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Carbon dioxide is a life-giving gas

Local PhD responds to recent David Suzuki columns in the Trail Times.

David Suzuki rightly rejects the existence of chemtrails but then undermines his scientific credibility by lending credence to the CO2-induced, anthropogenic, global-warming (“AGW”) narrative. Ignoring the fact that global warming stopped more than 15 years ago, he states that “one of our greatest impacts is global warming” and that it “is the most pressing threat to humanity.” (“A silver bullet for climate change?” Trail Times, Aug. 23 and “Conspiracies fuel climate change denial,” Trail Times, Sept. 5)

Obviously, Suzuki has forgotten the basic scientific principles that are violated by the AGW hypothesis.

He also seems to have forgotten that global cooling has been the greatest climate threat to civilizations.

Moreover, he apparently lacks an appreciation of the nature and importance of carbon dioxide (“CO2”). The following facts clearly reveal that the CO2-induced, global-warming hypothesis is without merit.

- CO2 is an essential plant food and is as important as oxygen and water in sustaining life on the planet;

- The CO2 content of the atmosphere is a fraction of that contained in ancient atmospheres;

- The CO2 available to support life is stored in the atmosphere and oceans;

- Our air/ocean store of CO2 has been severely depleted by natural processes to form carbonate rocks such as limestone; and

- The consumption of all known coal, oil, and gas deposits will add only 5,000 gtC* to this depleted store of CO2 (40,000 gtC). Dinosaurs enjoyed a supply of lush vegetation sustained by a store containing 200,000 gtC of CO2.

(*gtC = billions of tonnes - gigatonnes - of carbon contained in the CO2 molecule)

Therefore, any debate pertaining to the validity of climate-model projections of global temperatures is irrelevant simply because the quantity of CO2 that can be generated from coal, oil, and gas is immaterial. Consequently, the atmosphere will remain CO2 impoverished even after the consumption of all known coal, oil, and gas deposits.

Unfortunately, governments are squandering billions of dollars in an attempt to capture and bury CO2. This is an irrational activity in our CO2-impoverished atmosphere.

Furthermore, any attempt to geoengineer climate by accelerating the rate of natural CO2 sequestration could, if wildly successful, give mankind the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. The world’s plants and animals would perish if we lost control of such an experiment.

Any biologist should know that carbon dioxide is the gas of life and must be cherished; not vilified, banned, or buried.

Thorpe Watson, PhD

Warfield