Carbon Dioxide: Earth’s Organic Fertilizer

Buenos Aires, November 11, 1998 -- US lead global warming negotiator Stu Eizenstat misled the press at a November 10 press briefing. He announced that the "science is settled," parroting Vice President Al Gore’s favorite non-truth, and went as far as to refuse to answer a reporter’s question about the science.

A recent publication, In Defense of Carbon Dioxide: A Comprehensive Review of Carbon Dioxide’s Effects on Human Health, Welfare, and the Environment, produced by the Greening Earth Society and distributed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute at the UN climate change conference in Buenos Aires, illustrates just how many scientific questions have yet to be addressed, much less "settled."

"Important scientific facts about the benefits of carbon dioxide are being ignored by climate treaty negotiators, and the Clinton-Gore administration is trying to discourage the news media from covering this story," said James Sheehan, CEI’s director of international environmental policy.

Contrary to what radical environmentalists would have us think, there is no scientific evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or are likely to cause, a climate catastrophe. Abundant evidence, documented in the peer-reviewed literature, demonstrates that carbon emissions are helping trees, crops, and other plant life grow faster, stronger, and more profusely. Over 1,000 clinical and field studies show:

• The direct effect of carbon dioxide on food production is highly positive;
• Increased CO2 levels enhance plant growth;
• CO2 enrichment protects plants from pollutants, water deficiency, temperature stress, and low-light levels.

In addition, the study examines and refutes the climate alarmists’ claims:

• The climate models underpinning the 1992 climate change convention were off by a factor of 3;
• Drought frequency is not changing in the U.S. and may be decreasing;
• Warmer weather would reduce overall weather-related mortality;
• Anticipated sea level rise will be lower than IPCC median estimates and little changed from the last century.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan research and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. For more information, please contact Emily McGee in Buenos Aires at (54-1) 312-4061 or Jonathan Adler in Washington at 1-202-331-1010.