Though he passed away in 2020, British-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) taught the world some very important lessons about climate change that persist through time, including the fact that the ever-dreaded-among-climate-lunatics element known as carbon dioxide (CO2) is good for the planet rather than bad.
Back in 2015, Dyson participated in an interview with Conversations that Matter in which he explained that the many climate models used by global warming fanatics to predict the environmental future are only suitable for understanding what the climate is doing now, or what it did in the past.
"As measured from space, the whole earth is growing greener as a result of carbon dioxide, so it's increasing agricultural yields, it's increasing the forests, and it's increasing growth in the biological world – and that's more important and more certain than the effects on climate," Dyson explained.
Dyson, in case you are unfamiliar with him, was a renowned expert in climate matters. He is among the most celebrated figures in 20th century physics, having pioneered extensive work in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics and engineering.
Don't worry: The climate won't hurt you
Back in 2006, Dyson published a work called "The Scientist as Rebel" in which he openly questioned – gasp! – the role of human activity in global warming and climate change. Two years later, he participated in an interview with Physics World in which he basically debunked the climate industry as a money grifting operation.
In Dyson's view, all the money being spent addressing climate change would be better used to address "other problems that are more urgent and more important such as poverty, infectious diseases, public education and health." Dyson also clarified at the time that no matter what happens with the climate, it "will not do us any harm."
"There is man-made climate change," Dyson would later admit in his 2015 interview with Conversations that Matter. "It's a question of how much and is it good or bad."
"First of all, we don't understand the details. It's probably much less than it's generally claimed and the most important thing is that there are huge non-climate effects of carbon dioxide which are overwhelmingly favorable [and] which are not taken into account."
Dyson would add that, as measured by satellites, "the whole Earth is growing greener as a result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."
Dyson's work in climate matters dates all the way back to 1978 when he first began studying the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere on vegetation. He discovered all the way back then that CO2 is vital for agriculture, plant life and all sorts of other growth in the biological world.
"And that's more important and more certain than the effects on climate," he said.
While CO2 levels have increased about 40 percent since the time when Dyson first began studying it, "about half of that has gone into raising vegetation," Dyson revealed before his passing.
"It's enormously beneficial to both food production and also to the biodiversity, preservation of species and everything else that's good."
Dyson cited research dating even further back to 1960s Japan when Japanese climate expert Suki Manabe developed the world's very first climate model evaluating the effects of increasing CO2 on the planet. Based on this, Dyson determined that Manabe's climate model, along with all other climate models that would be produced thereafter, point to one thing and one thing only:
"These climate models are excellent tools for understanding climate but they're very bad tools for predicting climate."
