This just in: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is good for plants. In fact, plants can't live without it; the process of photosynthesis is how plants turn carbon and sunlight into sugars and carbohydrates - food. Whenever you eat a carrot, a potato, or a mess of collard greens, make sure to thank photosynthesis!

Now, there is a level of CO2 that we don't want. CO2 is a greenhouse gas; it's not as serious as methane or even water vapor, but runaway CO2 (from non-biological sources) is why Venus is a pressure cooker. But Earth is nowhere near that, and while through much of the planet's history it'd been warmer than now - sometimes a lot warmer - CO2 is, generally, a good thing. A little bit more CO2, according to some recent studies, is actually greening the planet. Watts Up With That's H. Sterling Burnett has the news. //

We're seeing some local evidence of this right now, right here in the Great Land. Our growing seasons are lengthening, slowly, due to slightly warmer temperatures, and Alaskan agriculture is expanding, to the point where the state legislature was considering the formation of a state department of agriculture. That didn't happen, but the slight warming we are experiencing - and, yes, the climate has been on a gradual warming trend since the last glaciation - has the potential to open up even more northern lands for agricultural use. //

Various analyses of the so-called “Social Cost of Carbon” calculations indicate global greening and its effects on agriculture alone may mean that the metric would be better labeled the Social Net Benefit of Carbon.

Global greening is an established fact, and this study is just one more data point of proof. //

Froge
7 hours ago edited
Venus is hot because the atmosphere is 92 times as dense as ours AND Venus gets 3x the energy from the sun as Earth.

The denser atmosphere explains most of it. We would have much higher temperatures too with the same composition but 100x denser. It is a stretch to blame it all on CO2.