Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 8, 2013 | Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer

[neverdem]

The demonized chemical compound is a boon to pant life and has little correlation with global temperature.

Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.

The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere. There isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather.

The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a "pollutant" in need of reduction, would be a benefit. This is already widely recognized by operators of commercial greenhouses, who artificially increase the carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 ppm or more to improve the growth and quality of their plants.

Using energy from sunlight—together with the catalytic action of an ancient enzyme called rubisco, the most abundant protein on earth—plants convert carbon dioxide from the air...

[pax_et_bonum]

Thank you for posting this!

[rktman]

What do Harrison Schmidt and some prof know? The honest dr. james hansen is the brilliant one. NOT!

[DustyMoment]

FINALLY!!!

SOMEBODY understands the need for C02!!

Maybe, just MAYBE, we can one day conquer global stupidity!! This article is a start!

[Battle Axe]

I’ve been saying this for years, but it’s PLANT not pant.

BA

[SpaceBar]

Problem with all this is that the people who demonized carbon dioxide in the first place as the most evil substance since plutonium are functional retards, and any defence of it only legitimizes their moronic green propaganda.

[exDemMom]

Wonderful.

For the most part, I wouldn’t be quite so worried about “global warming” if some of these alarmists wouldn’t propose “solutions” that are far more dangerous than the “problem.”

Some particularly worrisome proposals are the schemes to sequester CO2. They want to bind up the carbon in an unusable form and bury it or something, thereby removing it from the carbon cycle permanently. Such a scheme would have a deleterious effect on the future of life on earth. A lot of harm could be done like that, because enough atmospheric carbon would have to be sequestered to cause global biomass to measurably shrink before any real effect on carbon concentration would be seen.

We need CO2. Without it, there is no life.

[Vaquero]

Jack Schmitt is OK in my book.

one of the last 2 men on the moon and an expert geologist(and a Republican Senator), this guy knows something about how planets work.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

That means yore blue genes won’t ware out.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I’m sorry for the poor spelling! I meant;
“That means yore blew genes won’t ware out.”

[9YearLurker]

I’m for anything that’s a boon to pant life!

[Techster]

Great article! It is well worth the read. Maybe one of these days real science will once again reign.

[Carry_Okie]

The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Not to mention the fraudulent basis for the proxy data underlying the historic temperature record.

[Para-Ord.45]

Too late, a buncha lawyers on the Supreme court ruled it as pollution.

[GraceG]

What do Harrison Schmidt and some prof know? The honest dr. james hansen is the brilliant one. NOT!

We want to listen to Paul Elrich, he says that “Giving humanity a cheap, clean, abundant, Form of energy would be like giving a child a machine gun”....

And Guns are BAD, BAD, BAD....

[rktman]

Yup. Mr. ZPG is a real wack job for sure. Funny that none of these ecowacko/gaia lovin’ folks want to do the right thing and remove themselves from the equation. After all it would be for the good of gaia and mankind. But then they are SOOOOOOO much smarter than we are. (Can I have my machine gun now please?)

[Forty-Niner]

There’s another name for CO2.....it’s called plant food!

[CedarDave]

Excellent article, very scientific and worth a full read.

Harrison H. Schmitt was nominated to head NM's Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department in 2010 following Susana Martinez's election as governor. Because of his opinion on global warming (along with his other conservative views), the libs demanded a more extensive background investigation into his activities which he refused and withdrew his nomination, in part to prevent it from drawing attention away from the new governor's agenda.

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