In 2013, astrobiologist Jack O’Malley-James predicted that visible life on Earth would end due to too little atmospheric CO2. No, that’s not a typo. The gas’ levels will ultimately decline over time (the dinosaur age saw levels five to 10 times today’s), O’Malley-James explained. Eventually, they’ll drop so low that plants won’t be able to photosynthesize, which, of course, will collapse the food chain. And, sorry, but you won’t be the “last man standing” — unless you happen to be a microbe.
Oh, don’t reorganize your investment strategy around this eventuality. Don’t resolve to “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” O’Malley-James says that this deadly CO2 famine won’t befall us for another billion years. And this helps explain, of course, why politicians won’t be talking about it. (It’s a bit beyond their period of concern — i.e., the next election cycle.) The good news, too, is that it’s also nothing to ever worry about. We’ll no doubt destroy ourselves in some other, perhaps novel way, long before then.
CDS
Regarding our demise’s author, however, could it be CO2-induced global warming? The mainstream media say yes. In fact, carbon dioxide has become the Donald Trump of the gas world, with CDS (Carbon Derangement Syndrome) afflicting many. Just consider the following ominous headline:
“Almost no carbon dioxide absorbed by trees and land in 2023, new study warns.”
(By the way, if the trees are on strike, that’s another rap against the Biden-Harris administration.)
But that story ran five days ago. Just two days ago, however, was the following:
Climate Models Fall Short as Plants Absorb 31% More Carbon Than Expected.
Then, just a day before the latter was this title:
(So, yes, “follow the science”; just be ready to switch directions fast, on really short notice.)
Yet is CDS warranted at all? Should we worry about how much CO2 is produced or absorbed? Not a bit, says American Thinker (AT), in an article last Friday titled “Simple Facts Expose The Climate Change Hoax.”
Much Maligned Gas of Life
AT presents five CO2 myths, along with the site’s refutations. The first (all quotations/emphasis are AT’s):
CO2 is the “control knob” for the climate. This has been proven to be ridiculous. CO2 makes up only about 0.04% of the atmosphere, while 96–99% of the atmosphere is oxygen and nitrogen. Water vapor, a much larger determinant of temperature, varies from 1-4%. But what determines temperature more than anything else? Changes in the Earth’s solar orbit (obviously). NASA has admitted this.
The second:
CO2 is harmful. Wrong! CO2 is plant food. Humans inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Plants do the reverse. It is scientific fact that higher levels of CO2 lead to greater plant growth. This is essential if we are going to continue to be able to feed an increasing world population and one of the reasons why the planet now supports 8 billion humans.
In fact, it is because the gas facilitates plant growth that botanists actually pump it into their greenhouses. Moreover, the Earth has actually gotten greener during the last 35 years owing to higher CO2 levels.
(Note: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has also, surprising scientists, experienced rapid growth in recent times. The point is that not everything environmental is doom and gloom.)
How High Are CO2 Levels, Really?
Then there’s the third myth:
We are at historically high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Again, not true. We are actually at historically low levels of CO2. Before the Industrial Revolution, the seminal starting point for climate hysteria (often cited by climate hysterics), the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was approximately 290 ppm (parts per million). Plant life begins to succumb (it dies) around 150ppm. The amount of CO2 currently in the atmosphere is roughly 420ppm.
During the dinosaur age, the gas’ level was approximately 3600ppm — about 8.5 times as high as now. This at least helps account for the copious lush foliage blanketing the Earth at the time.
AT then quotes an Armstrong Economics article about warmist sleight-of-hand. To wit:
The data clearly establishes that there has always been a cycle to CO2 long before man’s industrial age. This is data government wants to hide. As along as they can pretend CO2 has never risen in the past before 1950, then they can tax the air and pretend it’s to prevent climate change. Moreover, while we can clean the air with regulation as we have done, under global warming, they allow “credits” to pollute as long as you pay the government. It is the ultimate scam where they get to tax pollution and people cheer rather than clean up anything.
In reality, the U.S.’s air and water are cleaner than they were 60 years ago. We Americans have done a good job with the environment. In contrast, the warmist agenda has actually damaged the environment by causing the destruction of forest.
Where’s the Crystal Ball?
Finally, there are AT’s last two points:
It’s nonsensical to create government policies based on future hypotheticals about natural processes. Does it make sense that anybody would base policy (and spend money) on predicting what could happen in the future? Are there not infinite possibilities as to what could happen?
… If we can’t even predict the weather, how can we control it? If you still have arrived at a point where you believe that CO2 is the weather control knob, it’s harmful, we’re at historically high levels of it, and that the US government (or any other entity on earth, perhaps maybe the UN) can predict the weather, then how would they go about controlling it?
Late author Michael Crichton made the second-to-last point, about prognosticator folly, beautifully in a 2003 lecture. “Look,” he said, if “I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?” He then illustrated how people in 1903 had no idea what 2003’s world would look like. Likewise, do you really think we have any accurate idea what the world will be like in 2100?
Can Industrial Emissions Be Good?
AT also provides the following video about our CO2 famine.
So assuming man’s activities are elevating CO2 levels, a very serious question is raised. What if this is a good thing? What if industrial emissions are staving off CO2 deprivation’s frightening effects?
This gets at a deeper, philosophical error characterizing our time, a misanthropic spirit virtually everyone displays, left, right, and center. That is, an assumption that man’s effects on the environment are always negative.
Considering this mindset, one would think man is something apart from nature, an unnatural, alien agent inflicted upon the world. But whether you believe we’re mere products of evolution — and hence just intelligent animals — or that we’re divinely created, it comes out essentially the same: We’re either part of nature or part of God’s creation. We’re as “natural” as any species of flora or fauna.
This doesn’t mean we can’t do damage; it does mean that we can also do good. The bottom line is that man’s actions aren’t always bad. But our Carbon Derangement Syndrome can be deadly.
