Repeal of CO2 Rule Is a Return to Commonsense

Calling carbon dioxide (CO₂) a beneficial gas could draw mockery or moral outrage. Perhaps even an accusation of “denying science.” For nearly two decades, political forces successfully branded this life-giving gas a toxic agent, a cause of both floods and droughts, and a thief of the grandchildren’s future. One solution was to force people to trade their SUVs for overpriced and underwhelming electric vehicles.
Underlying this is a 2007 Supreme Court ruling (Massachusetts versus EPA) that required the agency to regulate greenhouse gases if it found them to be dangerous. This led the Obama EPA to do just that, issuing its 2009 Endangerment Finding that triggered various actions to regulate the emissions of CO₂ and other gases.

Critics of the Endangerment Finding point to its lack of a scientific basis for treating a beneficial gas like CO₂ as hazardous. Hardly anything speaks to the absurdity more than the fact that everybody exhales daily two pounds of carbon dioxide.

So, the EPA’s recent rescission of the Endangerment Finding as it applies to motor vehicles is welcomed by not only lovers of the internal combustion engine but also by adherents to common sense. Regulating CO₂ under vehicle provisions created “an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority,” touching “virtually every sector of the economy,” said the agency. (Observers anticipate that EPA also will eliminate its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities.)

EPA returns to reality

EPA’s decision is a long-overdue correction of a regulatory action that exceeded the agency’s congressional authority under the Clean Air Act and ignored mountains of evidence that CO₂ is not a threat. Claims to the contrary are based on exaggerations of the gas’s warming potential and computer models built around unproven assumptions.

Moreover, decreasing atmospheric CO_2, as the rule sought to do, only dampens the gas’s benefit as a plant food. Throughphotosynthesis, plants take in carbon dioxide and combine it with water and sunlight to produce the sugars that form building blocks of the entire food chain. 
When atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ increase, not only do plants grow faster, but they also use water more efficiently and become more drought-resistant. Satellite observations have recorded a striking increase in global leaf area across much of the world’s vegetated regions. NASA acknowledges that CO₂ fertilization is responsible for most of the greening observed since the 1980s.
A comprehensive scientific analysis found that up to 50% of the global vegetated area showed significant greening between 1982 and 2009 and that rising atmospheric CO₂ accounted for roughly 70% of this greening trend, dwarfing contributions from other factors such as nitrogen deposition, climate influences, and land‑use changes.

In the competitive world of greenhouse agriculture, farmers pay money to pump additional CO₂ into their facilities – increasing interior concentrations by three to four times the levels in the ambient atmosphere.
David Legates, former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware, says, “CO₂ enhances photosynthesis and … the greening trend continues without slowing, with CO₂ fertilization as the primary driver.” He goes on to state that “if warming is moderate, it should make little difference to global economic growth and could potentially contribute to it due to longer growing seasons, fewer cold-related deaths, and the agricultural productivity gains from atmospheric CO₂ fertilization.”

William Happer, professor of physics emeritus at Princeton University, drives the point home: “Although doubling atmospheric CO₂ will cause only a small and benign increase in temperature, it will be enormously beneficial for agriculture and forestry.” 

EPA notes that the elimination of all greenhouse-gas emissions from U.S. vehicles would have only “de minimis” effects on global mean surface temperature (0.067 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100). This meaningless theoretical difference needs to be compared to the very real burdens on consumers, manufacturers, and workers that the war on fossil fuels has imposed.

A persistent narrative

Despite the undeniable benefits of CO₂ – affirmed and acknowledged by thousands of independent researchers and peer-reviewed scientific literature – much of the public discourse remains influenced by career politicians, sensationalist media, woke academic departments, and scientists attached to organizations like the corrupt United Nations. Thus, the relentless campaign to represent a gas necessary for life itself as a danger will likely continue for some time. At stake are billions of dollars invested by the deluded and deceptive and the egos of those who presume to manage a climate well beyond their control.

Nonetheless, striking down the Endangerment Finding is a beginning for officialdom’s restoration of CO₂ to its proper place as a beneficial molecule for which there is no need for measures to protect the public. The 2009 determination that ignored this fact was not scientific; it was political.

Enjoying PJ Media?

Get exclusive content and support independent journalism with 60% off a PJ Media VIP membership. Use promo code FIGHT and join today.