The Republican in Charge of the House Science Committee Is Now Arguing Global Warming Has BenefitsTexas Rep. Lamar Smith, the Republican official in charge of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, has now penned an editorial urging the public not to buy into hysteria over carbon dioxide, which he believes could actually be good for us. The post, which can be viewed over at the fossil fuel industry backed Heritage Foundations Daily Signal blog, is full of highly misleading or downright nonsensical arguments about how mankinds decision to burn as much of the fossil fuel the Earth has accumulated in the past billion years as fast as possible could have benefits that are often ignored and under researched. Smith, it seems, has clued in to the fact that one of the things plants require to create energy is carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for humanitys impact on the climate to date. Because plants love CO2 so much, Smith argued, pumping lots of it into the atmosphere could result in greater volume of food production and better quality food, as well as lush vegetation in formerly desolate areas of the globe. Smith has literally entered Natural News territory. These claims are just bunk, scientifically, seeing as peer reviewed studies suggest any increase in agricultural production from more CO2 in the atmosphere will likely be more than offset by losses from more extreme temperatures and droughts. Any benefits that could be derived would similarly be inconsistent and probably canceled out as the globe continued to warm. More plants is not necessarily a good thing, because some of them are crop destroying weeds, and others could disrupt existing ecosystems. Bonus points Smith, who again is the Houses top science legislator, has no idea what the difference between a controlled environment and everywhere else is. In fact, atmospheric carbon dioxide is so important for plant health that greenhouses often use a carbon dioxide generator to increase production, Smith wrote.
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