The "Dangerous Pollutant" That's Vital to Life on Earth

Richard Stegemeier writes in the OC Register about the dastardly CO2 that the EPA has declared a dangerous pollutant:

The air we breathe contains 20 percent oxygen, which is vital to the survival of all human and animal life. Without oxygen we would all die within minutes. Atmospheric carbon dioxide on the other hand, at less than 0.04 percent, is a seemingly insignificant gas unworthy of legislative concern. Yet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, without congressional direction or approval, declared this month that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant that endangers the health of every human on Earth and must be controlled by her bureaucracy.

Obviously, Administrator Jackson's declaration was meant to frighten the American public, not to enlighten them, and cannot be taken seriously. Researchers in the United Kingdom report that CO2 levels in classrooms often exceed concentrations 10 times higher than ambient air without producing any ill effects.

So what is this presumably poisonous gas that has suddenly become the No. 1 health hazard on the EPA's hit list? Every human exhales a little more than two pounds of CO2 every day, just to stay alive. The world's population of over 6.3 billion people exhales more than 2.5 billion tons of CO2 every year, only slightly less than America's total emissions from petroleum.

John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, once said, "Man always and everywhere is a blight on the planet." Is this now the official line of the EPA?

Agronomists tell us that CO2, far from being a poison, is vital to all plant growth. If today's atmospheric CO2 concentration were to be cut in half, all vegetation would wither and die. Subsequently, without plant food all animal life would also perish within a short time. Agronomists also tell us that if CO2 levels were to double, plant growth could increase by as much as 40 percent without any effect on human health. In fact, rising CO2 levels caused by burning fossil fuels may be essential for food production necessary to sustain a world population expected to increase to 9 billion by 2050.

CO2 is little more than an aerosol fertilizer. Without it all that green stuff that feeds the world disappears, and all the stuff that eats that green stuff disappears.

It's really that simple.