Scientist says CO2 ‘good for planet’

http://www.codyenterprise.com ^ | Sept 22, 2009 | By Kristen Inbody

[Maelstorm]

There’s good news on the global climate change front: All that carbon dioxide blamed for global warming is actually good for our planet, says Cody scientist and writer Leighton Steward.

“The earth’s atmosphere needs more carbon dioxide,” he said at a recent Rotary Club meeting. “That ought to get everyone’s attention.”

The CO2 level now is about 385 parts per million. It’s been as high as 7,000 during the earth’s history. *

“Climate is always changing,” he said. “You should never expect climate at an equilibrium, and history shows it’s not.”

More CO2 means better crops and forests, Steward says, but not necessarily a warmer planet since other factors play a bigger role in heating the planet.

“This relates directly to the food supply,” he said. “Green is good, and CO2 is very green.”

CO2 boosts plant growth, making them larger, faster-growing and more drought tolerant with better roots. Steward calls that good news in a world with a growing population.

“When you’re deciding what ought to be done, think about what this could do for mankind,” he said.

Taking CO2 back to pre-industrial levels would degrade habitats and push people into starvation, Steward said.

“CO2 is not a pollutant. It’s the stuff of life. I can’t find anything that’s not beneficial,” he said. “This comes from thousands of studies – mainly from the agricultural community, and these are not casual observers.”

Spending billions and enacting draconian restrictions to fight a “pollutant” that’s not a pollutant isn’t helping anyone, he said.

“If we let our factories continue to manufacture, that’s not necessarily bad and might be good,” he said. “We (pro-CO2 groups) are greener than all the green organizations lobbying to reduce CO2.”

It’s a message scientists across the world are trying to promote, and Steward cited numerous studies.

When he started researching climate change four years ago, Steward found there are 18 “drivers” of climate change, including things like variation in the shape of the earth’s orbit, sunspots and the magnetic effect of the sun.

CO2’s ability to trap heat declines logarithmically, so a great deal of the gas makes a big difference, but as the level dips the difference it makes drops exponentially.

That means doubling the current concentration of CO2 would only make a .2 degree difference, he said.

If CO2 was a significant factor in global warming, temperatures would have risen – as modeling predicted – instead of declining since 2001.

“It’s hard to argue with that,” he said. “They did not predict in any of their models that it would be cooling.”

Since the Industrial Revolution, people have pumped CO2 into the atmosphere and temperature has generally risen, though not always.

“These are natural trends,” he said. “Look at the magnitude of climate variation. Huge swings of 10, 15, 20 degrees.”

Former vice president Al Gore got facts wrong in his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Steward said.

“Clearly things were absolutely false in some cases and misleading in other cases,” he said.

For example, Gore said the earth was warming at an unprecedented rate. However, in the 1920s and ’30s, the temperature increase was more dramatic, Steward said.

Contrary to Gore’s findings, cyclone and tornado strength is actually down now, says Steward, a geologist and retired energy industry executive. He is a trustee at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and lives on the North Fork and in Texas.

Steward, the author of the best-seller “Sugar Busters,” recently published “Fire, Ice and Paradise” on climate change.

This summer, he organized a non-profit organization, “Plants Need CO2,” with the mission, “To educate the public on the positive effects of additional atmospheric CO2 and help prevent the inadvertent negative impact to human, plant and animal life if we reduce CO2.”

More than half the contributions to his group are from the coal industry, he said. CO2 is released during the burning of fossil fuels, among other sources.

“I’m not getting a penny for doing this,” he added. “It’s just something people of the earth ought to know.”

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[AFPhys]

<<---PRESENT Day is on the left side!!! This chart shows the CO2 levels for the past 500million years.

The two major ways that plants use CO2 are called C3 and C4 photosynthesis. The C3 process evolved first when CO2 levels were at least double today's, from 100M-500+M years ago, and is used by 99% of plants now. About 30Million years ago, the increasing SCARCITY of CO2 gave rise to the C4 process. Even though the C4 plants are only 1% of species, they are much more efficient in this scarce CO2 environment, and yet represent over 5% of plant mass since that 1% of species is 30% better at using CO2 in this rarefied CO2 environment.

As CO2 rises, the C3 process, used by so many plants including many of the "endangered" species, becomes more competitive. No surprise! It was evolved in a MUCH higher CO2 environment!

C4 plants are much better in extreme hot temperatures and drought (read deserts). In normal damp tropical environments nowadays (tropical jungles) they overwhelm the C3s now.

A true ecologist would be cheering for HIGHER CO2 to help the all those endangered C3 species grow better!

[AFPhys]

The AGW hoax is all about de-developing the developing world.

Today Dear Leader made an excited speech claiming how the US has reduced CO2 release more this past 8 months than ever before! GREAT THING!

Fool doesn’t mention the reason is that the current RECESSION has been the cause of the drop. Recession is temporary de-development. These alarmists are trying to make this type of thing PERMANENT.

However, the drop in CO2 emission they are pushing dwarfs the small decrease caused by this recession.

[American Constitutionalist]

GLOBAL WARMING HOAX = PERMANENT RECESSION

[blackie]

Truth will win out!

[listenhillary]

CarrieOakly? Freeper? former freeper? had written a book on the complexity of nature’s systems and the folly of being able to model them. (Sorry if I butchered this)

If their AGW models were so good, they should have shown the stall and the cooling we have seen in the last 10 years.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

What do you think trees and plants breathe?

If somehow we could eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere, we’d all die.

The plants generate our oxygen.

[4woodenboats]

There's a FReeper named CarrieOkie, don't know if that's the one you're referring to

[2old4allthis]

Two great places for objective (should that have to be stated?) scientific information are http://www.discovery.org/v/30 and http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/ . Also, consider going to the article “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” at friendsofscience.org/assets/files/documents/robinson.pdf . At least read the Abstract, and consider reading the Summary (about 1300 words). Dr. Arthur Robinson at oism.org is one of the leading voices in this debate and a scientist’s scientist. (Consider subscribing to his newsletter Access To Energy - the best $35/year you can spend.) Arthur’s home-schooled son, Dr. Noah Robinson, presents the video lecture at discovery.org.

[Night Hides Not]

Yep...looks like a racist, Obaman-hatin’ teabagger. LOL!

[Night Hides Not]

When confronted with Gorebal Warming fear, I bring up the fact that around 1000 AD the Vikings grew grain in Greenland (which is now under permafrost).

I simply ask, "didn't you ever read about the 'Little Ice Age'"?

[philman_36]

A ray of sunshine on an overcast day.

[exDemMom]

It is a fact that a person can die from drinking too much water, are we going to start calling water bad or a pollutant?

Dihydrogen monoxide should be banned, and every effort made to eliminate it wherever it occurs. I can't think of any other chemical that is more destructive of human life. Not only does it suffocate people, but it damages property so catastrophically that often people who do not suffocate die from being hit by the debris or trapped in it.

[exDemMom]

Actually, I’m wondering at what concentration of CO2 would it become impossible for plants to function?

Since chemical reactions are driven by the relative concentration of the reactants on each side of the equation, that would be interesting to know.

It worries me when I read about schemes not just to reduce CO2 production, but to sequester it from the atmosphere. China has a carbon sequestration plant either currently or soon-to-be operational. How much CO2 can be sequestered before shutting down photosynthesis? What minimum concentration of CO2 will still support plant life?