CO2 is many things.
Essential for life, a greenhouse gas, a polluter.
Just as your body needs the right amount of nutrients, the Earth and nature just need the right amount of CO2. As the plants grow, they bind CO2. When the plants die, and eventually rot, CO2 is released, and new plants can use it again. In this way, CO2 goes into a natural cycle. But when we burn coal, oil and gas, CO2 is emitted that is not part of the cycle. Then there will be much more CO2 than nature needs, and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase.
Pollution is not a measure of somethings make-up, or if something is toxic or not, it is about how much of it you have and where. Water is great in the sea. Not great when flooding your house. The US supreme court ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant in a landmark 2007 case.
“CO2 Is Plant Food.” Conservative climate skeptics call this a sound argument. Climate change communicators should call it what it is: a clever sound-bite that depends on cherry-picked facts and on a major premise that is demonstrably false.”
Uprooting the carbon dioxide is plant food argument » Yale Climate Connections
Plants thrived during the deepest of glacial phases over the past million years when atmospheric CO2 levels dropped as low as 171 ppm. CO2 availability is not a major contributor to plant growth, compared to available sunlight, moisture, nutrients and proper temperature ranges
Plants cannot live on CO2 alone; a complete plant metabolism depends on a number of elements. Plant growth has one limiting factor. In most of the world the limit is water. In mid-high latitudes it's sunlight. In really high latitudes it's water again (for plants frozen water is the same as no water). In tropical rain-forests the limit is trace nutrients; there's practically none in the soil, it's all in the biomass and leaf litter. The thing was that CO2 never was the limiting factor so more CO2 won't give more plant life. Less C02 wont give less plant life.
Inside greenhouses, plants get only the extra CO2 and fertilizers, and weeds are not a problem. They dont get the problems from the warming that comes with more C02 which causes floods and droughts in nature.
Greenhouses also add extra water and extra nutrients to go with that extra CO2. Without those you can’t increase growth. A recipe analogy. If you use 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar and two eggs to make cookies but you suddenly have a dozen eggs. Does that mean you can make more cookies? No, not without the other elements increasing in your ratio. Well in the real world nutrients and water availability are NOT increasing in the same ratios carbon dioxide is.
"Changes in vegetation alter the balance between the amount of carbon captured and its release into the atmosphere. Small variations could significantly impact efforts to keep warming below 1.5 degrees centigrade”. Fewer white spots to reflect sun rays means a greener earth is amplifying global warming.
Arctic on red alert as lands grow greener
The brutal truth
... the increasing CO2 concentration of the atmosphere cannot compensate the stress of the trees resulting from extreme climate conditions”..
Trees growing under simulated heat and drought conditions reveal that the negatives of increased atmospheric CO2 levels outweigh the benefits for plants.
And, we really dont need “a greener planet”.. It makes the planet darker, which amplifies global warming. Too much C02 makes for poor quality food. The problem was never too little food on the planet anyway. The problem is the distribution of it. The rich world has too much of it and the poor nations have to little of it.
The world is gradually becoming less green, scientists have found. Plant growth is declining all over the planet, and new research links the phenomenon to decreasing moisture in the air—a consequence of climate change.
The study published yesterday in Science Advances points to satellite observations that revealed expanding vegetation worldwide during much of the 1980s and 1990s. But then, about 20 years ago, the trend stopped.
Since then, more than half of the world’s vegetated landscapes have been experiencing a “browning” trend, or decrease in plant growth, according to the authors.
Climate records suggest the declines are associated with a metric known as vapor pressure deficit—that’s the difference between the amount of moisture the air actually holds versus the maximum amount of moisture it could be holding. A high deficit is sometimes referred to as an atmospheric drought.
- Chelsea Harvey, E&E News/Scientific American, Aug 15, 2019
Plant growth has declined drastically around the world due to dry air
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1396The NASA “Greening Earth” study predicted it would happen.
“Studies have shown that plants acclimatize, or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.”
According to the "C02 is plant food"-cult, plant life did not exist on Earth before the Industrial Revolution. Our CO2 emissions "saved" plant life.
It is not automatically a good thing that the Earth becomes "greener", because then we produce more food.
White patches of ice on the globe reflect sunrays and heat back into space. A greener globe is a darker globe that absorbs more heat and thus amplifies global warming.A warmer globe creates a more unstable globe that creates more extreme weather such as droughts and floods. Which makes it harder to plan, grow and harvest food. We have plenty of food, it is the distribution that is the problem.
And did anyone think that the inherited wealth-people, the fossil fuel oligarchs and the robber barons who have made a fortune on cheap fossil fuels, would suddenly "eliminate hunger on the planet" if only they could continue to inject even more CO2 into the atmosphere?
The rise of the oil industry and perpetual economic growth was never about fighting poverty anyway. 1 billion people do not yet have access to electricity. Where did fossil fuels go?
More C02 also bad for humans;
"Simulated multi-models project the atmospheric average CO2 concentrations to range between 794 and 1142 ppm by 2100 (IPCC, 2013)."
[…] This early evidence indicates potential health risks at CO2 exposures as low as 1,000 ppm—a threshold that is already exceeded in many indoor environments with increased room occupancy and reduced building ventilation rates, and equivalent to some estimates for urban outdoor air concentrations before 2100.
“Continuous exposure to increased atmospheric CO2 could be an overlooked stressor of the modern and/or future environment”
Reality:
Someone please tell the farmers of the world more CO2 is "plant food" and “greening the Earth” when they cant even plant their corn or they have their harvest hit by droughts or flooded by billions of tons of water because of AGW. And maybe those same people can send “thoughts and prayers” while we wait for the humanitarian and atheist help organizations to arrive with actual help?
Farmers needs stability and predictability, not a rapidly warming and changing world.
Takeaways:
- "Growing evidence suggests that environmentally relevant elevations in CO2 (<5,000 ppm) may pose direct risks for human health”
- Plants cannot live on CO2 alone; a complete plant metabolism depends on a number of elements. Plant growth has one limiting factor. In most of the world the limit is water. In mid-high latitudes it's sunlight. In really high latitudes it's water again (for plants frozen water is the same as no water). In tropical rain-forests the limit is trace nutrients; there's practically none in the soil, it's all in the biomass and leaf litter. The thing was that CO2 never was the limiting factor so more CO2 won't give more plant life. Less C02 wont give less plant life.
- Increased carbon dioxide levels in air restrict plants' ability to absorb nutrients. Rising carbon levels threaten diets of hundreds of millions of poor. Carbon dioxide makes plants grow faster and create fewer micro-nutrients. Rising carbon emissions could make vital food crops from wheat to rice less nutritious and endanger the health of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest.
- More C02 is not good for world food production. World hunger has risen for tree years in a row.
- “Studies have shown that plants acclimatize, or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.”
- Earth Stopped Getting Greener 20 Years Ago. Declining plant growth is linked to decreasing air moisture tied to global warming
- Inside greenhouses, plants get only the extra CO2 and fertilizers, and weeds are not a problem. They dont get the problems from the warming that comes with more C02 which causes floods and droughts in nature.
- There are some short termed positive sides to increased CO2 in the atmosphere for some plants, but the added heat cancels out this, and the net impact is very likely negative, especially in the future. Not all crops are hybrides like durum wheat altered to tackle harsher and warmer climates. Weeds benefits faster from more C02. Biodiversity, insects and oxygen producing phytoplankton in the oceans are already effected by global warming. Farmers world wide are hit hard by floods and drougts. They need stability for their crops/harvest, not a rapidly warming world.
Negatives from more C02 include:
- Plant Extinction Is Happening 500x Faster Than Before the Industrial Revolution. 571 species had definitely been wiped out since 1750 but with knowledge of many plant species still very limited the true number is likely to be much higher.
- The added heat cancels out any short termed positive effect for some of the plants. Heavy downpours and droughts are likely to reduce crop yields. The net result is depressed food production. Rising carbon levels threaten diets of hundreds of millions of poor. Carbon dioxide makes plants grow faster and create fewer micro-nutrients. Rising carbon emissions could make vital food crops from wheat to rice less nutritious and endanger the health of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest. World hunger has risen three straight years. Farmers world wide are hit hard by floods and drougts. Natural Disasters Are Costing Farming Billions of Dollars a Year
- Plant quality declines as CO2 levels rise. CO2 enhanced plants will need extra water both to maintain their larger growth as well as to compensate for greater moisture evaporation as the heat increases. Where will it come from? In many places rainwater is not sufficient for current agriculture and the aquifers they rely on are running dry throughout the Earth. Increased carbon dioxide levels in air restrict plants' ability to absorb nutrients. A 20 years study of crops grown under enhanced CO2 finds that there is an upper limit to C3 enhancement from CO2, while C4 plants, after a sufficient length of time, adapt to high CO2 by improving their uptake of nitrogen. So: Increased CO2 ultimately depresses C3 growth, while C4 plants, which include numerous pest varieties, will become more vigorous.
- Greening the earth adds to the land albedo effect and is amplifying global warming. Two new studies confirm that as atmospheric chemistry changes and the thermometer shifts, so does vegetation’s reaction to climate change. One team of scientists, focusing on any new leaves that plants may turn over in a fast-changing climate, found that leaves will become thicker as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere soar – the consequence of fossil fuel combustion, and the indisputable driver of global warming. This means that they − and therefore forests − could also become less efficient at sequestering carbon, allowing ever more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere to accelerate warming.
- Weeds benefits faster from more C02. Pesticides becomes less effective at higher C02 levels. Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate.
- Biodiversity is already affected by GW.
- Insects and their habitats are already affected by pollution and CC. 75% of our food crops and nearly 90% of wild flowering plants depend at least to some extent on animal pollination and that a high diversity of wild pollinators is critical to pollination. Insect pests also “benefits” from warming.
- Oxygen producing phytoplankton in the oceans are already effected by global warming.
- Extra C02 makes the oceans more acid. Coral reefs are already damaged from coral bleaching.
- Climate change happening 'too fast' for plant and animal species to adapt
- There's so much CO2 in the atmosphere that planting trees can no longer save us
Plant Extinction Is Happening 500x Faster Than Before the Industrial Revolution. 571 species had definitely been wiped out since 1750 but with knowledge of many plant species still very limited the true number is likely to be much higher.
“Study shows 571 species “
‘Frightening’ number of plant extinctions found in global survey
Global dataset shows geography and life form predict modern plant extinction and rediscovery
Horror 50C heatwave hits 200 million
Rising carbon levels threaten diets of hundreds of millions of poor
Rising carbon emissions could make vital food crops from wheat to rice less nutritious and endanger the health of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest
Certain staple crops grown in open fields with elevated carbon dioxide levels had up to 17 percent lower levels of protein, iron and zinc compared to those grown amid less of the gas, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Crop failure and bankruptcy threaten farmers as drought grips Europe
https://www.theguardian.com/envi...
Another study published in Nature Climate Change last week concluded that higher temperatures will cause wheat production to decline. Just a 1°C rise in global temperature will decrease wheat yields by about 5% (approximately 35 million tons).
Climate change is bad news for several of our staple crops. For example, a 2012 paper found that higher temperatures are detrimental to French corn yields. While French corn production has increased steadily in recent decades due to a combination of technological improvements and CO2 fertilization (the former far more than the latter), yields have leveled off in recent years, and were particularly low when struck by heat waves.
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In sub-Saharan Africa, a much higher risk of droughts will lead to insufficient access to drinking and irrigation water, and reduced agricultural productivity.
Vietnamese farmers are migrating en masse to escape climate change
Thousands of kilometres of dykes, many over four metres high, now criss-cross the delta. They were built principally to protect people and crops from flooding, but those same dykes have fundamentally altered the ecosystem. The poor and the landless can no longer find fish to eat and sell, and the dykes prevent free nutrients being carried onto paddies by the flood.
All this demonstrates that climate change threatens to exacerbate the existing trends of economic migration. One large scale study of migration in deltas has found that climate factors such as extreme floods, cyclones, erosion, and land degradation play a role in making natural resource-based livelihoods more tenuous, further encouraging inhabitants to migrate.
Vietnamese farmers are migrating en masse to escape climate change
We have left the stable temperatures that allowed the development of agriculture and human civilization to arise.
Estimated 20 years of healthy life lost per 1000 people in Africa by 2050, with south-east asian and middle-eastern regions not far behind.
The effects of climate change on hunger | Stanford News
A 16-year study found that we’re at a point where more CO2 won’t keep increasing plant production, but higher temperatures will decrease it
https://www.theguardian.com/envi...
More:
During a 20-year field experiment in Minnesota, a widespread group of plants that initially grew faster when fed more CO2 stopped doing so after 12 years, researchers report in the April 20 Science.
https://www.sciencenews.org/arti...
The assumption has been that C3 crops are helped by higher CO2 levels while C4 plants (grasses, weeds, some grains) are hurt because of the unfavorable CO2 - nitrogen mix. However, a 20 years study of crops grown under enhanced CO2 finds that there is an upper limit to C3 enhancement from CO2, while C4 plants, after a sufficient length of time, adapt to high CO2 by improving their uptake of nitrogen. So: Increased CO2 ultimately depresses C3 growth, while C4 plants, which include numerous pest varieties, will become more vigorous. The net result is depressed food production.
http://www.sciencemagazinedigita...
Unexpected reversal of C3 versus C4 grass response to elevated CO2 during a 20-year field experiment
Wolf and Ziska comments:
Photosynthesis fight: researchers see green over carbon
Response to Comment on “Unexpected reversal of C3 versus C4 grass response to elevated CO2 during a 20-year field experiment”
In a thoughtful consideration of the mechanisms responsible for the unexpected reversal of C3 versus C4 grass community responses to elevated CO2 observed over a 20-year period (1), Wolf and Ziska (2) make many excellent points. However, they inaccurately represent the interpretations and conclusions of our paper, include at least one key factual error, and come to several conclusions that we believe the evidence does not support.
MORE C02 MAKES PLANTS LESS NUTRIENT
New science just in AUGUST 2018:
This is published in Nature:
More C02 is not good for world food production.
Continued increased CO₂ emissions will make our food less nutritious.
The number of people consuming too little protein, zinc and iron will increase by hundreds of millions.
In particular, women and children in Asia, Africa and the Middle East will be affected by anemia (iron deficiency) and other deficiency diseases.
Several billion people who already suffer from low nutrients will experience deterioration.
The world's poorest, which accounts for the lowest CO₂ emissions, will suffer the most. The world's richest, which releases most CO₂ (carbon dioxide), will largely escape because we have a more varied diet.
Abstract:
“We analysed the impact of elevated CO2 concentrations on the sufficiency of dietary intake of iron, zinc and protein for the populations of 151 countries using a model of per-capita food availability stratified by age and sex, assuming constant diets and excluding other climate impacts on food production.
We estimate that elevated CO2 could cause an additional 175 million people to be zinc deficient and an additional 122 million people to be protein deficient (assuming 2050 population and CO2 projections).
For iron, 1.4 billion women of childbearing age and children under 5 are in countries with greater than 20% anaemia prevalence and would lose >4% of dietary iron. Regions at highest risk—South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East—require extra precautions to sustain an already tenuous advance towards improved public health.”
Increased carbon dioxide levels in air restrict plants' ability to absorb nutrients
Photosynthesis makes plants important regulators of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels yet this study suggests that it may not be as reliable a carbon-removal system as previously thought
Plants may absorb less carbon under climate change – Physics World
Plant quality declines as CO2 levels rise
Such claims (more C02 is good) fail to take into account that increasing the availability of one substance that plants need requires other supply changes for benefits to accrue. It also fails to take into account that a warmer earth will see an increase in deserts and other arid lands, reducing the area available for crops. Plants cannot live on CO2 alone; a complete plant metabolism depends on a number of elements. [...] CO2 enhanced plants will need extra water both to maintain their larger growth as well as to compensate for greater moisture evaporation as the heat increases. Where will it come from? In many places rainwater is not sufficient for current agriculture and the aquifers they rely on are running dry throughout the Earth.
What about that NASA “Greening Earth” study deniers love to link to?
That study included a stark GW warning deniers always “forget” to mention;
That NASA study also made it very clear that the "fertilization effect diminishes over time."
“The gas (C02), which traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere, has been increasing since the industrial age due to the burning of oil, gas, coal and wood for energy and is continuing to reach concentrations not seen in at least 500,000 years. The impacts of climate change include global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and sea ice as well as more severe weather events.”
“Studies have shown that plants acclimatize, or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.”
A greening earth also adds to the land albedo effect thus amplifies GW.
As the land warms up, trees and forests migrate north. White snow that reflects sunlight back to space is covered with dark green leaves or dark brown tree trunks and branches, which absorb sunlight and convert it to heat, with the same effect of amplifying global warming.
Although the greening might sound like good news as it means more carbon uptake and biomass production, it represents a major disruption to the delicate balance in cold ecosystems,” said Keenan. “Temperatures will warm sufficiently so that new species of trees could move in and compete with vegetation that had previously dominated the landscape. This change in vegetation would also affect insects and animals that relied on native vegetation for food.”
Darkening the earth's albedo is a very bad idea right now.
Latest august 2019:
Earth Stopped Getting Greener 20 Years Ago
Declining plant growth is linked to decreasing air moisture tied to global warming
The world is gradually becoming less green, scientists have found. Plant growth is declining all over the planet, and new research links the phenomenon to decreasing moisture in the air—a consequence of climate change.
The study published yesterday in Science Advances points to satellite observations that revealed expanding vegetation worldwide during much of the 1980s and 1990s. But then, about 20 years ago, the trend stopped.
Increased atmospheric vapor pressure deficit reduces global vegetation growth
Areas Where Cold Temperatures Limit Plant Growth Are Shrinking
Flourishing forests pose carbon questions | Climate News Network
More:
Ask the Experts: Does Rising CO2 Benefit Plants?
Climate change’s negative effects on plants will likely outweigh any gains from elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
A lack of nitrogen or other nutrients does not affect agricultural plants as much as wild ones, thanks to fertilizer. Still, research shows plants “get some benefits early on from higher CO2, but that [benefit] starts to saturate” after the gas reaches a certain level, Moore says—adding, “The more CO2 you have, the less and less benefit you get.” And while rising carbon dioxide might seem like a boon for agriculture, Moore also emphasizes any potential positive effects cannot be considered in isolation, and will likely be outweighed by many drawbacks. “Even with the benefit of CO2 fertilization, when you start getting up to 1 to 2 degrees of warming, you see negative effects,” she says. “There are a lot of different pathways by which temperature can negatively affect crop yield: soil moisture deficit [or] heat directly damaging the plants and interfering with their reproductive process.” On top of all that, Moore points out increased CO2 also benefits weeds that compete with farm plants.
IPCC report warns of future climate change risks, but is spun by contrarians | Dana Nuccitelli
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/ar5_wgII_spm_en.pdf
There will certainly be some positive climate change outcomes as well, but all evidence suggests the negatives will far outweigh the positives. Cherry picking one possible positive outcome and ignoring all the negatives as an excuse to maintain the status quo is simply a failure of basic risk management. And with a threat as dangerous as global climate change, engaging in proper risk management is incredibly important. Failure is simply not an option.
OCEANS, PLANKTON AND ALGAES
Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume I
“The world’s oceans are currently absorbing more than a quarter of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere annually from human activities, making them more acidic”. (very high confidence)
http://earthsky.org/earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-oxygen
URI researchers: Small changes in oxygen levels have big implications for ocean life
URI researchers: Small changes in oxygen levels have big implications for ocean life
The right combination of warm water, high nutrient levels, and adequate sunlight combined can cause a harmful algae bloom.
http://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/algae-blooms-and-climate-change
WHAT ABOUT THE INSECTS?
Climate change on track to cause major insect wipeout, scientists warn
Abstract
In the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the United Nations is pursuing efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C, whereas earlier aspirations focused on a 2°C limit. With current pledges, corresponding to ~3.2°C warming, climatically determined geographic range losses of >50% are projected in ~49% of insects, 44% of plants, and 26% of vertebrates. At 2°C, this falls to 18% of insects, 16% of plants, and 8% of vertebrates and at 1.5°C, to 6% of insects, 8% of plants, and 4% of vertebrates. When warming is limited to 1.5°C as compared with 2°C, numbers of species projected to lose >50% of their range are reduced by ~66% in insects and by ~50% in plants and vertebrates.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6390/791
Insects are vital to ecosystems but will lose almost half their habitat under current climate projections.
A report from The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), concludes that 75% of our food crops and nearly 90% of wild flowering plants depend at least to some extent on animal pollination and that a high diversity of wild pollinators is critical to pollination even when managed bees are present in high numbers.
More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas.
"A truly scary new study finds that insect populations in protected Puerto Rican rainforests have fallen as much as 60-fold."
"Our analyses revealed synchronous declines in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, forest temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and our study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest's food web. If supported by further research, the impact of climate change on tropical ecosystems may be much greater than currently anticipated."
Analysis of 266 insects, amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles, suggests many face extinction
Climate change happening 'too fast' for species to adapt
Climate Change Is Becoming a Top Threat to Biodiversity
Warming rivals habitat loss and land degradation as a threat to global wildlife
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-is-becoming-a-top-threat-to-biodiversity/
With temperatures creeping up as the climate warms, those very hungry caterpillars could get even hungrier, and more abundant. Crop losses to pests may grow.Insects will be “eating more of our lunch,” says Curtis Deutsch of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Mammals cannot evolve fast enough to escape current extinction crisis
Global Ocean Circulation Appears To Be Collapsing Due To A Warming Planet
THE INCREASE IN MORE DAMAGING WEATHER EVENTS
'It's a problem for society': Climate change is making some homes uninsurable
The Number and Cost of Weather Disasters is Increasing in the U.S.
Natural & Human-caused Coastal Flood Days in the U.S.
Reinsurance company Munich Re provides data about the number of annual disasters, and the frequency of these events is indeed rising:
"For thunderstorm-related losses the analysis reveals increasing volatility and a significant long-term upward trend in the normalized figures over the last 40 years. These figures have been adjusted to account for factors such as increasing values, population growth and inflation ... In all likelihood, we have to regard this finding as an initial climate-change footprint in our US loss data from the last four decades."
"Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America. The study shows a nearly quintupled number of weather-related loss events in North America for the past three decades, compared with an increase factor of 4 in Asia, 2.5 in Africa, 2 in Europe and 1.5 in South America. Anthropogenic climate change is believed to contribute to this trend, though it influences various perils in different ways."
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