A Quote by Paul Driessen

A couple degrees warmer would be good for humanity and planet, especially with more plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide in the air. [...] But a couple degrees colder would bring serious adverse consequences for habitats, wildlife, agriculture and humanity."
Imagine what our planet would look like with an increase in temperature of two degrees or four degrees, given that at 0.8 degrees we already have serious problems in the world.
The models that have been constructed agree that when, as has been predicted, the level of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases doubles from pre-Industrial Revolution concentrations, the global average temperature will increase, and that the increase will be 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius or 3 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit... In Dallas, for instance, a doubled level of carbon dioxide and other gases like methane, would increase the number of days a year with temperatures above 100 degrees from 19 to 78 each year.
If it were only a few degrees, that would be serious, but we could adapt to it. But the danger is the warming process might be unstable and run away. We could end up like Venus, covered in clouds and with the surface temperature of 400 degrees. It could be too late if we wait until the bad effects of warming become obvious. We need action now to reduce emission of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that - that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.
There is a point of no return after which warming becomes unstoppable - and we are probably going to sail right through it. It is the point at which anthropogenic (human-caused) warming triggers huge releases of carbon dioxide from warming oceans, or similar releases of both carbon dioxide and methane from melting permafrost, or both. Most climate scientists think that point lies not far beyond 2 degrees C hotter (3.6 degrees F).
Plate tectonics is not all havoc and destruction. The slow movement of continents and ocean floors recycles carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans back into the atmosphere. Without this slow speed carbon cycle, Earth's temperatures would cool dozens of degrees below your comfort zone.
Ocean acidification is caused by the ocean absorbing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the same carbon dioxide that is the primary cause of global warming, hence the nickname 'the other carbon problem.' As they do so, the oceans become more acidic with terrible consequences.
I remember, as a boy of 17 years of age, this was a fascinating thing for me: how we human beings breathe out carbon dioxide into the air, the leaves of plants pick this carbon dioxide up, and the plant gives off oxygen, which we can breathe in and keep our life going.
If we are to save humanity and the planet from the worst mass extinction of all time, worse even than that at the end of the Permian, we must stop at two degrees.
Here's the problem - carbon dioxide doesn't contribute to smog and isn't a health threat. All of this is being done because some people believe carbon dioxide is causing global warming, and that preventing carbon dioxide from entering the air is the only answer. Never mind that there is still an ongoing scientific debate about global warming itself, and that some respected climate scientists believe that methane is a better target, California legislators have locked their sites on carbon dioxide.
They absorb carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. What could be more desirable? And they look good in the bargain. Stop chopping down the rain forests and plant more saplings, and we're on our way.
The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is.
[The doctrine of air] I was led into in consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where I at first amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air [carbon dioxide] which I found ready made in the process of fermentation . When I removed from that house I was under the necessity of making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind.
Carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas out there. Other substances, such as water vapor and nitrous oxide, also trap heat to varying degrees.
The fundamental reason why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is critically important to biology is that there is so little of it. A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon dioxide within a meter of the ground in about five minutes. If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would stop growing.
My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take.
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