Andrew Dessler
Feb 20, 2025
Recent interviews with Trump administration officials have revived a persistent myth in climate change discussions: "CO is plant food". This is one of those zombie climate-denial arguments that just never goes away because 1) it's a simple argument and 2) it seems intuitive -- after all, plants need carbon dioxide, so more of it must be good, right?
Yes, CO enhances photosynthesis. But crops don't grow in a vacuum, they also need water, temperatures in a particular range, and farmers need predictable seasons. Climate change disrupts all of those.
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The Climate Brink
Disrupts all of what? Global agricultural data are easily available from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAOSTAT).
Oh! But that's just wheat and corn! That's true. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of agricultural products. FAOSTAT also publishes an agricultural Gross Production Index relative to 2014-2016.
I don't know of any scientifically literate skeptics who say that more CO is better simply because it's plant food. Nor do I know of any who think that the rise in atmospheric CO is the sole reason for improved agricultural output over the past 64 years.
Although, it clearly is plant food. And we know that substantially less CO would be very bad for plants. There is compelling evidence that CO in the range of 180-220 ppm induced carbon starvation in C plants during the Last Glacial Maximum (Ward et al., 2005). While there might be a point at which more atmospheric CO could do more harm than good, the rise from 280 to 420 ppm has clearly been beneficial. It's largely been beneficial due to the exploitation of fossil fuels over the past 160 years,
From 1800 to 1900, per capita energy consumption, primarily from biomass, remained relatively flat; as did the average life expectancy. From 1900 to 1978, per capita energy consumption roughly tripled with the rapid growth in fossil fuel production (coal, oil & gas). This was accompanied by a doubling of average life expectancy. While I can't say that fossil fuels caused the increase in life expectancy, I can unequivocally state that everything that enabled the increase in life expectancy wouldn't have existed or happened without fossil fuels, particularly petroleum.
Our modern society would not exist without fossil fuels and it would collapse in a heartbeat if fossil fuels were made unavailable and/or unaffordable. One of the coolest things about being a petroleum geologist, is that I can give thanks for fossil fuels and say "you're welcome" in the same sentence.
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The Permanent University Fund (PUF)
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MacFarling Meure, C., D. Etheridge, C. Trudinger, P. Steele, R. Langenfelds, T. van Ommen, A. Smith, and J. Elkins (2006), Law Dome CO, CH and NO ice core records extended to 2000 years BP, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14810, doi:10.1029/2006GL026152.
Ward, Joy K.; Harris, John M.; Cerling, Thure E.; Wiedenhoeft, Alex; Lott, Michael J.; Dearing, Maria-Denise; Coltrain, Joan B.; Ehleringer, James R. 2005. Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 102, no. 3 (Jan. 18, 2005): p. 690-694