What is clearly needed to give this political process more legitimacy is an acknowledgement of the fact that the CO2-Global Change issue is much more complex than what it is usually portrayed to be.  Starting with the concluding point of the previous paragraph and working backwards, for example, how often do we see the positive consequences of global warming discussed?  There must certainly be several of them, for past periods of earth's history that have been warmer than the present have typically been called climatic optima.  And why does the debate over global warming center so exclusively on whether or not it is occurring, when its cause should be the real subject of real concern?  Finally, there is the myopic fixation we seem to have on the subject of climate, as if it alone were the sum total of our environment, when in reality it is but one of its many defining features.

Because of these deficiencies in the way in which the great public discourse over our stewardship of the planet has evolved (or been constrained to develop), one of the primary aspirations we have for our website is that it help to acquaint the public with the fact that atmospheric CO2 interacts directly with many more things than just the climate of the earth.  Specifically, we hope to introduce them to the vast array of biological phenomena that are immediately impacted by a rise in the air's CO2 content, and to alert them to the fact that the majority of these impacts are decidedly positive.  Armed with this knowledge, all of us can then more fully and intelligently weigh the many pros and cons of the whole issue and hopefully develop the wisdom to act appropriately.

So, please, visit our biological sections, as well as those that deal with climate.  They are there for a very important purpose.