The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared carbon dioxide to be a dangerous air pollutant when just the opposite is actually the case. Not only are increasing concentrations of atmopspheric CO2 not dangerous to human, animal or plant health, they actually benefit earth’s many life forms, counteracting the deleterious effects of real air pollutants.
Drs. Craig and Sherwood Idso tell the entire story in this marvelous book — The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment — with countless peer reviewed references to support their every claim.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is the elixir of life. It is the primary raw material out of which plants construct their tissues, which in turn are the materials out of which animals construct theirs. This knowledge is so well established that we humans and all the rest of the biosphere are described in the most basic terms as carbon based life forms.
Nowadays, all we ever hear about atmospheric CO2 are the negative consequences of its increasing concentrations. These distortions of the actual truth are spread by governments and environmental advocacy groups who recognize that this, mother of all fears, is a mechanism that could enable them to achieve dominance over man’s drive for personal freedom.
The Idsos characterize in this book 55 ways in which the modern rise in atmospheric CO2 is benefiting the earth’s biosphere. I will summarize here just 10 of them to tantalize your interest in this book.
Air Pollution Stress on Plants – As the CO2 content of the air rises, most plants reduce their stomatal apertures or openings through which they consume carbon dioxide and thereby reduce the intake of harmful pollutants that might damage their tissue and concurrently lose less moisture through evaporation.
Diseases of Plants - are commonly reduced as a result of improved immune systems that result from an increased CO2 environment surrounding them. this has been proved in hundreds of plant studies.
Flowers – Most plants produce more and larger flowers at higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
Health Promotion – CO2 enrichment increases the quantity and potency of the many beneficial substances found in the tissue of our food crops which therefore make it onto our dinner tables with more vitamin C and other antioxidants.
Medical Plants – Atmospheric CO2 increases the production of many health promoting substances in medicinal plants which have been shown to fight a wide variety of human maladies.
Nitrogen Fixation – increasing CO2 improves nitrogen fixation by soil bacteria which leads to increased nitrogen availability in the soil for plants normally needing additional nitrogen provisions.
Photosynthesis – Addiotional atmospheric CO2 typically increases the photosynthetic rates of nearly all plants while essentially never lowering it.
Soil Erosion – Because increased CO2 enables all plants to extract more moisture from its surroundings they expand their root systems and significantly stabilize soil, thus protecting it from erosion.
Transpiration – Plants take in CO2 from open pores called stomata through which mositure also exits the plant. With increased CO2 in the air, plants do not need to keep these pores open very long to capture the needed CO2 and thus are subject to less evaporation which is called transpiration.
Water Stress – When plants are growing under less than optimal conditions of soil water availability then the impact of adequate and in fact excess CO2 dramatically improves a plants chances of survival and in fact still healthy growth, a fact known to agronamists the world over.
Some one should advance this text for Pullitzer Prize consideration for literature in the area of clear scientific thought. It is amazing at many levels, great written descriptions, summarized with brilliant insight, organized with simplicity in making the obvious but lost case for the wonders of CO2 which alone makes life liveable on our planet.
Craig and Sherwood Idso are among the most tireless, honest and ethical scientists working to thoughtfully undermine the insanity of our global warming delusion and the absurdity of CO2’s depicition as an evil gas.
You can read this book through from A to Z or pick at any letter of the alphabet for clear and concise understanding of technical issues that you will be able to convey to open minded friends and associates who are yet persuaded by the fear mongers among us. Get a copy of this book and help us emerge from the surreal Alice in Wonderland place the world of junk science has become.
(Book info: The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment, by Craig D. Idso and Sherwood B. Idso, Published by Vales Lake Publishing, LLC, Pueblo West , CO)
Jay Lehr is the science director of The Heartland Institute.
