What is it about Carbon?

Carbon Dioxide is fast becoming the American version of ebola. Children and their parents shriek with fear when they hear that carbon dioxide is coming. Films are made and books are written and warning flags are raised from sea to shining sea. Carbon dioxide will warm our planet until we all suffer from heat stroke and look like Australian aboriginals. Carbon dioxide will melt the world's glaciers so that the sea level will rise by 10 feet or more. The carbon dioxide melted glaciers will change the salinity of the oceans which will end ocean currents thus stopping the planet's rotation and ending life as we know it.

I hear whispers that carbon dioxide causes cancer as well as infertility. Men are claiming impotence from carbon dioxide and women are said to have headaches more than ever in the evening. Some say that species are dropping like rocks out of the sky from carbon dioxide. And worst of all the accusations is that carbon dioxide is "Republican."

So why wouldn't any reasonable person want to outlaw carbon dioxide? Why does the Bush administration ignore the "science" that tells us how dangerous carbon dioxide is? Is there an industry based group that is trying to destroy the earth? The answers are more complicated than the questions.

All life on our planet are carbon based entities. Carbon is the basis of plant and animal life. As all organisms grow they store carbon and when they die and degrade they reliease carbon. Dah! Animals breath air and exhale carbon dioxide. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as their primary food/fertilizer and discharge oxygen. Pretty slick. In fact more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase plant growth exponentially. When I was younger I wondered if I could zip up an airtight garment bag with a couple plants and me inside to live off each other indefinitely. I breath in air and exhale carbon that the plants absorb then to discharge more air. I could go to the moon on that principle.

But then in 1989 we experienced one of our generation's greatest flip flops. Resourceful "scientists" scouring for the next enviro-scare identified or was it invented what they called global warming. No matter that the same "scientists" for decades had been warning of global cooling and the fear of an impending ice age due to what? Carbon dioxide! In fact the first Earth Day which I supported and participated in was mostly about global cooling due to that damn carbon dioxide. No wonder carbon dioxide is so frightening. It causes all of our ills.