Matt Ridley on going and getting green

In 2013, Matt Ridley offered this talk on the greening of the planet, and not despite but rather because of increasing economic development, a data-driven, seemingly counterintuitive to those who see environmental progress to be negatively related to economic growth.

The basic thesis is that carbon fuels green growth, probably better than any other artificial or man made plan to "go green." The argument is pretty simple and the evidence is pretty clear: The more carbon dioxide humans and industry produce, the more carbon dioxide available to spur growth in plants. By the way, add in our improved management of land and crop production and you have a situation where there are more tress and more green today than there has been in perhaps the last two hundred years. This period parallels the incredible expansion of capitalism, markets, poverty reduction, industrialization and human progress.

Here is a former Greenpeace leader, making a similar argument as to the value of increasing carbon.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden plans to 'eliminate carbon' from the atmosphere as part of his grandiose, green strategy. Don't plants get a voice in this argument? And what energy source are we going to use to power all of those electric vehicles?