Earth Has Always Flourished With Higher Carbon Dioxide

This image provided by NASA shows a ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on Jan. 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on Jan. 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin. Suomi NPP is NASA’s next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth. Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. (AP Photo/NASA)

It will be beneficial to have additional amounts of carbon dioxide green the planet.

Letter writer Ed Taub notes that Alaska was covered by thousands of feet of ice 800 years ago but is now covered with forest.

This is consistent with NASA’s observation that the earth is much greener now than 70 years ago. And yet Taub wants to stop the increase in carbon dioxide that has caused this greening effect.

It is an historical and scientific fact that life on our planet always flourished more at much higher levels of carbon dioxide and temperatures than exist today. Do we really want to go back to the low levels of carbon dioxide that existed during the Little Ice Age that caused crop failures and staved millions to death in Europe during the 16th to 19th century?

It will be beneficial to have additional amounts of carbon dioxide green the planet until better batteries are developed to make solar and wind practical.

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