CO2 Has Benefits, but the Best Science Says the Detriments Outweigh Them: Climate Skepticism is Important but There are Limits

     Is the following recent quote from Greenpeace founder, now CO2 and industry advocate, Patrick Moore, correct? Should we listen to him and other CO2 advocates?

“I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change was a complete fabrication."

"CO2 is the most important nutrient for all life on Earth and without it this would be a dead planet."

     I agree that there is too much hysteria about climate change, but there is also a massive amount of data that suggests it is problematic, and impacts could get worse. People in the Arctic have been impacted, and people on low-lying islands have been impacted. Bio-ranges have been changing. The atmosphere and ocean are heating up, and modeling is getting better. Local tipping points have been reached with melted permafrost releasing methane and some coral reefs being bleached and dying off. Bigger hurricanes and wetter storms have been verified.

     Organizations like the CO2 Coalition educate the public about CO2 but do so in a biased way, partially in response to the overreach of climate activism. They purport all the benefits of CO2 as plant food, which increases global greening and crop yields. There is no denying those facts. One might even refer to those who do as CO2 benefits deniers. The coalition puts out white papers and factual statements that, while true, are perhaps misleading in some ways and irrelevant in others. For instance, the statement that “the warming effect of each molecule of CO2 declines as its concentration increases” is absolutely true but misleading in the sense that climate scientists know this and incorporate it into modeling. The statement that “more CO2 helps to feed more people worldwide” is also absolutely true. We should acknowledge and celebrate that fact. It is a good reason to argue that reducing CO2 to 350ppm or even to 400ppm will have negative effects on feeding people. Nobody wants that, so we should not aim for it. We also don’t want 550 or 600ppm. The statement that “our current geologic period (Quaternary) has the lowest average CO2 levels in the last 600 million years.” That is true as well, but really not of any relevance to today. The composition of the atmosphere was a little different then. The more recent trend of alternating glacial and interglacial periods over the past 400,000 years is a better metric. That metric shows that for around 350,000 of those 400,000 years, the Earth has been in an Ice Age. Interglacial periods typically last between 10,000 and 15,000 years. Our current interglacial has been in effect for 11,000 years. Thus, sometime between now and the year 6025, we will likely enter the next Ice Age. An Ice Age would certainly be a more troubling event for the world than our current global warming problem.   

     I believe that climate skepticism is warranted, especially if it is propagated by scientists. Thus, orgs like the CO2 coalition are useful and important. However, I also believe that the burden is on those scientists to prove the cases against the large majority of mainstream climate scientists who accept the conclusions of the IPCC about climate change. We do need to acknowledge the benefits of CO2 and the many uncertainties of climate predictions. What bothers me a bit is statements like Patrick Moore made that suggest a complete reversion to believing that CO2 has no negative effects and is solely a good thing. The predictions of climate change alarmists may well turn out to be wrong, but calling it a “complete fabrication” is probably not the best way to address the issue. Calling climate change a hoax is also not a useful statement, not supported by science, nor is Trump’s statement that climate change is “the greatest con job ever.” There is a bit of truth to that statement since the impacts have likely been significantly overestimated by the activists.

     The CO2 Coalition has also been trying to get some of its members onto the EPA’s expert advisory panels, under Lee Zeldin. I was a bit annoyed to see that they were aiming to get James Enstrom, a former UCLA epidemiologist, on one of these boards. Enstrom’s work denying that soot pollution is dangerous is not backed by the best science. The evidence for the dangers of soot, or particulate pollution, is rather incontrovertible. Air pollution kills. We know this from events like the 1950s London Fog and similar events. The effects of smaller doses of particulate matter are more nuanced, but there is strong evidence for its dangers. Another anti-anything green advocate and Trump transition team member, Steve Milloy, wrote a book a few years back called Scare Pollution, where he bizarrely argued that the EPA was harming participants in a study about particulate pollution by exposing them to harmful levels of it while simultaneously arguing that air pollution was not as harmful as depicted. Skepticism in science is vital and is generally good, but has its limits, and it should be acknowledged when those limits are crossed.  

     Earth science and climate science are sciences that often involve large and complex global systems that have many uncertainties. The uncertainties are often exploited by both sides of the debate. New research is solving some of those uncertainties. Sometimes it shows that warming or impacts are overestimated, and sometimes it shows they are underestimated. For instance, recent research shows that the effects of nitrogen fixation for carbon removal have been overestimated by 50%, which “means that Earth system models have been overestimating the carbon dioxide fertilization effect by about 11%.” Thus, the CO2 fertilization effects touted by the CO2 Coalition are likely 11% less than estimated.

     Another effect of the kind of climate skepticism that seeks not only to dispute the assertions of activists but to totally turn them on their head is really an insult to the hundreds of thousands of scientists working to study and quantify our earth and climate systems. Casual statements suggesting that the work of all those scientists is worthless because the initial assumptions are wrong should not be uttered unless there is incontrovertible truth to them. In global systems science, there is inherent uncertainty due to the complexity and the many variables, and that means that definitive statements are less likely to really be definitive. I will say again that the burden of proof is on the climate skeptics to disprove the conclusions of mainstream climate science. Anybody can make bold statements in either extreme. The uncertainties inherent in global systems science can easily be exploited and often are in such statements.

     I have read, reviewed, and studied books by members of the CO2 Coalition and many other climate science skeptics who are distinguished scientists. Aside from some basic facts about CO2 that are indisputable, there is very little to suggest that mainstream climate science is a hoax, a complete fabrication, or a con job. Moore and others have argued that it ties into liberal extremist ideas to redistribute income. While such ideas are openly advocated by some, I do not think that is the case in any meaningful way. Combatting climate change is not a socialist conspiracy, and it helps no one to say that it is. It is one thing to debunk activists and quite another to attempt to debunk mainstream science. Even so, mainstream science is affected by biases, and that should be considered as well. Thus, we should consider the skeptics but also understand that they are promoting minority views that are considered to have even stronger biases.  

 

 

References:

 

Greta Thunberg Banned from Venice After Being Caught Polluting One of City's Historic Treasures. Samantha Chang. Western Journal. November 25, 2025. Greta Thunberg Banned from Venice After Being Caught Polluting One of City's Historic Treasures

CO2 Coalition. Website. Home - CO2 Coalition

Earth system models overstate carbon removal: New findings suggest nitrogen fixation is 50% lower than thought. Columbia University. edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan. Phys.org. November 25, 2025. Earth system models overstate carbon removal: New findings suggest nitrogen fixation is 50% lower than thought