The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that a naturally occurring atmospheric gas that is necessary for life on this planet is now a dangerous pollutant.

A logical result of increased atmospheric CO₂ would be a greening of the planet, combined with improved food production. It’s been estimated that even if atmospheric levels of CO₂ were to rise three times that of current levels, it would have no significant impact.

As Robert M. Carter, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental and Earth Sciences has said regarding CO_2, “For the past few million years, the Earth has existed in a state of relative carbon dioxide starvation compared with earlier periods. There is no empirical evidence that levels double or even triple those of today will be harmful, climatically or otherwise. As a vital element in plant photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is the basis of the planetary food chain.”

The human benefit of increased CO₂ levels:

Far from being a pollutant, rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations will never directly harm human health, but will indirectly benefit humans in a number of ways.  Chief among these benefits is global food security.  People must have sufficient food, simply to sustain themselves; and the rise in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration that has occurred since the inception of the Industrial Revolution (an increase of approximately 100 ppm) has done wonders for humanity in this regard.  And, it will continue to work wonders in helping us meet the rising food consumption needs of a larger, future population.

In addition to increasing the quantity of food available for human consumption, the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is also increasing the quality of the foods we eat.  It significantly increases the quantity and potency of the many beneficial substances found in their tissues (such as the vitamin C concentration of citrus fruit), which ultimately make their way onto our dinner tables and into many of the medicines we take, improving our health and helping us better contend with the multitude of diseases and other maladies that regularly afflict us.  In just one species of spider lily, for example, enriching the air with CO2 has led to the production of higher concentrations of several substances that have been demonstrated to be effective in fighting a number of human maladies, including leukemia, ovary sarcoma, melanoma, and brain, colon, lung and renal cancers, as well as Japanese encephalitis and yellow, dengue, Punta Tora and Rift Valley fevers.

And the plant benefit:

Literally thousands of laboratory and field experiments have conclusively demonstrated that enriching the air with carbon dioxide stimulates the growth and development of nearly all plants.  They have also revealed that higher-than-normal CO2 concentrations dramatically enhance the efficiency with which plants utilize water… Consequently, even in soils lacking sufficient water and nutrients for good growth at today’s CO2 concentrations, plants exposed to the elevated atmospheric CO2 levels expected in the future generally show remarkable increases in vegetative productivity, which should enable them to successfully colonize low-rainfall areas that are presently too dry to support more than isolated patches of desert vegetation.

Elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 also enable plants to better withstand the growth-retarding effects of various environmental stresses, including soil salinity, air pollution, high and low air temperatures, and air-borne and soil-borne plant pathogens.  In fact, atmospheric CO2 enrichment can actually mean the difference between life and death for vegetation growing in extremely stressful circumstances.

Undoubtedly, this EPA announcement is just another ploy by the environmentalists in government to control and regulate the economy; destroying jobs and productivity as a result. Remember, this is the same agency that suppressed an internal report which challenged the connection between rising temperatures and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, the agenda of the EPA is political, not scientific.