As Carbon Pollution Hits Record Level, Senator Inhofe Says Climate Change Is Greening the Planet [View all]

[n2doc]

Scientists may have recorded another unsettling milestone in the buildup of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, but leave it to Oklahoma senator — and snowball aficionado — James Inhofe to find the bright side.

In a rambling broadside against the Obama administration's plans to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, Inhofe said climate "alarmists" are ignoring the positive things those emissions are doing for the world's plants.

"People don't realize you can't grow things without CO2," Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said on the chamber's floor Wednesday. "CO2 is a fertilizer. It's something you can't do without. No one ever talks about the benefits that people are inducing from that as a fertilizer." That buildup has led "to a greening of the planet and contributed to increasing agricultural productivity," he said.

The overwhelming majority of climate scientists, however, warn that the increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases — a byproduct of burning coal, oil, and natural gas — are changing the Earth's climate at an unnaturally rapid rate. The warming that results is likely to bring a future of rising seas and more intense storms and droughts, with the world's poor bearing the brunt of the effects.

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https://news.vice.com/article/as-carbon-pollution-hits-record-level-senator-james-inhofe-says-climate-change-is-greening-the-planet