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Professional and hobbyist gardeners who raise CO2 levels in greenhouses and grow-tents to increase yields and growth rates will tell you that in addition to the fertilization effect, higher CO2 levels also decrease the demand for water and thus not only save on resources but mitigate the other negative consequences of intense irrigation.

The reason is that in order for land plants to absorb CO2 from the air, they must open pores in their leaves which also allows moisture to escape, which must be replaced or the plant with wither, especially in hot and dry conditions. The higher the ambient levels of CO2, the tighter the plant can close the pores, and the less water it loses it producing the same amount of useful material. The tables illustrating this trade-off have been well- established and well-known for generations for every variety of plant in every combination of growing conditions, they are hardly secrets. And yet one rarely encounters any official analysis of climate change costs that appropriately weighs this benefit.

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Rick Teller's avatar

I think it is a mistake to think about climate change as a scientific problem. It is actually an economics problem.

If we are to be endangered by climate change, what that means is that people's standards of living in the future will be reduced over what they would be if there were no climate change. Those who favor high climate spending believe that by spending more today that will save future generations a much greater expense protecting themselves from having to build giant sea walls to protect coastal cities, etc.

True, living standards will be higher in the future if those living then don't have those heavy expenses. But living standards are not a function only of one's necessary expenses, they also depend on one's income. There is an implied assumption behind all climate change spending that it will not have any effects on future incomes. That is false.

Why do living standards rise over time? Only one thing - rising human productivity, which is almost entirely a function of savings (income we don't consume) invested successfully in things that raise productivity--R&D and better technology, capital goods and processes. But the purpose of climate change spending is not to raise productivity, it is to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. Those are not the same thing.

We can concede that alarmist climate change models are correct, if we want to avoid scientific arguments that are over most people's heads, and still argue that the world will end up worse off by even moderate climate change spending, because it diverts business investment from its traditional goal of raising productivity and thus incomes toward instead cutting down on CO2.

The amount saved and invested is a small percentage of our incomes as is, especially with so many governments dissaving by borrowing to consume. Diverting most investment away from trying to enhance productivity will doom most economic progress, with possibly dire political and social consequences that endanger us more than the climate might.

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