More CO2 might be good for us in the long run

[Lauren Johnson]

The point is, humanity CANNOT stop burning carbohydrates NOW and still feed 7 billion people, let alone 12.

Tragically, this statement is false. Using techniques found in the sustainable farming technique called permaculture can in fact feed a very large population. The amazing thing is that biology of healthy soil takes carbon out of the air and stores it in the soil. Some estimate that CO2 levels could be normalized by adopting these methods alone. This is probably over stating things a bit.

However, as long as the devotion to the accumulation of capital is the end of humanity, humanity will end.

To add to Peter's posts, one more specific reason why high CO2 levels will not aid agriculture, when temperatures climb into the hundreds, many crops' production yields drop due the withering affects of the heat. Around here, gardeners were complaining about the crops because of the many 100+F degree days (38C) with humidity in the single digits. Lots of fire and smoke. The goodness of CO2 was dreamed up by right wing think tanks.

I agree that permaculture and biological farming is the future, improving the soils in the process. After a certain time it may even be possible to produce enough food for everybody on this planet, but it will take time, advanced machinery which currently runs on oil and of course efficient cooling and transport, which also currently runs on oil. But sure, improving soils to store more carbon and support more life in the soil is needed urgently.

Higher temperatures will negatively affect plants in places, which are already warm and dry. In other places, which are currently too cold, the opposite might happen.

As I said in another post, I don't believe in the ability of man to prohibit changes of the climate on earth. Sooner or later it will happen, in whatever direction. Our responsibility, as I see it, is to avoid catastrophe, human and otherwise, or at least reduce the risk. This is in great parts a social issue, as well as a technical problem.

I agree. Probably I have darker picture. The basic capitalist model is make money breaking it, and then make money fixing it. This is the really dark part. Using life rapidly developing life extension technology leading to more and more breakthroughs, you can envisage where this would lead -- a planet for a very few wealthy, a larger group of technologists, and the remaining slaves and then humans bred for slavery. You certainly would not need 8 or 12 billion people.

The environment? It gets fixed by as yet unnamed and/or yet to be invented technologies. Lots of money to be made there.