In my last post, I suggested that the externalities from coal-fired electricity generation were probably not as negative as was being touted in a recent report by Paul Epstein and colleagues from the Center for Health and the Global Environment. As further support for my contention, I submit the contents of a new book by copious carbon dioxide researchers Drs. Sherwood and Craig Idso titled “The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment: How humanity and the rest of the biosphere will prosper from this amazing trace gas that so many have wrongfully characterized as a dangerous air pollutant!”

The father-son authors take the reader alphabetically through the many benefits from an atmosphere enriched with carbon dioxide that they have gleaned from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, as well as the results of their own experimentation (also documented in the literature). The Idsos’s 55 subject areas of CO2’s beneficial influence is backed by scientific references. The benefits by and large include only direct influences from higher CO2 levels, and don’t delve into indirect influences through, for example, climate change (with the exception of the inclusion of three or four categories dedicated to describing declines in human mortality and increases in human longevity).

I include below the list of those 55 ways that the Idsos have identified “in which the modern rise in atmospheric CO2 is benefiting earth’s biosphere.”

Hopefully, Paul Epstein and colleagues will pick up a copy of this book (available here), because I am certain that they did not include many of these considerations in their calculations.

In the list below, I give only the category name, but a synopsis of CO2’s impact in each of the categories is contained in a pamphlet that summarizes the book, and which is available from the Science and Public Policy Institute.

Okay, enough ado, here is the list of 55 ways in which increasing atmospheric CO2 produces direct benefits (and generate positive externalities from fossil fuel use):

1. Air Pollution Stress (Non–Ozone)

2. Air Pollution Stress (Ozone)

3. Avoiding Human Starvation and Plant and Animal Extinctions

4. Bacteria

5. Biodiversity

6. Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (BVOCs)

7. Biomass

8. C4 Plants

9. CAM Plants

10. Carbon Sequestration

11. Diseases of Plants

12. Early Growth

13. Earthworms

14. Evolution

15. Flowers

16. Fluctuating Asymmetry

17. Glomalin

18. Health-Promoting Substances

19. Herbivory

20. Hormones

21. Human Longevity

22. Human Mortality (All Causes)

23. Human Mortality (Cardiovascular)

24. Human Mortality (Respiratory)

25. Iodocompounds

26. Isoprene

27. Light Stress

28. Lipids

29. Medicinal Plants

30. Monoterpenes

31. Nectar

32. Net Primary Productivity

33. Nitrogen Fixation

34. Nutrient Acquisition

35. Phosphorus Acquisition

36. Photosynthesis

37. Progressive Nitrogen Limitation

38. Reactive Oxygen Species

39. Root Exudation

40. Root Production

41. Salinity Stress

42. Seeds

43. Soil Erosion

44. Soil Toxicity

45. Starch

46. Tannins

47. Temperature Stress

48. Thylakoid Membranes

49. Transpiration

50. UV-B Radiation Stress

51. Vegetative Storage Proteins

52. Water Stress

53. Water-Use Efficiency

54. Weeds

55. Wood Density

As the Idsos put it: