Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
courageous in the scientific community to
jump up on the bandwagon and support the
idea unquestioningly just to take advantage
of safety in numbers. Global change science
is a bandwagon if ever there was one.
The state of siege that climate scientists
find themselves in today has a similar
dampening effect, because of the verbal
abuse that inevitably follows the announce-
ment of a new scientific observation that
favors the human connection to climate
change. This problem is particularly real
for scientists who interact with the public
through media interviews, newspaper ar-
ticles, speeches, and seminars. Why ask for
trouble? Some find it better to remain in
the background.
modern agricultural advances are attrib-
utable in part to increased carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere, thanks to the Indus-
trial Revolution. The Idso brothers lead
the Center for the Study of Carbon Diox-
ide and Global Change, which was “created
to disseminate factual reports and sound
commentary on new developments in the
worldwide scientific quest to determine the
climatic and biological consequences of the
ongoing rise in the air's CO
2
content.”
The geologist H. Leighton Steward, in
his self-published topic
Fire, Ice, and Para-
dise
, suggests that the “old wives' tale” that
plants grow better if you talk to them might
be related to the CO
2
which is released with
every exhale of breath. Steward rejects the
notion that CO
2
should be considered a
pollutant, but instead considers it a “great
airborne fertilizer which, as its concentra-
tions rise, causes additional plant growth
and causes plants to need less water.” Stew-
ard also attributes 12% to 15% of world-
wide plant growth to the “100 ppm of CO
2
added to the atmosphere since the start of
the industrial revolution.” Steward main-
tains that the Earth needs more CO
2
, not
less, a view consistent with the aforemen-
tioned documentary
The Greening of Planet
Earth
, which proclaims, “more scientists are
confirming our world is deficient in CO
2
and a doubling of atmospheric CO
2
is very
beneficial.”
The potential positive impact on agricul-
ture is a commonly cited positive outcome
of increased CO
2
in the atmosphere. Stud-
ies have shown that CO
2
can boost plant
is carbon Dioxide Good
for the Planet?
Among the global warming contrarians is
a particular breed of CO
2
“boosters.” These
CO
2
cheerleaders argue that more carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans will
only increase plant and animal life. Chief
among these proponents is the Idso clan,
Sherwood Idso and his sons Craig and
Keith Idso. Sherwood Idso was affiliated
with the Greening Earth Society, a group
formed and funded by Western Fuels Asso-
ciation to promote the idea that increasing
CO
2
is good for humanity. They produced
two documentaries, the first of which,
The
Greening of Planet Earth: The Effects of Car-
bon Dioxide on the Biosphere
, argues that
