Scientist: Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Cause Global Warming

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 2009-10-10 06:52.

Paul Bedard at US News & World Report - Leighton Steward, a noted geologist, is telling people that CO2 is not a problem. Actually, the world needs more of it. He is part of a non-profit group, Plants Need C02, whose mission is "to educate the public on the positive effects of additional atmospheric CO2 and help prevent the inadvertent negative impact to human, plant and animal life if we reduce CO2." Remember kids, animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2. Plants breathe in CO2, and breathe out oxygen. More CO2 means more and healthier plants.

Quote:
In taking on lawmakers pushing for a cap-and-trade plan to deal with emissions, Steward tells Whispers that he's worried that the legislation will result in huge and unneeded taxes. Worse, if CO2 levels are cut, he warns, food production will slow because plants grown at higher CO2 levels make larger fruit and vegetables and also use less water. He also said that higher CO2 levels are not harmful to humans. As an example, he said that Earth's atmosphere currently has about 338 parts per million of CO2 and that in Navy subs, the danger level for carbon dioxide isn't reached until the air has 8,000 parts per million of CO2.

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( categories: Politics )
Global Warming
Submitted by Justin Buist (not verified) on Sat, 2009-10-10 22:37.

Two things I'd like to mention.

1) I've heard from a member of a rather conservative gun board that I'm on, that's actually a climate scientist IIRC, that we're at over 500 ppm CO2 levels, not 338. It's been a long time but I think his "tipping point" was 500 ppm, levels around 300 ppm had been seen before, but nobody really knew what would happen with current CO2 levels. Just thought I'd mention it so you could file that data way in case you run into such numbers again.

2) The sub thing doesn't surprise me but it's not really related to climate; just environments in which humans can tolerate. Trivia follows.

Most folks think the human brain knows when it's lacking oxygen but it doesn't. Instead the brain reads levels of carbonic acid (dissolve CO2 in the blood stream) and uses that to tell us when we need to breathe. It works wonderfully well in actual real-world environments. If you're running the aerobic activity results in more carbonic acid in the blood stream and you breathe harder. Your body needs more oxygen but it isn't directly aware of that. It simply knows you have too much CO2 in you. In an artificial environment, like a sub or a space ship, your body will enter a panic state when CO2 levels get too high even if you have enough oxygen. You'll feel, and act, like you're suffocating. You body will start convulsing trying to suck in more oxygen even if it isn't lacking any. Keep that in mind that next time you watch Apollo 13 on TBS. It wasn't the lack of oxygen they were worried about because there wasn't one.

So, if you've ever wondered why everybody and their brother tells you to exhale to steady your shot before taking it, there you go. Our body isn't calmed by inhaling oxygen, it's calmed by exhaling CO2.

That's also why CO (carbon monoxide) poisoning is painless. We have no mechanism for detecting it or the lack of oxygen in the blood that it causes.

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