Carbon dioxide needs an image makeover | OPINION

You've read my fulminations over the last couple of years on this topic but there's only one of me and thousands of you readers of my column (well, I sincerely hope there are).

For you to do this, you need to know about climate change.

THE key reference is Christopher Booker in his 2009 book, The Real Global Warming Disaster.

As it says on the cover: "Is the obsession with climate change turning out to be the most costly scientific blunder in history?"

Thirteen years later, that blunder has become an unfortunate reality.

Another useful (and very concise) +one is Climate Carbon Emissions - the Facts, published in 2013 by the Fair Farming Group of Australia.

A fun one is How to Get Expelled from School - A Guide to Climate Change for Pupils, Parents and Punters written in 2011 by Ian Plimer.

There are a few more, but you get the drift.

CLIMATE change has always happened, with warm seasons followed by cold ones - for example, the Medieval Warming was followed by a mini-Ice Age, during which the Thames in London froze.

This couldn't have been due to industrialisation dependent on coal-fired power stations which were adding carbon dioxide to the global atmosphere, as it hadn't yet happened.

THE current obsession is due almost entirely to the interventions of the multi-millionaire Al Gore, who has been pouring millions into the media, and as was said hundreds of years ago: "He who pays the piper calleth the tune."

He has also been pouring millions into the renewable energy industries (wind and solar) so he has a vested interest - in 2007 he was using 20 times the US national average of electricity, and defended this by saying he had bought renewable energy credits to offset this.

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Yes, you've guessed it - those credits were bought from one of his companies.

The tacit assumption is that the money invested in your organisation will result in favourable comments - if not, the investment stops.

I know - I've been there.

THE villain in all this is carbon dioxide.

Never mind that, without it, there would be no photosynthesis and hence no plant growth and no other life forms feeding off those plants - it's a pollutant.

We need to get rid of that negative description.

THIS is where you come in.

You're living in a number of basically rural federal electorates across Australia.

What I would really appreciate is for you to e-mail this article ("Carbon dioxide as a positive") to your local MP, and ask for a response.

Add me as a "CC" (wvipl@activ8.net.au) - which will ensure that I get it.

The key message to get across to them is that a 1 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will result in a similar increase in the yield and value of global crop production, which would be $450 million every year.

For free.

I shall be very interested to see how many of you are concerned enough about the issue to do this.

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