Is the human-caused rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration changing the climate? Yes. But how much, that is another question to which no one can give an answer that is both honest and precise.
But what is for sure is that the human-caused rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is having a massive impact on the world's vegetation, stimulating forest growth and raising crop yields.
Are rising crop yields a good thing? That depends on whether you think that accelerating the ongoing unprecedentedly rapid growth in human population is a good thing.
My own view is that it is crazy to ignore the many impacts that human activity is having on climate, including not only the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration due to the combustion of fossil fuels but also:
Additions of black carbon (soot) to the atmosphere due to the combustion of both fossil fuels and fuel wood, and gigantic forest fires, which warm the atmosphere to an extent comparable to that of carbon dioxide;
Additions of sulfate particles to the atmosphere (due to the combustion of sulphur containing coal and oil), which give rise to white sulfate particles that reflect solar radiation and thus have a cooling effect;
Deforestation from the boreal region of Russia and Canada to the tropics of South America and Africa, which radically alters the global water cycle, while altering the balance of absorbed to reflected solar radiation of a large portion of the earth's surface.
But one thing almost every country could do now is to cease being a major net emitter of carbon dioxide.
How?
Easy: tax carbon dioxide emissions and apply the revenue generated to direct air carbon dioxide capture and sequestration.
Current estimates put the cost of large scale direct air carbon dioxide capture at about US$100 per ton.
That means a tax of US$22 cents a litre on gasoline and other hydrocarbons would match the cost of recovering the carbon dioxide emitted on combustion of those fuels.
Let's do it.
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