Possibly to the dismay of every climate alarmist who believes carbon dioxide produced by mankind’s activities is destroying the earth, the Heartland Institute has just released a study asserting that reports of our planet’s impending death are not only greatly exaggerated but also, thanks to CO2, earth should enjoy good health for years to come.
The Heartland report can be described as semi-technical but readable (no differential equations, thank goodness), but the conclusions to be drawn from the study are easy to grasp:
In the Introduction of this report we outlined two conflicting views that are held with respect to the potential effects of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and warmer temperatures on the productivity of Earth’s biosphere. One view, held by climate alarmists and based primarily on computer model projections, posits that increases in CO2 and global temperature will have devastating effects on terrestrial vegetation, potentially causing the extinction of numerous species of plants. The opposing view, offered by climate skeptics, maintains that the alarmist projections are wholly incorrect and that rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations will lead to significant increases in the growth and productivity of Earth’s plants everywhere they are found.
— The vigor of Earth’s terrestrial biosphere has been increasing with time, revealing a great greening of the planet that extends throughout the entire globe.
— There is no empirical evidence to support the model-based claim that future carbon uptake will diminish on a global scale due to rising temperatures.
— The observed greening of the Earth has occurred in spite of all the many real and imagined assaults on Earth’s vegetation over this time period, including fires, disease, outbreaks of pests, deforestation, and climatic changes, primarily in temperature and precipitation.
— The atmosphere’s rising CO2 content – which alarmists consider to be the chief culprit behind all of their concerns about the future of the biosphere (via the indirect threats they claim it poses as a result of CO2-induced climate change) – is most likely the primary cause of the observed greening trends.Considering all of the above, the recent “greening of the Earth” observed by a host of scientists will likely continue in the years and decades to come.
In other words, worry less about CO2 and more about those people who say we should be scared of it.
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Internet resources:
The Heartland Institute.
The report: The State of Earth’s Terrestrial Biosphere (PDF, 134 pages).