by Ron Barby
The political tunnel vision of global warming has led to the declaration of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide as an existential threat. But the United Nations’ determination to reduce carbon dioxide levels runs counter to its goals of ending world hunger, promoting world peace and protecting global ecosystems. It does not address the main question related to those three goals: Which path produces the greatest benefit for the most people – CO2 reduction or increase2?
The numbers since 2000 provide compelling evidence that increasing carbon dioxide has a positive effect and reducing carbon emissions has dire consequences.
World hunger
CO2 in the atmosphere pre-industrial (circa 1850)2 concentrations of 280 ppm (parts per million) compared with 420 ppm today, a 50% increase. Meanwhile, the global population has increased by 560%, from 1.2 billion people to 8 billion people.
Those 6.8 billion additional people are fed mainly, and not all by human agricultural productivity, pest control, and plant genetics.
Observations of the Earth’s vegetation cover since 2000 by NASA’s Terra satellite show that vegetation has increased by 10% in the first 20 years of the century. Clearly, something other than agriculture is helping to improve the overall growth of the crop.
in one recent research Supported by the US Department of Energy, Dr. Charles Taylor and Dr. Wolfram Schlenker have quantified how much extra greenery leads to food for human consumption since 2000. Using satellite imagery of cropland crop in the United States, they estimated that CO2 increased by 1 ppm2 resulted in increases in maize, soybean and wheat yields of 0.4%, 0.6% and 1% respectively. They also extrapolate back to 1940 and attribute a 500% increase in maize yields and a 200% increase in soybean and winter wheat yields largely due to a 100 ppm increase in CO2.2 since then.
CO . gas2 fertilization not only greens the Earth, it also feeds a very fertile human species.
World peace
Although the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere does not promote world peace, try to prevent CO2 emissions in Western democracies have increased CO2 emissions, wealth and influence of totalitarian Russia and China.
european statistics, The statistical office of the European Union (EU), reports that the EU’s dependence on imported natural gas has increased from 15.5% of its energy needs in 2000 to 22.5% in 2020. Russia is Europe’s main supplier of natural gas. Keeping Europe’s energy security in its pipeline not only helps finance Russia’s 2021 invasion of Ukraine, but also limits the economic sanctions Europe could impose in retaliation. chopsticks.
According to online scientific publication Our data world, between 2000 and 2020, the G7 nations have lost 13.8% of the world’s share of GDP, and China accounts for 12%.
The West (EU plus UK, US, Canada and Japan) passes GDP growth to China and energy security to Russia and can reduce CO2 emissions from 45% of the global total in 2000 to 25% in 2020. During the same period of CO in China2 emissions increased from 14% to 31%, resulting in a 39% increase in total CO2 global emissions.
Undesirable consequences of the West’s CO reduction efforts2 emissions are to prop up the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia—and in the case of Russia, to partially finance the invasion of a sovereign and democratic neighbor, Ukraine.
world ecology
Much of the human footprint on Earth is where the products we consume originate: We grow them on the surface of the planet or extract them from within the planet’s crust.
IN testimony Before the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee in 2021, Mark Mills, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, estimates that replacing each unit of hydrocarbon power with “clean tech” energy on average. would lead to the extraction of 5 to 10 times more material from the Earth than the production of hydrocarbons.
Mills also points out that Chinese companies dominate the production and processing of many key rare earth elements, and that nearly all of the growth in the mining sector is expected to take place overseas. increasingly in wild areas of vulnerable biodiversity.
Decarbonization will result in heavy environmental costs due to an unprecedented increase in mining activity.
One last number
Since El Niño caused the current highest average global temperature in 1998, global warming has been essentially zero.
The numbers don’t lie. Allow to add CO2 better emissions to end world hunger, promote world peace, and protect global ecosystems.
This commentary was first published at Real pure energyJuly 6, 2023, and can be accessed This.
Ron Barmby, a Professional Engineer with a master’s degree in geosciences, has spent 40 years working in the energy industry in 40 countries and 5 continents. He is the author of “Sunlight on climate change: A heretical guide to global climate hysteria” and is a proud member of CO . gas2 Arena of valorArlington, Virginia.
Related
