Shocking Scientific Discovery: Plants Love Carbon Dioxide

Photo of Noel Sheppard.

As media members have advanced global warming hysteria by claiming the naturally occurring gas carbon dioxide is going to destroy the planet, one seemingly obvious scientific constant has eluded them: plants love that which people like Nobel Laureate Al Gore want to eliminate.

Truth be told, without carbon dioxide, we'd all die, a scientific fact that has been inexplicably lost in this so-called debate.

Well, as amazing as it may seem, a group of German scientists have discovered what, with all due modesty, has been inherently obvious to yours truly for years.

Believe it or not, Agence France-Press reported Tuesday that crops love all this extra CO2 (emphasis added):

Increasing exposure to carbon dioxide appears to boost crop yields, Hans-Joachim Weigel of the Johann Heinrich von Thuenen Institute for rural areas, forestry and fisheries in the central city of Brunswick told AFP.

"Output increased by about 10 percent for barley, beets and wheat" when the plants were subjected to higher levels of carbon dioxide, Weigel said.

Hmmm. So, what happens when you do what Al Gore wants and reduce the amount of CO2 plants are subjected to?

Strangely, global warming obsessed media aren't interested in that answer.

Why might that be?


Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

I gotta AGW question...If

I gotta AGW question...If the polar ice caps are melting and sea level is rising, why are we having cruise ships in Alaska running aground?  Wouldn't sea level rise be a good thing?  Oil supertankers wouldn't have to worry about hitting reefs anymore.

I like the way you

I like the way you think!

45 Communist Goals for America http://www.nationmakers.com/com_goals.htm

LOL...Excellent point

LOL...Excellent point TruthMatters...

Prince William Sound...a deep port bay, one of the deepest out of Seward Ak (or anywhere in the US I think, possibly elsewhere)....would have zilch for worries.

Great thinking for the future...

Of course the algore crowd would have some disastrous effect for that scenario though....

"America isn't the problem...America is the solution." ~ Rush Limbaugh

first off the polar ice caps aren't melting, another big lie

from neal boortz page today

Satellites have been tracking the concentration of ice in the Arctic and
Antarctic since 1980. And in the Arctic, from May of 1980 until May of 2008,
guess how much ice has melted away because of global warming ... none. Zero.
Nada. Zip. In May 1980 and May 2008, the total amount of ice concentration is
10.9 million square kilometers. Now let's go to the other side of the planet.
Not only is the Antarctic experiencing record ice, but since May 1980 the total
ice concentration is up 35%!

additionally this link

http://www.globalwar...

lunaticcringeradio

You know, I've always had

You know, I've always had a problem with that "ice melting, oceans rising" thing.

I remember as a kid watching "Mr. Wizard and he would do a demonstration: he would fill a glass with ice, then add water, and the ice cubes were actually sticking up over the top of the glass a bit, and when they melted, the glass didn't overflow.

So how is it that when the ice melts the coastlines are all going to be under water? Doesn't ice replace it's own mass in water?

I'm serious...how does that work?

 

Shoot 'em all; let God sort 'em out! - Marge Simpson

mb.... You gotta add more

mb....

You gotta add more water when people have their backs turned.

At least that's what a liberal friend of mine said.

45 Communist Goals for America http://www.nationmakers.com/com_goals.htm

Ice contains air

Hence it floats. When it melts it releases the air and generates less water volume than there was ice volume. Ice is really 'ice crystals' with lots of space between the crystals.

You can make real clear ice, which has a specific gravity close to water by carefully eliminating the bubbles, it's what they use for ice sculptures. 

uMM NO , Most liquids when frozen get denser, and always sink.

Water is one of a few liquids that when frozen expands..That is why ice floats; it has less molecules per unit volume .

Entrained air has nothing to do with it.

Liberals62%


IranianUranium

what????

Clear ice is filtered water with no impurities.

And water expands as it freezes regardless of how much air it has access to.

*shakes head at having to explain third grade science*

candance, science and math are slipping away, it's opinion now

knowedge is evaporating ;30% HS drop out rate...

game boy "feels" can land a real plane.

be positive , yes he can.

Liberals62%


IranianUranium

Part of the scam

MB,

You're perfectly right when talking asbout Arctic ice. The theoretical worry is when ice melts that is currently sitting on a land mass-namely Greenland or Antartica. I say theoretical because >85% of the worlds ice is in Antartica and yet >80% of Antartica has never had a temperature above -30C. In the case of Greenland, even if significant global warming occured it would take over 10,000 years for its ice to melt.

motherbelt gets the you're smarter than al gore award

the frozen ice at the poles in the oceans will not displace any sea levels than they are at present day because they have already displaced all the volume they can. when they melt they will merely release gases that are trapped in them. probably more co2 from dinosaur farts. actually that may be more methan, even worse than co2.

al gore hates trees and mr wizard.

you know that mr wizard was a 2nd lieutenant and flew 56 bombing mission in a b-24 over europe.

lunaticcringeradio

i hate to tell you motherbelt

the i'm smarter than al gore award is easier to get than falling down on purpose.

oooooooooooooooooo newsbusters needs to pimp bumper stickers that say

"i'm smarter than al gore cause i know global warming is a lie."

lunaticcringeradio

motherbelt, I remember putting beers in the freezer...

...as a teen, forgetting about them, and later discovering the suds within had exceeded the volume of their containers, be them glass or (egad) cans. (Sad, that was. LOL)

Liguids expand in volume as they freeze and conversely contract as they melt. 

That is why you have to put anti-freeze in your radiator. If you don't and the coolant freezes, it will expand and very possibly crack the engine block.

The truth is insensitive. - Neal Boortz

Mother

I saw the same show and we did the experiment in class.

and the answer to your question is...It doesn't!

Work. That is.

never thought of that. 

never thought of that.  but then my college science was astronomy, you know, staring off into the stars type thing.

but, this is great news!

now if only we can move all the people away from plants. i don't think co2 emissions are good for people, probably in any dose. but, then, i never did have a human biology class, so i may be wrong.

cr

cr,

Hmmm. You never had a human biology class. I must say I don't find that at all surprising as you clearly don't know how many human biological functions require carbon dioxide. In fact, you'd die tomorrow if you were deprived of this gas the folks you revere want to eliminate.

But, don't feel bad, because all the folks you revere are just as ignorant about biology as you.

Warmest regards! ns

okay, let me see if i got

okay, let me see if i got this right.

increased co2 is good.

humans expel co2 from their bodies.

'...CO2 is an asphyxiant...'

( http://www.dupagehealth.org/health_alert/co2_alert.html )

so we all want more co2. i got it.

i'm sorry, i didn't mean to type that i wanted to eliminate co2....oooops, i didn't. maybe somebody just made that up.

duh!

You do realize that an atmosphere of pure oxygen would kill you too?

"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...

MM

MM,

No. CR doesn't. Remember, he made it clear from the beginning that he has never taken a human biology course, right? :-) ns

Yes Noel..

...The typical liberal stance of arguing from a position of weakness! :-)

"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...

Sorry Noel. There is a

Sorry Noel. There is a condition know as oxygen toxicity. The level is pretty high and usually it becomes a problem under pressure (boyle's law). I'm familiar with it because in diving it can come into play especially when using enriched air. If the oxygen level gets too high in the blood stream we have seizures and drown. (As I recall the max depth for breating 100% O2 is only about 20 feet. EAN32 is about 130) At those depts with those mixtures we're approaching a PO2 of 1.6. Considered dangerous.

Oxygen Toxicity can also cause problems for people under prolonged heightened exposure causing damage to the nervous system and lungs.

 The problem with CO2 isn't that it kills us. If the CO2 blood level gets too high we just fall asleep. As in deep water blackout where we sleep till we run out of air and drown. If too much O2 is replaced by CO2 as in a mine cave in, you can die not from a too much CO2 but from not enough O2. However if we were able to pump O2 into the mine. The miners would survive the increased CO2, they'd just sleep through it.

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

danbo

db,

I think you need to re-read my piece. I completely agree with you. ns

I may have miss read. I

I may have miss read. I thought you were disagreeing with MM about O2 being potentially dangerous. 

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

dan

dan,

No worries. ns

SCUBA, it's too much nitrogen

Nitrogen_narcosis

"rapture of the deep".

trolls have "rapture of the shallow".

 

 

Liberals62%


IranianUranium

Narcosis.

That might explain a few things. 

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

CO2 is a asphyxiant? Boy

CO2 is a asphyxiant? Boy that's a stretch. If that's the case so is nitrogen. If the nitrogen replaced all the O2 we'd die also. And nitrogen is 78% of the air.

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

Nitrogen is an asphyxiant

I work with chambers of 99% Nitrogen environment.  It is indeed an asphyxiant.

  • LYDSEXICS UNTIE

We need so much oxygen to

We need so much oxygen to live. If we replace the oxygen with another gas, CO2, nitrogen, Argon, Helium, etc. There's no longer any O2 available. We die. The problem  isn't so much the other gases it's the lack of O2.

The only exception I know of is Nitrious oxide N2O.

Which is a laughing matter.

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

CO2 Propaganda - Get you facts straight!

It is important to get your facts before you post propaganda. Obviously extreme high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere would be a problem but there is no remote chance in hell of us getting anywhere close to these.

- Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a natural part of Earth's Atmosphere (NASA)
- Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen from 280 to 380 ppm over the past 100 years (IPCC)
- Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not toxic until 5% (50,000ppm) concentration (Source)
- Any detrimental effects of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) including chronic exposure to 3% (30,000ppm) are reversible (Source)
- OSHA, NIOSH, and ACGIH occupational exposure standards are 0.5% (5,000 ppm) Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (Source)

"CO2 for different people has different attractions. After all, what is it? - it’s not a pollutant, it’s a product of every living creature’s breathing, it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis, it’s a product of all industrial burning, it’s a product of driving – I mean, if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality." - Richard S. Lindzen Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology MIT

The Anti 'Man-Made' Global Warming Resource

Hmmm, yes you may be wrong

Hmmm, yes you may be wrong <g>. Move away from plants? Plants feed off CO2 and emit oxygen. We breath out CO2 so we can't exactly get away from it. But I wish Gore would hold it in.

Plants want carbon credits

The Plant Posse will be beating on Al Gore's door for his carbon credits.

He's never home though.

 

www.benbarrack.com  

Feed the planet..

Feed the planet..

.. take a drive thru farm country this weekend.

(;~> 

 

You mean

The whole Earth is populated with carbon life forms? You going to write up a scientific paper on that and get it published?

Climateaudit.

I hope everyone is keeping an Eye on this little gem Steve M got going. I say he will be ,as usual , right on the money. This guy is way to smart for the likes of Realclimate and WMConnolley.

http://www.climateau...

http://www.friendsof...

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not toxic until 5% (50,000ppm) concentration
Any detrimental effects of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) including chronic exposure to 3% (30,000ppm) are reversible
OSHA, NIOSH, and ACGIH occupational exposure standards are 0.5% (5,000 ppm) Carbon Dioxide (CO2))

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen from 280 to 380 ppm over the past 100 years. Tim Ball.

 

... And Al Bore says if we hit 400PPmM it will kill us?

Plants starves at 125PPM .. No Plants no Oxygen.

 

 

http://www.friendsof...

Wait a minute. Are you

Wait a minute. Are you saying all plants should be dead by now?

 

45 Communist Goals for America http://www.nationmakers.com/com_goals.htm

it doesn't matter anyway

remember al gore hockey stick chart, we are all suppose to be charcoal brickets by now. hhhhhhmmmmmm i wonder what ever happened to that hockey stick chart. 

lunaticcringeradio

I think he means if the CO2

I think he means if the CO2 drops below 125ppm.

Noel, NB---,

Noel, NB---,

 

You all seem to be forgetting that Al Gore invented Carbon dioxide.

 

lol misterbill!

You need to add a spew alert to your post!

The response of plants to

The response of plants to increased CO2 has been theorized for ages.  This paper was presumably published because it proves the prediction true, not because anyone was shocked or surprised at the results!

There have been numerous experiments done to determine how plants respond to increased CO2, including one which covered a large swath of forest in a huge tarp and blew CO2 into it.  Scientists are not actually idiots.  They know that there are reasons to expect plants growth to increase when extra CO2 is provided.  However, you still actually have to show that it happens, as some other compound could always be the rate-limiting factor in photosynthesis for any given crop or ecosystem.

I get that it is entertaining to imagine scientists wide-eyed and agog at something you learned in high school biology, but we all know that's not what's going on.

Incidentally, I'm not a physiologist, but are there any human biological functions that require CO2 beyond that which we produce internally through respiration?  I don't know of any.

theorized???

It's amusing to see the rest of the media catch up, and don't ask me how I know this, but in the late '70s & early '80s, "High Times" magazine was selling CO2 enrichment kits to recreational indoor pot growers, along with the expected bright lights, hydroponic supplies, etc. The idea that plants tend to react positively to an enriched CO2 environment isn't exactly new, much less theoretical, decades later...
JMR

The tax & spend drug war looks racist in the real world.

Hey sarcasmo, I was just

Hey sarcasmo, I was just thinking: If the enviro-nuts hate oil so much, and there is a finite supply of it why would they be opposed to us just burning it up as quick as we can?That way we wouldn't have "BIG OIL" anymore and all the worlds problems would be solved.  

 

Sarc

J,

I'll bite: tell us how you know this? And why are you so familiar with High Times? :-) ns

Let's just say I had fun in college

"High Times" has over the decades occasionally "scooped" the MSM on stories (two examples are Noriega's obvious corruption back when the DEA was praising him & Contra-coke smuggling) and the MSM doesn't exactly appreciate it when that happens. In fact, MSM types often get infuriated & go into deep denial over such a scoop by High Times, which sometimes has the side-effect of protecting the US government from likewise being embarrassed. Of course, if the MSM could ever become a bit less careless in swallowing unlikely drugwar stories hook, line, & sinker, these embarrassments might not happen so-often...
JMR

The tax & spend drug war looks racist in the real world.

Not something I would brag about

Being weak minded in College is not something I would brag about. Your obsession with Pot makes it really hard for me to believe you don't currently smoke it. I will in the future get all my scientific information from "High Times" - not. The MSM is so crazy for not listening to loser Pot Heads - big story.

The Anti 'Man-Made' Global Warming Resource

Not something I would whine about

And you remain a liar, so don't dig that hole deeper on this subject. Making weak minded arguments and then remaking them when you have been shot down as a liar doesn't impress me. In this case, as with Noriega corruption & Contra cocaine, High Times was right, again.
JMR

The tax & spend drug war looks racist in the real world.

sarc: Don't get too upset at

sarc:

Don't get too upset at the hater. There are some folks who can't get beyond the Mr. Macky mentality.

Pot is bad, mmmmkay?

Whining about the truth?

So you really don't use it anymore but inject it into just about EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION. I apologize you are "recovered" pot head campaigner.

The Anti 'Man-Made' Global Warming Resource

Nope.

As I've said, you have a history of lying on this issue. And I'll inject whatever I want into whatever conversation(s) I want as far as you're concerned, so quit whining about it, it's not gonna change even if you finally quit lying. You've finally, sort of, admitted to your lie, which is progress, but I doubt it's likely to stop. For that to happen, you'd have to go beyond ad hominem as a strategy & formulate actual arguments on the issue itself.
JMR

The tax & spend drug war looks racist in the real world.

don't worry Sarc

Believe it or not, I know some stuff from The Anarchist Cookbook. These things have a way of happening.

*looks away and whistles*

The idea that plants tend

The idea that plants tend to react positively to an enriched CO2
environment isn't exactly new, much less theoretical, decades later...

When I said theorized, I meant as pertains to global warming.  i.e. not deliberately applied but as part of changes in the atmosphere.  As I said, scientists tested the effects on chunks of forest many years ago.

really clever

They knew it but they couldn't prove it? Is that why it was taught to me as fact in the fifth grade?

And is that why in all this talk of global warming and capturing CO2 emissions, this is the first time anyone has mentioned the fact that plants need CO2?

Face it clever, the cat's crawling out of the bag and you don't like it.

can

can,

Actually, CP must have missed ALL of her biology classes. After all, CO2 isn't only essential for respiration, but we also couldn't digest food without it.

Dontcha just love the diminished intellectual capacity of those so holier-than-thou? :-) ns

it's tiring Noel

Not only are we here to bust media bias, more and more lately we've had to bust complete and total hogwash asserted as fact. How can you come to a site like this, make stuff up as you go along, and not expect anyone to correct you? That kind of laziness is hard to comprehend.

can

can,

And doesn't she claim to be a Ph.D in something? I mean, imagine posting something this insipid: "The response of plants to increased CO2 has been theorized for age."

Yeah, it's called freaking photosynthesis, and it's hardly a theory. :-)

Of course, it is to morons like Gore and Hansen who clearly have never heard of it!!!  ns

insipid for sure

That ranks right up there with "we think the sky is blue" and "we have a theory that calories come from food."

You should start a running collection of the most absurd explanations we hear on NB. Photosynthesis was a theory until 2008 - that would definitely make the list.

Noel,

Yeah, it's called freaking photosynthesis, and it's hardly a theory. :-)

Welcome to the age of the government-schooled dumbmAsses.

Brave new world, eh?

The truth is insensitive. - Neal Boortz

R D

It is a brave new world alright.

And you have to be brave to venture out into it.

DumbmAsses is being too kind.

Thank you LBJ et al.

Delsa,

DumbmAsses is being too kind.

LOL-True, but I have to be a little more careful here at NB than do some others.

Long story, that is. :-)

The truth is insensitive. - Neal Boortz

And doesn't she claim to be

And doesn't she claim to be a Ph.D in something? I mean, imagine
posting something this insipid: "The response of plants to increased
CO2 has been theorized for age."

Yeah, it's called freaking photosynthesis, and it's hardly a theory. :-)

Of course, it is to morons like Gore and Hansen who clearly have never heard of it!!!  ns

God you guys are nasty!

I meant as pertains to global warming.  Since I mentioned a study that was done many years ago, I obviously don't think that this is the first time anyone has ever tested the effects of CO2 on plants.

And I'm afraid it isn't quite as simple as "it's called photosynthesis stupid."  If CO2 is not the rate-limiting factor for the crops sudied, increasing it won't increase yield, despite the fact that it is part of that nifty diagram of the Calvin cycle.  For instance, phytoplankton growth in many parts of the ocean is limited by iron, which is also necessary for growth.  You can pump all the CO2 in there you want, but if you want to see increased growth you need to remove the bottleneck of low available iron.

So just because CO2 is important to photosynthesis doesn't necessarily mean that crops that are important to us would respond to it the way we would predict.   There could be other shortages preventing increased crop yield.

Plankton like CO2 too

Some Plankton Thrive With More CO2 (The New York Times)

There goes the bottleneck theory.

The Anti 'Man-Made' Global Warming Resource

Not only plankton

But do you have any documentation as to whether seaweed coverage has increased in recent years?

  • LYDSEXICS UNTIE

I fail to see how my

I fail to see how my contention that certain parts of the ocean are affected by an iron bottleneck is disproved by your assertion that certain kinds of plankton increase their biomass in response to CO2.

Unless I said ALL of the ocean and your article showed ALL of the plankton, the two are entirely tangential to each other.

I read about the iron issue in some long-forgotten textbook, but here is a press release from Woods Hole detailing a recent experiment in fertilizing the ocean with iron in order to increase CO2 uptake.

Still want to fight me on this?

Plankton Natural Selection

The Plankton that increases due to CO2 will overtake the ones that don't. You would call that evolution.

Ooops looks like the add iron to the ocean idea has been discredited:

Ocean Fertilization 'Fix' For Global Warming Discredited By New Research (Science Daily)

The Anti 'Man-Made' Global Warming Resource

It's not a question of

It's not a question of which plankton, it's a question of WHERE IN THE OCEAN.  You are clearly just not understanding this concept at all.

And I didn't cite the woods hole research because I thought iron fertilization will solve global warming, I simply used it as a convenient example of the principle that phytoplankton growth is limited (IN SOME AREAS) by limited available iron.

And the only reason I mentioned any of this at all, is because some people think that plant growth is simply an issue of add more CO2, get more plant.  There are, in fact, other things a plant needs and which can limit growth if not present.  So a study designed to determine whether the growth of certain crops can be increased by the addition of CO2 isn't necessarily completely idiotic.

Want to try again?

Plankton like the CO2

There are plankton that thrive because of CO2 and thus in a CO2 rich environment would overwhelm less evovling plankton. As in CO2 alone would increase the amount of plankton.

So is your claim that adding more CO2 will do nothing to plants?

The Anti 'Man-Made' Global Warming Resource

Not only are we here to

Not only are we here to bust media bias, more and more lately we've had
to bust complete and total hogwash asserted as fact. How can you come
to a site like this, make stuff up as you go along, and not expect
anyone to correct you? That kind of laziness is hard to comprehend.

What have I made up? 

CO2 is a product of

CO2 is a product of cellular respiration.  I suppose you could say that makes it essential, but it is produced by the process, not an input.

What I specifically asked is whether we need any CO2 beyond that which our cells make while converting sugars into energy.

I'm assuming you say we need CO2 to digest our food because it is a component of bicarbonate.  If there's some other role it plays, I'd love to learn about it.  The question is, do we need to inhale CO2 to digest our food, or do we just use the waste CO2 floating around in our blood stream to make the bicarbonate that buffers our digestive system?

I don't think that's a stupid question, and I asked it because I am curious to know the answer.  I acknowledge that I am not an expert in physiology, and I'm not trying to sound smart.  In fact, since it is clear that asking questions of you is simply an invitation to sniping comments about my intelligence, the smart thing would apparently have been to keep my mouth shut!

come on clever

Don't act innocent now. Go back and read your original post for this article - you tried to lecture us on a subject you didn't understand. When you asked your question about the body needing CO2 it was obvious you meant it with a snarky tone.

In other words, you brought this on yourself. This is what happens when you start an argument without any ammo.

 

 

My snarky tone is entirely

My snarky tone is entirely due to the ridiculous contention that agricultural scientists must be doing these studies because they don't understand photosynthesis, and are thus "shocked" to discover that plants like CO2.  It is a deliberate attempt to portray people who are probably perfectly intelligent and knowledgable in their fields as idiots, for reasons that I honestly can't fathom-- especially as these results can be considered a victory for the anti-AGW side of the debate. 

The question, which I prefaced clearly with an admission of my lack of expertise on the subject, was an honest one.  I understand that my expectations of an honest answer were too high for most of you, but I am glad that at least a couple of people attempted to enlighten rather than insult me.

Since this question is so

Since this question is so indicative of my "diminshed intellectual capacity,"  I would like Noel to take the five minutes it would undoubtedly require to answer it.

Is the CO2 used for digestion atmospheric, or is it produced by our own bodies?

 

Noel?  Don't you at least

Noel?  Don't you at least want to take a guess?  You've got a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right, and then you can sound smart and REALLY put me in my place.  ;)

The CO2 that is used in the

The CO2 that is used in the digestive system is "atmospheric." A similar adsorption as from cell to blood takes place to assist in neutralizing acids in the stomach. It seems to move from the blood stream to the stomach much like it would migrate from the blood stream to the lungs for expiration. It is not a "mineral" breakdown that produces the CO2. Bicarbonate is basic and is used artificially to reduce the acidity of the gastric juices. Hope that helps.

That does help,

That does help, thanks.

So it comes from the blood stream, but in a gaseous form.  That wasn't what I meant by "atmospheric" but you answered my question nonetheless.

Hermano

Hermano,

You are correct, sir. CO2 is essential for us maintaining a proper pH balance in our blood stream as well as in the GI tract. This is crucial to digestion.

Furthermore, as you are likely aware, CO2 assists in creating a proper respiratory rate. Hyperventilation is caused by enhaling too much O2. This is why you breathe into a bag when this occurs so that you can inhale more CO2 and slow down your respiratory rate.

Once again, man ceases to exist on this planet without CO2. Period. ns

The urge to breath is

The urge to breath is triggered primarily by the CO2 level in the blood stream.

No CO2 in the blood, reduced urge to breath.

CO2 levels can also effect emotions and panic disorders. One treatment of panic disorders is to have the pt. breath into and out of a paper bag. This raises the CO2 level in the blood. Reducing the panic attack. Calming the patrient.

 "There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

stop danbo!!

Stop with the obvious scientific proof!! That isn't helping clever one little bit!

Sure the paper bag technique has been proven to reduce nausea and stop hyperventilating...but that doesn't mean scientists have proven it yet!

All these facts are getting in the way of our important business of stopping global warming. >.<