Day in and day out we are told by, well almost everyone, that in order to “be green” we must do what ever we can to reduce our contribution to atmospheric CO2–you know, reduce our carbon foot print. Well now comes a study from the journal Nature Climate Change saying that no, additional CO2 in the atmosphere is making the planet greener. Here is how NASA is reporting the news:
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25…The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
Amazingly the title of the NASA release on the study is Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds. If we weren’t totally caught up in this “CO2 is pollution” hysteria an empirical finding like this one would probably be too trivial and obvious to even mention.