A physicist and geologist on the great CO2 scare

We’ve heard it many times: “The science is settled on carbon emissions.”

Yet scientists tell us it is not.

Here are a physicist and a geologist saying that CO2 is actually helpful to the world, and that government emissions regulations will hurt the poor and help almost no one.

At the Wall Street Journal  yesterday, Rodney Nichols and Harrison Schmidt wrote, “A myth persists that is both unscientific and immoral to perpetuate: that the beneficial gas carbon dioxide ranks among hazardous pollutants. It does not. . . .

“Observations, such as those on our CO2 Coalition website, show that increased CO2 levels over the next century will cause modest and beneficial warming—perhaps as much as one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit)—and that this will be an even larger benefit to agriculture than it is now. The costs of emissions regulations, which will be paid by everyone, will be punishingly high and will provide no benefits to most people anywhere in the world. . . .

“National policies must make economic and environmental sense. When someone says, ‘climate science is settled,’ remind them to check the facts. And recall the great physicist Richard Feynman’s remark: ‘No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles.'”