eventually result in a significant effect.
There are lots of good arguments for why the "global warming" thing is exaggerated, but this isn't one of them.