CO2 Is Good

As George Orwell observed, “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” So it becomes necessary to ask stupid questions like, “Can anything good come from CO2?” The answer of course is hell yes. In contrast, nothing good would come of the insane Paris Agreement:

Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that it will cost the world $7.4 trillion by 2040, and Bjørn Lomborg estimates that it will cost from $70 to $140 trillion by 2100 if all nations comply with the Paris Agreement.

That’s not counting the $20 billion per year the USA has been wasting on whimsical attempts to make the weather colder.

What do we get for the money?

Estimates assuming that CO2’s warming effect is large range to as much as a 1.5-degree centigrade reduction in global average temperature at the end of this century. But the most credible figure, generously based on the IPCC’s own assumptions of CO2’s warming effect, seems to be under 0.2 degrees centigrade.

Even if you believe the politically driven “experts,” the supposed benefits would be negligible. There is the strong possibility that nothing moonbat bureaucrats could impose would have any effect whatsoever on temperatures.

Meanwhile, even as warming plateaus, carbon dioxide levels continue to climb. This is fortunate, because as every schoolchild used to know, CO2 enhances plant growth:

Over 1,000 scientific studies on a variety of plants have documented this growth, but only recently has there been an attempt to put a monetary value on the increases.

Dr. Craig Idso, in a fascinating investigation, used the results of these studies to determine the growth rate of 45 plants for the period 1961–2011. These plants produce 95% of the food for the world’s population. He then converted this growth into a dollar value. For the fifty-year period ending in 2011, growth of plants by CO2 resulted in an increase of $3.2 trillion for the world’s agricultural community.

Dr. Idso then projected these results forward to 2050, assuming that CO2 would continue to increase at the current rate. The world could realize an astounding $9.8-trillion additional bonus!

Let’s see, we can let CO2 continue to rise and reap $trillions in increased agricultural yields, or we can impose tyrannical measures to slow it down that will cost tens of $trillions with no perceptible benefit. For moonbats, it’s a no-brainer; they choose the latter.

On a tip from Bodhisattva.