Shock News : 100 Years Ago, Scientific American Said CO2 Was Not A Pollutant

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Tony Heller

CARBONIC ACID AS A FERTILISER

1 December 1923

CO2NotAPollutant

01 Dec 1923 – CARBONIC ACIDAS A FERTILISER

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

11 Responses to Shock News : 100 Years Ago, Scientific American Said CO2 Was Not A Pollutant

  1. nigelf says:
    November 22, 2013 at 11:11 pm

    And 90 years later here we still are…not a pollutant.

    Reply
  2. Bob Greene says:
    November 24, 2013 at 1:59 pm

    I’m sure Steve missed the retraction published in subsequent issues.

    Reply
  3. daddyjamesb@gmail.com says:
    November 25, 2013 at 5:27 am

    “According to the inventor’s opinion” that appeared in American Scientific. Thanks for the laugh.

    Reply
  4. daveburton says:
    January 25, 2015 at 5:44 am

    Thanks for this! I posted a tidier copy of the article here:
    http://www.burtonsys.com/climate/CO2_enrichment_1923.html

    The experiments 91 years ago (when atmospheric CO2 levels averaged 0.03%) found that CO2 from blast furnace exhaust could be used to increase various crop yields by from 100% to 300%. Crops tested included tomatoes, spinach, castor oil plants, potatoes, lupines, and barley.

    Reply
  5. daveburton says:
    January 27, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    I found the Nov. 27, 1920 issue of Scientific American (digitized by Google) upon which this story was based, and put a copy on my web site, here:
    http://www.sealevel.info/ScientificAmerican_1920-11-27_CO2_fertilization.pdf

    This photograph of potatoes is one of the illustrations from that article:
    http://www.sealevel.info/CO2_fertilized_potatoes_1920_50pct.jpg

    Reply
  6. Stark Dickflüssig says:
    January 27, 2015 at 6:19 pm

    Wait till when they learn that the other byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion is water. I can’t wait to have discussions with the same idiots who currently claim that CO2 levels under 5000ppm count as pollution.

    Reply
  7. daveburton says:
    January 27, 2015 at 9:38 pm

    I did a bit of cutting and pasting, to fit that entire Scientific American article onto one 8.5×11 page:
    http://www.sealevel.info/ScientificAmerican_1920-11-27_CO2_fertilization.jpg

    Reply
  8. daveburton says:
    January 28, 2015 at 1:05 am

    Here’s another article based on the SciAm article. This one was in the 1-1-2021 issue of The Literary Digest by Funk & Wagnalls:

    Original scan by Google:
    http://www.sealevel.info/TheLiteraryDigest_1921-01-01_Fertilizing_the_Air.pdf

    Cleaned up:
    http://www.sealevel.info/TheLiteraryDigest_1921-01-01_Fertilizing_the_Air.html

    Reply

Leave a Reply to nigelfCancel reply