Are observed changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere really dangerous?
Fallacy 1: Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at alarming rates. It just ain’t so, according to de Freitas, who notes that annual CO2 concentration increases appear to be leveling off in recent years. He also wonders what is alarming about the aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, which dramatically stimulates the growth rates and enhances the water use efficiencies of essentially all of earth’s plants. Fallacy 2: Humans are big players in the global carbon cycle. In reality, says de Freitas, “anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only about 3% of the natural carbon cycle and less than 1% of the atmospheric reservoir of carbon.” He also notes that the increase in the air’s CO2 content over the past few centuries could well have been the result of earth’s oceans giving off the gas in response to the planet’s recovery from the Little Ice Age. Fallacy 3: There is a close relationship between changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature. De Freita
