Thirty-one thousand scientists want you to grow California orange groves with CO2 emissions.

“You. Are a pioneer in using recycled cups.”

That’s what the green words on my cup tell me, anyway, as I sip a venti organic chai tea with steamed soy milk and look at the green Starbucks logo. The streetlight turns green and I zip along Colima Avenue in Whittier. I am a regular eco-friendly, environmentally-responsible human being. Even my carbon emissions from Vicky’s borrowed car help the planet.

Heck, no! you retort. Carbon emissions cause global warming.

Hooey, I tell you. A look at long-term scientific research demands we abandon the bandwagon position parroted by fringe alarmists like Al Gore.

According to a 10-year scientific study signed by 31,072 scientists and researchers, published in 2008 as a paper entitled “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” atmospheric CO2 has increased by 22 percent during the past 50 years. Our temperature has also increased an average of .5 degrees Celsius every century for the last 300 years. Both of these changes are very, very good.

Increased CO2 emissions and the slow increase in temperature are stabilizing our planet.

Paleoclimatology, or the study of climate change, demonstrates how these phenomena profit humanity. Why? Atmospheric and surface temperatures have been recovering from an unusually cold period 500 to 300 years ago that researcher L.D. Keigwin terms the “Little Ice Age.” This frigid phase emerged after a warm interval about 1,000 years ago known as the “Medieval Climate Optimum,” per the Energy and Environment Resources Committee. During the Medieval Climate Optimum, the Vikings discovered land in the north and christened their colonization “Greenland” to honor the beautiful, lush land with plenty of vegetation. Plants flourished and grew, but the warmth gradually turned to coolness during the next half-millennium. Temperatures dropped and glaciers formed. Plants were not hardy enough to withstand the chilling onset. Many colonists abandoned their once-green land. Since the time of this Little Ice Age, Earth’s temperatures have been recovering little by little. Long-term measurements of a two million square mile region of the Atlantic Ocean signify that our planet will likely take another 400+ years to reach full optimum climate, and that our current recovery mean temperature puts us just below the 3,000-year global average.

Botany also indicates the environmental benefit of greenhouse emissions. Remember photosynthesis? Atmospheric CO2 fertilizes plants. Higher carbon dioxide enables plants to “breathe” better, grow larger, develop faster, perspire less and live in drier climates. An ideal growth environment for plants is about 600 parts per million CO2. In the last 50 years, about 30% of this projected rise from 295 to 600 ppm has already taken place, without causing unfavorable climate changes. Records at the U.S. Forestry Service indicate that long-lived 1,000- to 2,000-year-old pine trees have shown a sharp increase in growth during the past half-century, mostly due to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases. The journal “Science” recently reported that Amazonian rain forests are increasing their vegetation by about 900 pounds of carbon per acre per year, or approximately two tons of biomass per acre per year. Summary data from 279 published experiments on wheat crops, orange groves and pine forests verify that they respond exceptionally well to enriched CO2 environments. Carbon emissions are good for the breadbasket, groves and forestry. And because wheat, oranges and pines grow in California, voila, we have a happier smog state!

Besides, atmospheric CO2 is required for life by both plants and animals. It is the sole source of carbon in all of the protein, carbohydrate, fat, and other organic molecules of which living things are constructed. Something so basic and necessary for life to flourish cannot be an environmental pollutant.

In case you’re still worried about the temperatures, “Hydrocarbon use and atmospheric CO2 do not correlate with the observed temperatures,” say the 31,072 scientists who signed the paper. But solar activity correlates quite well. In other words, “Human hydrocarbon use is not measurably warming the earth.”

So relax, sip a cup of Starbucks coffee, recycle it if you’d like and take that weekend road trip.