Climate Change

[ajax18]

As a good conservative, I'm burning as much debris, limbs and cut down trees as possible. I love watching the smoke go up into the atmosphere. I'm mean, the trees need to eat just like we do and I'm tired of them starving. Best thing we could do as environmentalist is help get the carbon dioxide levels around 600 ppm by burning as much wood debris as possible. The trees will love you forever it, promise.

I've been grilling lots of red meat. I usually use just salt and pepper for steaks. I prefer Tony's Cajun seasoning for my pork shoulder steaks, which are amazing when grilled properly. As a type O+ blood type northern European and descendant of the ancient Yamnaya culture, cattle are indeed sacred to me as they were to my ancestors. I don't just owe cattle my life but more importantly my quality of life.

[Atlanticmike]

As a good conservative, I'm burning as much debris, limbs and cut down trees as possible. I love watching the smoke go up into the atmosphere. I'm mean, the trees need to eat just like we do and I'm tired of them starving. Best thing we could do as environmentalist is help get the carbon dioxide levels around 600 ppm by burning as much wood debris as possible. The trees will love you forever it, promise.

I've been grilling lots of red meat. I usually use just salt and pepper for steaks. I prefer Tony's Cajun seasoning for my pork shoulder steaks, which are amazing when grilled properly. As a type O+ blood type northern European and descendant of the ancient Yamnaya culture, cattle are indeed sacred to me as they were to my ancestors. I don't just owe cattle my life but more importantly my quality of life.

Thank you for grilling and burning as much carbon as possible. Back in the early 1800s we came really close to starving all plant life on this wonderful planet. Plant life starves when CO2 levels reach 150 ppm. It's estimated that in the early 1800s the CO2 level was around 180 ppm which is really low. Today, the average ppm for CO2 is around 400. If we can get it up to around 600ppm life on Earth will be much better for our plant life and therefore much better for us in the long run.

Did you know commercial greenhouses buy CO2 and pump it into their greenhouses to help with plant development? They try to keep the CO2 level in greenhouses around 1000 ppm. Carbon is the backbone of life on Earth. And somehow these Progressive ding-a-lings have made it out to be the "devil". It's a cult I tell ya, a cult for sure.

[Chap]

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


TL/DR:
Yup, plants like CO2, because they use it in combination with energy from the sun to make sugars etc. that they need to live and grow. But if they get their extra CO2 from a rising level of that gas in the atmosphere as a whole, the negative effects on climate (heat stress, drought) will greatly outweigh the positive effects.

From Scientific American, 2018.

Climate change skeptics have an arsenal of arguments for why humans need not cut their carbon emissions. Some assert rising CO2 levels benefit plants, so global warming is not as bad as scientists proclaim. “A higher concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere would aid photosynthesis, which in turn contributes to increased plant growth,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R–Texas) wrote in an op-ed last year. “This correlates to a greater volume of food production and better quality food.” Scientists and others calling for emission cuts are being hysterical, he contends.

So is it true rising atmospheric CO2 will help plants, including food crops? Scientific American asked several experts to talk about the science behind this question.

There is a kernel of truth in this argument, experts say, based on what scientists call the CO2 fertilization effect. “CO2 is essential for photosynthesis,” says Richard Norby, a corporate research fellow in the Environmental Sciences Division and Climate Change Science Institute of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “If you isolate a leaf [in a laboratory] and you increase the level of CO2, photosynthesis will increase. That’s well established.” But Norby notes the results scientists produce in labs are generally not what happens in the vastly more complex world outside; many other factors are involved in plant growth in untended forests, fields and other ecosystems. For example, “nitrogen is often in short enough supply that it’s the primary controller of how much biomass is produced” in an ecosystem, he says. “If nitrogen is limited, the benefit of the CO2 increase is limited…. You can’t just look at CO2, because the overall context really matters.”
Scientists have observed the CO2 fertilization effect in natural ecosystems, including in a series of trials conducted over the past couple decades in outdoor forest plots. In those experiments artificially doubling CO2 from pre-industrial levels increased trees’ productivity by around 23 percent, according to Norby, who was involved in the trials. For one of the experiments, however, that effect significantly diminished over time due to a nitrogen limitation. That suggests “we cannot assume the CO2 fertilization effect will persist indefinitely,” Norby says.

In addition to ignoring the long-term outlook, he says, many skeptics also fail to mention the potentially most harmful outcome of rising atmospheric CO2 on vegetation: climate change itself. Its negative consequences—such as drought and heat stress—would likely overwhelm any direct benefits that rising CO2 might offer plant life. “It’s not appropriate to look at the CO2 fertilization effect in isolation,” he says. “You can have positive and negative things going at once, and it’s the net balance that matters.” So although there is a basic truth to skeptics’ claim, he says, “what’s missing from that argument is that it’s not the whole picture.”

Scientists have also looked specifically at the effects of rising CO2 on agricultural plants and found a fertilization effect. “For a lot of crops, [more CO2] is like having extra material in the atmosphere that they can use to grow,” says Frances Moore, an assistant professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis. She and other experts note there is an exception for certain types of plants such as corn, which access CO2 for photosynthesis in a unique way. But for most of the other plants humans eat—including wheat, rice and soybeans—“having higher CO2 will help them directly,” Moore says. Doubling CO2 from pre-industrial levels, she adds, does boost the productivity of crops like wheat by some 11.5 percent and of those such as corn by around 8.4 percent.

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.

Rising CO2’s effect on crops could also harm human health. “We know unequivocally that when you grow food at elevated CO2 levels in fields, it becomes less nutritious,” notes Samuel Myers, principal research scientist in environmental health at Harvard University. “[Food crops] lose significant amounts of iron and zinc—and grains [also] lose protein.” Myers and other researchers have found atmospheric CO2 levels predicted for mid-century—around 550 parts per million—could make food crops lose enough of those key nutrients to cause a protein deficiency in an estimated 150 million people and a zinc deficit in an additional 150 million to 200 million. (Both of those figures are in addition to the number of people who already have such a shortfall.) A total of 1.4 billion women of child-bearing age and young children who live in countries with a high prevalence of anemia would lose more than 3.8 percent of their dietary iron at such CO2 levels, according to Meyers.

Researchers do not yet know why higher atmospheric CO2 alters crops’ nutritional content. But, Myers says, “the bottom line is, we know that rising CO2 reduces the concentration of critical nutrients around the world,” adding that these kinds of nutritional deficiencies are already significant public health threats, and will only worsen as CO2 levels go up. “The problem with [the skeptics’] argument is that it’s as if you can cherry-pick the CO2 fertilization effect from the overall effect of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,” Myers says. But that is not how the world—or its climate—works.

Oh, and by the way, human beings are not plants ...

[canpakes]

…cattle are indeed sacred to me as they were to my ancestors. I don't just owe cattle my life but more importantly my quality of life.

Chances are that your steak might not always be local, and drought is having an effect on the supply:

All over California agriculture, water sources are being reduced to a trickle. Fields have been idled and even some fruit and nut orchards are being dismantled because of shortages. Based on what happened during the last drought, the financial losses to agriculture will be enormous.

In short, California’s $50 billion-a-year farm economy is turning nightmarish. And nobody’s losing more sleep than the state’s dairy farmers and beef-cattle producers, who are scrambling for feed to keep their animals alive.


“It’s pretty much statewide,” said Tony Toso, a Mariposa County beef rancher and president of the California Cattlemen’s Association. “My goodness, there’s pastures out there that just look like moonscape.”

Raising cows for milk or meat is a $10 billion-a-year business in California — bigger than wine grapes, bigger than almonds, bigger than anything else in the agricultural sector. But the drought has quickly turned the economics of dairy and beef upside down. Faced with steep increases in the cost of feed — assuming they can find it — beef and dairy farmers are watching their profits disappear.

The result is, many are selling off animals at a pace rarely seen.

“We are absolutely seeing a liquidation of cows, particularly from the West,” said Don Close, who analyzes the beef market for agricultural lender Rabobank.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/ ... 52283.html


The trend is more expensive beef. There’s a hidden tax for you everywhere, ajax.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/beef

[ceeboo]

Oh, and by the way, human beings are not plants ...

Got it. What about whales and raccoons?

[canpakes]

Back in the early 1800s we came really close to starving all plant life on this wonderful planet. Plant life starves when CO2 levels reach 150 ppm. It's estimated that in the early 1800s the CO2 level was around 180 ppm which is really low. Today, the average ppm for CO2 is around 400. If we can get it up to around 600ppm life on Earth will be much better for our plant life and therefore much better for us in the long run.

Did you know commercial greenhouses buy CO2 and pump it into their greenhouses to help with plant development? They try to keep the CO2 level in greenhouses around 1000 ppm. Carbon is the backbone of life on Earth. And somehow these Progressive ding-a-lings have made it out to be the "devil". It's a cult I tell ya, a cult for sure.

Patrick Moore is wrong. ; )

https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi ... 10.03441.x

Plants within a closed system have been shown to be able to drain down CO2 to 10-15 PPM before growth is curtailed. And, augmented levels in sealed greenhouses are typically much lower than you claim:

https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/5 ... cle%5D.pdf

The true problem with the argument you’re making, though, is that you’re conflating the issue. High CO2 levels themselves aren’t the problem. It’s the rise in temperatures that those levels create. Walk into those greenhouses that you mention above; they may be more humid than the outside air, but I guarantee that none of them are above 85 degrees, because growers are regulating the temperature within the greenhouse accordingly.

If higher CO2 levels contribute to higher atmospheric temperatures outside of controlled environments, then crop production can suffer:

Night temperatures can affect corn yield potential. High night temperatures (in the 70s or 80s degrees F) can result in wasteful respiration and a lower net amount of dry matter accumulation in plants. Past studies reveal that above-average night temperatures during grain fill can reduce corn yield by reducing kernel number and kernel weight. The rate of respiration of plants increases rapidly as the temperature increases, approximately doubling for each 13 degree F increase. With high night temperatures, more of the sugars produced by photosynthesis during the day are lost; less is available to fill developing kernels, thereby lowering potential grain yield.

https://agcrops.osu.edu/newsletter/corn ... corn-yield

Sure, you can see more jungle growth at 400 PPM than at 180 PPM, but tell me how much of your food supply comes from a jungle. All of that tasty cattle sure ain’t. And that problem itself is independent of how increased temperatures from increased CO2 can negatively affect crop yields - you know, the stuff that you eat.

Now that you know that ‘PPM’ in and of itself isn’t the actual issue, you might not want to use your argument above, given that folks in the know are going to look at you funny for doing so. ; )

[Res Ipsa]

I just rolled my eyes. That particular debunked denialist talking point is sooooo 1990.

[Chap]

I just rolled my eyes. That particular debunked denialist talking point is sooooo 1990.

Yes, but this kind of thing keeps coming round again and again. It's so boring. But the alternative to answering it is to let it stand unchallenged, so that someone sees the original post without a response, and assumes that it was a real slam-dunk.

[Res Ipsa]

I just rolled my eyes. That particular debunked denialist talking point is sooooo 1990.

Yes, but this kind of thing keeps coming round again and again. It's so boring. But the alternative to answering it is to let it stand unchallenged, so that someone sees the original post without a response, and assumes that it was a real slam-dunk.

Yeah, I know. Sigh.

[ceeboo]

I miss global warming.