Looks like our friend Tipp has bought into the work of Dr. William Happer, who was part of the "CO2 Commission" and who wrote a document called "
Carbon Dioxide Benefits the World." Unsurprisingly, this organization
receives funding from major right-wing organizations.
Their arguments are specious.
--CO2 is good for plants, blah blah blah
Plants depend on many things, such as water and nutrients; increases in CO2 have not been "better" for crops/plants (that's due to agricultural engineering), and plants will suffer due to heat stress. Who cares.
--CO2 goes through cycles of increase/decrease.
Yes, but those cycles happened well before humans occurred. What we are seeing now is unprecedented levels of CO2:
--Humans only produce a tiny bit of CO2 relative to nature blah blah blah.
This tiny bit influences the carbon cycle, as evidenced even in the simplest of cartoons:
--Water vapor is the most common greenhouse gas and the cause of global warming, not CO2.
Water is a shape-shifter and can go from a liquid to gas to solid; yes, water vapor is the most predominant greenhouse gas, but its presence varies across time and space and with temperatures. CO2 doesn't do this, it is a gas no matter the temperature; it remains constant whether its a hot day at sea level or a cold spike at the top of a mountain. And just because water vapor is the most common greenhouse gas it doesn't mean it is the common cause of global warming--it amplifies warming but didn't cause the warming trend, CO2 is the actual culprit. Even though water vapor generates "more heat" (has more radiative forcing) than CO2, water vapor affects temperatures locally, not globally, and when temperatures change it often falls to the earth as rain or freezes into snow, no longer becoming water vapor. There is a time-scale affect going on as well: water vapor can influences temperatures over a short period of time (as in diurnal or seasonal cycles) but CO2 has been steadily accumulating over the long term and is exacerbated by the last 200 years of human activities. I conclude this water vapor argument is stupid (gee look, my joints hurt, I'm infertile, and I'm going blind...as blood is the most common liquid in my body it must be the blood causing this, not the trace amounts of lead that have built up since childhood...I mean how much damage could a small amount of lead do to me relative to my 7 liters of blood...lead is 100% natural).
For a better explanation see here:
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2008/02/common-climate-misconceptions-the-water-vapor-feedback-2/
