That stuff that makes roses grow and bread rise: It's allegedly like a chronic disease, and also like nuclear waste, and like cheesecake!

[More nutty claims at "Scientific" American]

The average temperature of the planet for the next several thousand years will be determined this century—by those of us living today, according to a new National Research Council report which lays out the impact of every degree of warming on outcomes ranging from sea-level rise to reduced crop yields.

"Because carbon dioxide is so long-lived in the atmosphere, it could effectively lock Earth and future generations into warming not just for decades and centuries, but literally for thousands of years," atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who chaired the report, said at a July 16 press briefing held to release it. She compared CO2 to cheesecake: "If I knew that every pound of cheesecake that I ate would give me a pound that could never be lost, I think I would eat a lot less cheesecake."
...
Regardless, the report notes that the planet has entered a new era, dubbed the Anthropocene, "during which the evolution of the planet's environment will be largely controlled by the effects of human activities, notably emissions of carbon dioxide." Hayhoe, for one, compares this report with a doctor's visit for Earth—the chronic disease being human-emitted carbon dioxide. "Many of us have had the experience of going to the doctor and receiving advice on how to improve our health by making wise lifestyle choices," she notes. "It's up to us to decide how much we are willing to change."

[In case you missed it]: Report claims that trace amounts of CO2 may lower US corn yields by 15%

“We have to think about [carbon dioxide] much more like nuclear waste than, like say, smog or acid rain,” explains one of the world’s top atmospheric scientists, Susan Solomon, Senior Scientist for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.