| Government Policy Toward Carbon Dioxide: why is it negative? Despite the fact that carbon dioxide is the primary source of the food consumed by all living things, including humans, government policy toward increased availability of this source is uniformly negative. No doubt this is because governments and the public first became aware of increasing carbon dioxide as an issue because of the possible dangers of global warming and climate change. However, this does not explain why the likely benefits of this increase are not appreciated, nor studied. We know that CO2 has increased, and that food production has increased as well. Is there a causal connection? Given that theory, experiment and observation concur there is probably only one reasonable conclusion. The green revolution is to a significant degree the greening miracle. Since the green revolution is one we desperately want to continue, the cost (or lost benefits) of cutting CO2 growth might well be a global population disaster. The magnitude of this risk needs to be carefully assessed before action is taken. But while many millions of dollars are being spent on assessing the possible threats associated with climate change, no attention is being give to the threat reducing the greening effect might pose to the growing global population struggling for survival. This is an incredible imbalance in attention. Public policy requires a balanced look at both sides of any proposed action. International policy on carbon dioxide increase and the threat of climate change is embodied in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The United States is a member of the UNFCCC. Much of the technical work of the UNFCCC is done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC has done a Regional Vulnerability Assessment of the threat of climate change. While it recognizes the greening effect, it barely mentions it. Likewise, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has an extensive state-by-state Impact Assessment for global warming and climate change. EPA too recognizes the greening effect but dismisses it as unimportant. The USDA Should Lead Greening Research, but it is doing nothing. Table of Contents Carbon Dioxide -- The Miracle of Food. Introduction to the Greening Theory. The Green Revolution: feeding the global population. Technology and the Green Revolution. Government Policy Toward Carbon Dioxide: why is it negative? A Huge Hole in the Climate Change Science. The USDA Should Lead Greening Research, but it is doing nothing. Outline of a Greening Effect Benefit and Risk Assessment. |