Carbon Dioxide Was Never the Threat it Was Sold to be

The US EPA has finally rescinded the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the Obama era EPA ruling that claimed carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ‘endanger’ human health and welfare.

The action follows an extensive review of scientific evidence, legal and constitutional principles, and 572,000 public comments.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called it ‘the single largest deregulatory action in US history.’ Just eliminating federal GHG emission standards for vehicles (model years 2012-2027 and beyond) will save American taxpayers over $1.4 trillion, EPA estimates. Owners will no longer have to pay for measuring, reporting, certifying and complying with federal GHG vehicle emission standards. ⁽¹⁾

For years Washington politicians told the American people there was a carbon dioxide ‘problem’ so serious it justified rewriting our entire energy economy. They claimed CO2 was dangerous, labeled it an endangerment and used that finding as a blank check for regulation, mandates, and subsidies. Many warned that this wasn’t science, it was politics. Now, even the Environmental Protection Agency is backing away from that claim.

This bureaucratic decree masqueraded as settled science for far too long. Climate zealots claimed carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threatened public health as agents of planetary overheating, ignoring both a paucity of supporting data and contradictory evidence that inexorably accumulated. Worldwide, the economic waste resulting from the rule is staggering. The Climate Policy Initiative estimates that between 2011 and 2020 climate spending totaled $4.8 trillion. Estimates for energy transition investment money dumped into the wind, solar and EV rat hole was $2.3 trillion in 2025 alone. ⁽³⁾

With the EPA backing away from its regulation on greenhouse gases, developing countries should waste no time in severing whatever restrictions Western climate overseers have placed on their use of fossil fuels. For too long, climate policies have impeded economic growth and denied access to reliable supplies of electricity to safer indoor fuels for cooking and heating, to refrigeration and to clean water. The result has been higher rates of morbidity and mortality among the world’s poor. CO2 is not the enemy of humankind. Misguided attempts to criminalize its emissions are. ⁽³⁾

New Discovery Showing Irrelevance of CO2

Three million years ago the world was warmer, and about to cool into the violent ice age cycles. The ice core experts were expecting to confirm that CO2 levels were about 400 ppm, as other proxies had shown, and they thought that greenhouse gases might fall and lead the cooling shift. But instead of CO2 being at 400 ppm, and then leading the cooling, the bubbles trapped in ice were only 250 ppm to start with and they stayed constant through important temperature swings. CO2 did not appear to have any role in causing the warmth that was, or cooling that followed. And nor did methane. (4,5)

Final Words

The vast majority of scientists recognize that positive impacts exist from carbon dioxide. (6) CO2 makes up about 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is essential for photosynthesis and life itself. Plants depend on it. Crops require it. Throughout Earth’s history, life flourished when CO2 levels were far higher than today. Yet politicians treated this trace, life-supporting gas as if it were toxic waste. And once you convince people there’s a crisis, the spending never stops. (2)

We can be very thankful for this latest action which rescinds the Endangerment Finding.

References

1. Paul Driessen, “Climate alarmists howl after EPA rescinds endangerment finding,” cornwallalliance.org, February 26, 2026
2. Wayne Christian, “We told you so: EPA was wrong about CO2 from the start,” realclearenergy.org, February 11, 2026
3. Vijay Jayaraj, “EPS’s CO2 reversal is welcome opening for developing world,” cornwallalliance.org, February 23, 2026
4. Jo Nova, “Big news: 3-million-year old ice cores flummox researchers—CO2 is irrelevant,” joannenova.com.au, March 20, 2026
5. Marks-Peterson et al., “Broadly stable atmospheric CO2 and CH4 levels over the past 3 million years,” Nature 652, 647-663, 2026
6. Anthony J. Sadar, “At last, with CO2 no longer a pollutant, we can all exhale,” americanthinker.com/blog, February 18. 2026

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