Elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have a decidedly beneficial effect on all food crops. Plants' ability to photo-synthesize is enhanced. Water use efficiency is increased. The introduction of more productive technologies and cultural practices will likely be favored. The result could be crops and food animals that are more resistant to environmental stresses and climatic variations.
Food production is very much a function of climate, which in itself is unpredictable.
Extremes in weather affect agriculture more than do changes in averages, such as increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. There is no evidence that climate variability or hazardous events such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, or early and late frosts would be more frequent as atmospheric carbon dioxide increases. Hundreds of experiments now show that elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide not only will significantly increase yields of all food crops, but will partially alleviate the harmful effects of many environmental stresses such as adverse temperatures, air pollutants, drought, alkalinity, light deficiencies, and excessive ultraviolet radiation. World food security and the magnitude and impact of global warming are topics charged with political and scientific controversy. There are those that advocate immediate action to reduce the world's output of carbon dioxide at a cost of billions of dollars.