When you talk to the people at the sharp end of the climate business, there is an air of suppressed panic in many of the conversations. We are not going to get through this without taking a lot of casualties, if we get through it at all. …
But there may be a way to cheat. Scientists have proposed various geo-engineering techniques that would artificially hold the temperature below +2 degrees even if we go through 450 ppm. They are only stop-gap measures, but if they worked they might win us enough extra time to get our emissions down without triggering the feedbacks.
This is the biggest crisis human beings have ever faced, and overcoming it will require an unprecedented level of global cooperation. But there may be a way through it.
This is the biggest crisis human beings have ever faced, and overcoming it will require an unprecedented level of global cooperation. But there may be a way through it.
March 22
7 pm
SFU Woodwards, David Mowafaghian Cinema
$25 – Register here
I wonder if Justin is going to drop in. In Houston this week he certainly made it clear that he …, well, his words speak best.
” …with a number of strong Trudeau Liberals elected across Alberta, we’re on our way to getting three new pipeline projects under way, which will help connect Canada’s oil patch with energy markets around the world.
Kinder Morgan’s Trans-Mountain line, will run from Alberta across the Rockies to the Pacific. The second, Trans-Canada’s Keystone XL pipeline, recently approved by President Trump, will ship Canadian crude to refineries here, in Texas.
And Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement will also come south.
These ambitious projects will go a long way towards ensuring North American energy security for years to come. I make no bones about it. We’re very proud of this. It’s progress. It’s important. As I said on the very first trip to the oil patch back in 2012, no country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”
I expect Stephen Harper is nodding and remembering what he said over five years ago, “It’s a no-brainer”.
Amen to that.
Writing a book about the end of the world is at the very least a suspicious enterprise. After all who will be around to read the story? How does one find the existential space required to contemplate such a writing project? Does not the writer of such tales harbour a hope, a faint hope that it will all work out in the end? In “Climate Wars” as the tale is told there is no ending, just the idea that some time in the future planetary engineering may be applied to a failing bio-sphere. It is beyond belief that billions of years of complex geological and biological evolution can be managed by the ‘all too human’ invention of big engineering. It’s a poor idea unworthy of the imagination.
Amen to that, too !
Trans-Mountain will never be built. The economics of it are falling off the rails. XL might be built through the brute force of Trump, but not for good reasons either environmental or economic.
I know you two love living in the past. Most of us want a better future and know it is possible. You’d still be enjoying your caves if it wasn’t for progressive thinkers that moved forward instead of clinging so desperately.
The time for action is now, Roy. We all know that. As Gwynne says, “Fortunately, there is a way to cheat: various geo-engineering techniques that create an artificial sun-screen to keep the temperature below two degrees hotter. Putting sulphur particles into the stratosphere, or thickening low-lying marine clouds to make them more reflective, are only stop-gap measures. They don’t solve the problem. But they could win us extra decades to work at getting our emissions down without triggering the feedbacks. We will probably be doing something like that within ten years.”
Fortunately for us, Canada is one of the worlds’ largest producers of sulphur. Most of it in Alberta, then BC. We must start pumping it into the stratosphere ASAP!
Someone has to get the UN on this. We must build or buy a fleet of aircraft that can take this stuff up, way up and disperse it worldwide.
We will need a big new tax on everything and everyone because this isn’t gonna come cheap. I suggest we call it the Stratospheric Tax.
Here you go NDP, are you ready to propose the new Stratospheric Tax to Save the Planet?
Erica, who is Roy?
Perhaps a better question is, who is Eric? And why does he/she post under multiple “names” in the same thread? Sockpuppeting at its finest.
TM is already built and has been operating safely for around fifty years. Yes, 50. It is merely being twinned ie increased in capacity as we now produce more oil in Canada and the world, especially Asia, consumes far more than fifty years. It is vital for diversification from the US. Even our young green good looking Prime Minister understands it.
These books are warnings. Not forecasts. If they are accurate forecasts we’ll certainly know who to blame as we crash and burn.
Are you planning to fiddle?
These kind of books are fiction. Doomsday prophecy sells. Millions of bearish stock market newsletters are sold annually, too. Catastrophes with fire and explosions sell. Ask CNN !
Mankind is very inventive. We are a curious and inventive lot.
Also, the benefits of global warming are widely ignored. Many countries benefit, especially northern colder countries like Norway, Russia, Sweden or Canada.
The climate has been warming 10,000+ years since the last ice age. Mankind has flourished in it.
10 degree cooler weather is better why ?
Other problems, like overfishing, dirty water, soil pollution, over population, violent religious groups, wars, lack of irrigation, lack of clean water at reasonable cost, basic healthcare, basic schooling, lack of electricity at reasonable rates are far FAR more pressing problems. For a balanced view on this topic, from both a human and environmental perspective may I recommend this book: http://www.lomborg.com/cool-it
Nothing balanced about Lomborg. Just propaganda.
Björn Lomborg is a smart, green, bicycling, well educated prof from a green, bicycling country, Denmark. Any major issue in the world we spend money on needs a balanced view as numerous large worthwhile projects are competing for limited $s or taxation room. He is hardly a fool nor a propaganda machine.
“The climate has been warming 10,000+ years since the last ice age.”
Wrong.
“Also, the benefits of global warming are widely ignored. Many countries benefit, especially northern colder countries like Norway, Russia, Sweden or Canada.”
Ignorant.
Bjørn Lomborg has a doctorate and many other academic and governmental citations, including endorsement from the university of Cambridge Sustainability Leadership alumni. He has survived a witch hunt that was reversed in his home town of Copenhagen too. Yet, because a few radical extreme environmentalists feel his message of moderation and perspective is not radical enough, they vilify him in social media.
Nevertheless, The World Economic Forum recognized him as one of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow. Foreign Policy named him one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals as well as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. Rolling Stone Magazine said, “Lomborg pulls off the remarkable feat of welding the techno-optimism of the Internet age with a lefty’s concern for the fate of the planet.” Lomborg’s TED talk has been watched well over a million times.
Even the Guardian included him in their list of “50 People who could Save the Planet”.
@Chris: the climate has been COOLING since the last ice age ? Or what is wrong with the statement “The climate has been warming 10,000+ years since the last ice age.” ?
Global warning hurts Russia, Norway, Sweden or Canada why ? Because we spend less on heating, have more icefree ports, longer growing seasons or less death by freezing ?
What alternative universe do you live in ?
Why not read some uplifting stuff, like Lomborg’s publications or books. Being anti-everything (pipelines, cars, roads, bridges, ports, good food to eat, imported wine ..) is not the answer, except to a few very poor eco-terrorists ! Even Leonardo takes his private (fossil fuelled) jet to climate events or resorts and drinks imported champagne. The champagne likely did not get by sail boat from France to California ! Even his new luxury eco-resort in Belize depicted here http://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2016/11/08/leonardo-dicaprio-eco-resort-belize/ can be accessed only by jet or motorboat, and is not exactly cheap. He can afford to be eco. Many cannot, and if the choice is to operate a diesel pump for the water well or dying the diesel pump wins.
Thomas writes: “Also, the benefits of global warming are widely ignored. Many countries benefit, especially northern colder countries like Norway, Russia, Sweden or Canada.
The climate has been warming 10,000+ years since the last ice age. Mankind has flourished in it.”
At the same time as possibly creating some benefit for northern regions, the polar regions will get hammered with huge temperature increases and other regions will get fried to the point of unlivability. We should show some empathy toward those who will suffer the most due to a hot climate as we are all citizens of one planet. Also, a hot climate will exacerbate feedback loops like the increasing release of methane from seabed, lakes and permafrost. This will make things much worse for everyone.
With regard to climate warming for 10,000+ years, we are now in an abnormal acceleration of warming which is unprecedented and is certainly anthropocentric. For example, CO2 concentrations are now higher than since the first human stepped onto the planet. This does not bode well for a sustainable future.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-last-time-co2-was-this-high-humans-didnt-exist-15938
“Mankind is very inventive. We are a curious and inventive lot.” – Thomas Beyer.
Thomas Beyer, the man who denies the latest science and spends most of his time resisting humanity’s march of progress.
Thomas would have also resisted humanity’s move out of caves, would have argued against agriculture, the wheel, oil extraction and the car.
He only knows what lies in the past. He represents the polar opposite of his quote.
He certainly has about zero understanding of climate change, has no concept of feedback loops or why it’s critically important to keep warming below 1.5 degrees.
The three stooges (we all know who they are) continue to make fools of themselves. If only that were the extent of it.
Bjorn Lomborg has many supporters, including most of the paid climate contrarians. But he has many critics too, many of whom regularly dismantle his conjecture and faulty research with facts. With Trump, Lomborg may well claim these facts (i.e. observed science and neutral checking of methodology) as “fake news.” This is a very convenient time for him.
I’ve called up Source Watch and other sites that documents the flawed research and identifies contrarian’s funding sources, most of them linked to petroleum. I can do it again, but it won’t matter with Thomas and Eric who will ensure it’s a waste of time by regurgitating the same tired old denial over and over again as though surfing off an Ellesmere Island beach in summer will be a good thing. Denial is so easy. One doesn’t even have to use one’s intellect to practice it.
Meanwhile the number of extreme climate events is increasing, the oceans continue to absorb heat and acidify, and these dudes will not get what blowing past 450 ppm atmospheric carbon will really mean to oncoming generations as long as it doesn’t interrupt the big drunken party today.
“Global warning hurts Russia, Norway, Sweden or Canada why? Because we spend less on heating, have more icefree ports, longer growing seasons or less death by freezing?
What alternative universe do you live in?”
We won’t have more ice free ports, we will have an opportunity (?) to build more ice free ports since our current ones will be submerged and/or unusable. All it will take is a lot of government debt. Of course we will have to prioritize the funds somehow because we will be spending most of available funds on climate refugees, building new water supplies that deal with changing weather patterns, and so on. We know how much you like that debt. Get ready for lots of it.
Alternative universes indeed.
Beyer:
Temperatures fluctuated, but were, by geologic scales, pretty stable after the last mini-ice age until we started burning dinosaurs in earnest. So you are wrong about warming.
Positing benefits to a Northern Hemisphere without recognizing those benefits are essentially a death sentence for entire nations at other latitudes is ignorant. It is so inhumane actually that it beggars description. So you are ignorant about the impacts.
February 2017.
Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT [Richard Siegmund Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist known for his work in the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides, and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and books.] has sent a petition to President Trump, asking the President to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.
The petition contains the names of around 300 eminent scientists and other qualified individuals, including physicists, engineers, former Astronauts, meteorologists, immunology specialists, marine biologists, chemists, statisticians, doctors, military weather specialists, geologists, accountants, a former director of NASA, economists, soil specialists, mathematicians, hydrologists, environmental scientists, computer modelling specialists, and many more. It is a long list.
Dear Mr. President:
Citizens of the USA and America’s admirers everywhere support of your campaign promises to place a
common-sense focus on international environmental agreements, either enacted or proposed. In just a few
weeks, more than 300 eminent scientists and other qualified individuals from around the world have
signed the petition below, urging you to withdraw from the ill-advised United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). More are signing on every day.
We petition the American and other governments to change course on an outdated international
agreement that targets minor greenhouse gases, primarily Carbon Dioxide, CO2 for harsh regulation.
Since 2009, the US and other governments have undertaken actions with respect to global climate that are
not scientifically justified and that already have, and will continue to cause serious social and economic
harm—with no environmental benefits. While we support effective, affordable, reasonable and direct
controls on conventional environmental pollutants, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. To the contrary,
there is clear evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful to food crops
and other plants that nourish all life. It is plant food, not poison.
Restricting access to fossil fuels has very negative effects upon the wellbeing of people around the world.
It condemns over 4 billion people in still underdeveloped countries to continued poverty.
We are now at a crossroads. Candidates Trump and Pence promised not only to keep the US out of a
harmful international climate agreement, but also to rollback misdirected, pointless government
restrictions of CO2 emissions. My fellow scientists support you as you seek to keep your campaign
promises.
It is especially important for members of your administrative team to hear from people like the signers of
this letter, with the training needed to evaluate climate facts, and to offer sound advice. Climate
discussions have long been political debates—not scientific discussions—over whether citizens or
bureaucrats should control energy, natural resources and other assets. Rolling back unnecessary
regulation helps Americans, and can be done in a way to provide the clean air and clean water you
promised.
With Respect,
Dr. Richard Lindzen
Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Attachment: Petition to withdraw from United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC)
The full letter has 20 pages of endorsements from supporting scientists.
The game is soon to be over.
Ah yeah. Here we go with the propaganda.
Your “respected scientist” testified for the pro-tobacco lobby decades ago, refused to make a $10,000 bet with a climate scientist on his comments on climate change, and is paid by fossil fuel interests, among them Peabody Energy.
The above letter was thoroughly debunked and disassembled by scientists.
This is so easy it’s embarrassing, Eric.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Richard_S._Lindzen
Seriously, Alex. some people just can’t help being suckered. Sourcewatch! They are financed by oil money. big oil money. Ever heard of Standard Oil, at one time the largest oil refiner run by the richest man in the world. They are also part of an anti coal charity in San Francisco that funds solar panels in China (Energy Foundation China, No. 19, Jianguomenwai Dajie, Beijing 100004 P.R. China). You can donate because it’s a charity. Some of your money will go to solar panel manufacturing in China. Have lunch ready.
If the source of the information is important… why are you posting from a pseudonym?
Source Watch provides legit references. When was the last time the Heartland Institute did that?
Here’s what SourceWatch is:
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative, specialized encyclopedia of the people, organizations, and issues shaping the public agenda. SourceWatch profiles the activities of front groups, PR spinners, industry-friendly experts, industry-funded organizations, and think tanks trying to manipulate public opinion on behalf of corporations or government. We also highlight key public policies they are trying to affect and provide ways to get involved. In addition, SourceWatch contains information about others who help document information about PR spin, such as reporters, academics, and watchdog groups.
Launched in 2003, SourceWatch now has 72,712 articles, as of today, thanks to interested contributors […] and over six million new visitors to its pages a year and many returning visitors who rely on our articles regularly.
The Centre for Media and Democracy is funded by readers and contributors. It is highly unlikely the people and organizations that are exposed and criticized by SourceWatch actually donate to it.
Apparently MIT didn’t appreciate their name being put on the letter by Lindzen.
You are going full on nut-case now, Eric. We’ve had posts from you and Thomas on Currie, Lomborg, and Lindzen recently. Are you getting ready to cut and paste from Singer, Soon, and Spencer? What about Chris Monkton? And Happer? And the failed weatherman Watt, your frequent reference?
Alex is right, it is too easy.
Lost attention due to the “admirers everywhere” intro.
“DeSmog investigated the list, and found that only a small handful of the signatories could be considered “even remotely ‘qualified’ or ‘eminent’ — but not in the field of climate science.” The list included individuals “interested in climate,” and one signatory who only identified as an “emailer who wished to sign the petition” while some signers provided no affiliation or address whatsoever. [74]”
https://www.desmogblog.com/richard-lindzen
https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/02/27/climate-denier-richard-lindzen-300-scientists-trump-usual-parade-non-experts
A link to an extensive piece in the Globe’s Report on Business on the dramatic decrease in the price of solar due to Chinese R&D, precision engineering and the huge increases in productivity and production over the last year or so. The price recently went even lower than coal. Wind power in Alberta is at par or only slightly above coal. The writing is on the wall.
The Globe’s RoB has a pay wall, but you’ll be able to access it online through the Vancouver Public Library portal using your card number. VPL cards are free to every resident of Vancouver.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/the-price-on-solar-is-so-low-it-could-compete-on-global-markets/article34133049/
Now for Bjorn Lomborg.
Lomborg is not a climate scientist or economist and has published little or no peer-reviewed research on environmental or climate policy. His extensive and extensively documented[2],[3] errors and misrepresentations, which are aimed at a lay audience, “follow a general pattern”[2] of minimizing the need to cut carbon emissions.
There’s pages of this kind of refutation.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bjorn_Lomborg
Less than two hundred years ago at this place on the coast the air was pristine, the forest was thick and ancient, filled with living beings, waters of the land were crystal clear and the salt water marine ecology was a bountiful food resource. We know this to be the case because today in the far north we can find such landscapes by sailing along the coast through the same corridor that marine nomads have followed for the past 10,000 years. Entire marine populations move through these same coastal waters according to the seasons, the effect of off axis solar revolution.
Since the founding of Vancouver, the continuous growth of the city has transformed what was “a place in the world” into something completely different. Today one can hop on a float plane and fly north for a day of golf, or travel further afield with gear in hand for a short stay at a floating fishing lodge, where one can still live in the ancient natural state of our coastal waters.
Us urbanites are far removed from the natural world in our constructed environment of concrete and glass where even the landscaping is imported and the asphalt arrives by tanker car. We live in a constructed environment unlike the people who lived here before us. Our inventions as we are learning weigh heavily on the natural environment with consequences that sometimes threaten to collapse ecosystems. The most important of these is the ocean ecosystem now filling with micro plastic particles, then the next important being man made CO2 emissions venting into the atmosphere.
Some matters of design engineering can and should be regulated at the concept stage in order to prevent what is essentially a pollution problem from developing. This means the re-tooling re-engineering of our global techno civilizations a billion little bits at a time until we are in harmonious balance with the natural environment because this is where the problem resides.
Yes life was so much better 150-250 years ago .. far higher female death rates at infant delivery, untreated teeth problems, no antibiotics, poor nutrition, far lower life expectancy .. slavery .. all so much better !
Are you anti-human development ?
If you irrationally think acting to mitigate climate change will cause civilization to regress to stone tools, then why are the Chinese making the most advanced solar panels in the world in such numbers that the world price is now below coal-fired electricity?
Your argument about regression is pretty lame.
Funny Thomas, very funny. You are the one trying to hold us back by denying we have a problem with the climate. You should read “Collapse” by Jarrod Diamond to see what happens to civilizations with too many Thomas Beyers.
Eco-facism doesn’t like different opinions. We non-believers / deniers / skeptics / deplorables / car drivers / house owners / meat eaters all get that.
Man playing God is at the heart of this belief or climate cult. An atheistic worldview essentially. Other worldviews exist. Please accept that.
Your view is not the truth. The truth is far more complex and beyond a blog entry.
8B can’t all march in the same direction. Diversity is critical. Diversity of opinion especially, but also in agriculture or housing types being made available in any urban setting like MetroVan !
Yes Thomas. It’s God’s plan to destroy the Earth right after he shuffles his believers off to Heaven. I’m sure God needs your help bringing his plans to fruition.
You behave like The Church did banishing Galileo. Your “truth”, like all your ideas, lie in the past.
“Are you anti-human development?”
No, just anti-ignorance.
Couldn’t help but think tonight of our leading resident climate science deniers as I read the article linked below.
Climate Deniers, You’re Climate Deniers–Deal with It
(The Freuds wrote the playbook, and you’re following it to the letter)
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/climate-deniers-youre-climate-deniers-deal-with-it/
It even references Lomberg, in discussing minimization. Thomas, you can play the part of the black knight, referenced in the article. “It’s only a flesh wound…”
An excellent article, Jeff. I’ve archived it for future reference. Thanks.
To some Denial is a river in Egypt.
I must admit that I have been rather wavering in my commitment to the climate change fight. I’m not as convinced of the impact of the consequences as I was a decade ago.
Its occurred to me over the last 12 months that the entire issue is framed in a very human centric narrative. Ignored are much larger perspectives.
This translates both to the general concept of climate change, as well as the inputs that potentially effect the change and proposed solutions.
Us believers often use examples of a greener, more holistic way of living as evidence of what life on earth could look like. However, this narrative is only framed by the recent (geologically recent) period of climate calm on earth.
This relative period of transition has allowed humans to develop agriculture, cites, domesticate animals – systematize life.
This docile period of history in which we have developed barely registers on the scale of earth history – what predates us are constant and dramatic periods of upheaval, change, catastrophe, ice, melt, heat, cold, etc.
By the same token that we fear sea rise, does any one dispute that the current ocean levels are hundredths of feet higher than 12,000 years ago when the ice caps extended miles thick over much of North America and Europe?
We never seem to acknowledge the astounding level of global change this melt would have caused. Millions of square miles of coastline lost, millions more exposed inland with the retreat of ice. Drastic, mind boggling changes.
What I am suggesting is that if we are to believe that we belong in the natural ecosystem as does any other animal on earth, than perhaps humans need to accept that dramatic earth reshaping events do happen. That the society we created is a temporary illusion, based on assumptions of climate calm continuing indefinitely.
Please, don’t take this is a “blank cheque” statement that justifies all pollution, and demands no accountability for our actions – its not that.
This is a statement that says – lets get our house in order first, lets control our controllables before engaging on global climate engineering endeavours.
Lets educate, lets reduce consumption, lets reduce reliance on monoculture, lets reduce reliance on animal farming, lets reduce populations growth, lets reduce consumerism, lets address our conflicting economic ideologies, lets remember how to be human again, lets remember how to fit in.
Lets address the fundamental flawed idea of being stewards of the earth – we are not stewards, we are no managers, we are a piece of natures cog. Lets regain our humility.
Thank you for a well considered opinion, Burt. The eco-extremists pretend that they have to force radical changes to the western world because they have completely accepted the voices of doom from the wealthy green NGOs.
Their mission is not to reduce pollution, which everyone wants. They constantly practice what the sellers of fear sold before to a public that accepted massive costs to build up ridiculous amounts of military weaponry, because they made people afraid of nuclear attack. This time it’s fear of hot weather. They imagine they have the to power to alter natural forces of the universe.
Increased CO2 mania is proving a bit embarrassing. NASA reports massive growth in greenery, including food crops. Yet we still hear tales of fright about famines.
“From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, ”
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Like any fad this climate fear conceit is temporary. The organic food movement is also over obsessed. The fact that 95% of all organic foods are sold in western Europe and North America gives one an idea of just how silly these fads are and how rich the fanatics are.
As Bob wrote; ‘You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows’.
Well said. Man trying to play God and influence everything is at the core of this mis-belief.
From Eric’s link:
“The beneficial impacts of carbon dioxide on plants may also be limited, said co-author Dr. Philippe Ciais, associate director of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, Gif-suv-Yvette, France. “Studies have shown that plants acclimatize, or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.”
Plants have had to deal with more severe events, from floods to drought, and cannot easily adapt to more heat. They are niche organisms, and will migrate or die off with warming temps. They also have to deal with more bugs and fire.
The above selective CO2 narrative is a classic piece of cherry picking. NASA has produced thousands of pages on climate change since 1988, and the story of the man made increase in CO2 is long and complex. It is not part of a gardener’s home journal.
Don’t trash your greenhouse yet, Alex.
Chris; I must thank you for pointing this out. Plants adapt, so, in fact, the benefits are actually compounded. Good man.
Reading is hard.
Unless I missed something, there’s also no mention of increased crop yields in Eric’s link. One might speculate on just how much greater yields the remaining arable land would have to deliver once we’ve cooked vast swathes of the globe into hard pan, but I suspect the answer would be depressingly impossible to achieve in the real world where most of us live.
Higher temperatures and more CO2 combined with proper technology such as irrigation is at the very core of higher ag yields !!
The issue is NOT temperatures, but politics, knowledge, technology, access to water and access to cheap electricity to pump water.
With the proper education and infrastructure you can make the dessert bloom, as seen all over the world in many places.
The doomsday scenarios are in most cases just sheer hype for a political agenda. I heard this BS in high school in the 1970s by the “The Limits to Growth” of the Club of Rome doosmday folks that we are running out of oil, out of land, out of water .. all pure fantasy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
Have you ever asked yourself why Jewish land has higher crop yields than next door Arab land ? Education, faith, stamina, technology matters !! See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Israel
You can’t even get something so simple as the population of Vancouver Island right. Why would anyone regard your opinions on complex science topics worth considering?
“The results show that the world is tracking pretty closely to the Limits to Growth “business-as-usual” scenario. The data doesn’t match up with other scenarios.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse
You don’t seem to know much about agriculture, Thomas,
California has used the Colorado River for irrigation for 100 years, and now the water is disappearing through overuse and climate-related drought. Water is a crucial limiting factor in North America’s food-producing areas. The writing is on the wall.
The US agricultural Midwest and South is heating up and soil moisture is becoming a Big Issue. Of course farmland is only a future subdivision in your eyes, but even the most conservative US farmers are now looking at intercropping, year round cover crops, no till practices and offsetting high-cost petrochemical inputs with organic farming techniques. Their attention is turning more toward management of the biology of soil, not artificial and expensive additional irrigation using drying up and polluted aquifers (one of the byproducts from fracking) and chemical additives.
Most farmers there vote Republican and would have nothing to do with liberal urban hipsters publishing their organic gardening almanacs, but see these elements purely from an economic perspective.
But California is a desert. All the irrigation water came from elsewhere, or from ancient almost depleted aquifers. The water is running out. Moreover, the soil in most of the Central Valley is exhausted. There is perhaps one more generation of use before they will have to consider slowing then stopping food exports.
The question is, what will we do then if we pave over our ALR and cannot grow our own food because some politician followed her real estate and road building donor’s demands and ignored warnings about the effects of climate change in far away states that grow our food, and subdivisions and tarmac popped up on our only farmland?
Well, I guess there’s another way to make the point that sticking with a single user name so people aren’t deceived is the appropriate thing to do.
@Chris; “The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.”
Wow. Just wow! After the data is in from the 20 million square kilometres of leafy land. I’m gonna stick my neck out Chris and bet that something down there in those 20 million square kilometres of plants and trees is edible. Do you think I’m nuts?
Eric:
You claimed, “NASA reports massive growth in greenery, including food crops.” Your linked report makes no mention of food crops. Perhaps you have additional information which could bolster your claims? My reading of your link is that the higher CO2 increased leaf cover according to the referenced study. Perhaps you have a tasty recipe for tree leafs? 😉
Leaves, my son.
I am pleased you are interested in this profoundly encouraging report that destroys the myth that CO2 is bad.
Chew on this, it’s from the horses’ mouth, so to speak.
Long-term changes in vegetation greenness are driven by multiple interacting biogeochemical drivers and land-use effects. Biogeochemical drivers include the fertilization effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration (eCO2), regional climate change (temperature, precipitation and radiation), and varying rates of nitrogen deposition. Land-use-related drivers involve changes in land cover and in land management intensity, including fertilization, irrigation, forestry and grazing. …
The regions with the largest greening trends, consistent across the three data sets, are in southeast North America, the northern Amazon, Europe, Central Africa and Southeast Asia. …
Positive effects of climate change in the northern high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau are attributed to rising temperature, which enhances photosynthesis and lengthens the growing season, whereas the greening of the Sahel and South Africa are primarily driven by increasing precipitation. …
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Remember too that the Indian Agricultural Institute published a paper reporting:
“At 425ppm CO2 and no rise in temperature, grain yield at all levels of production increased significantly. “
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leaf
Definition of leaf
plural leaves \ˈlēvz\ also leafs \ˈlēfs\
No one is disputing what increased CO2 does to plants. The issue is whether any increase in yields in some areas could offset the loss of arable land increasing temperatures will bring, and the impacts on populations least able to weather price increases and/or the loss of nearby agricultural areas. No need to run away from your claims with long quotes about things that are pretty much common knowledge.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/climate-change/how-to-live-with-it/crops.html
I’m not running away, the quotes are from the study that I and NASA quoted earlier. Sorry, I thought I made this clear when I said “horses’ mouth”.
I am glad you agree with the results of this study. Yes, CO2 is good for increased growth of crops and other greenery, as explained in the study that was reported in many media, all over, including Tibet, Central Africa, the Sahel, southeast North America, the northern Amazon, Europe, Southeast Asia. Another study shows increased grain yield in India from very high CO2.
Now we have agreement and the CO2 demon is slain. At last!
“CO2 is good for increased growth of crops and other greenery”
You’ve offered a simplistic interpretation of a complex issue with many other variables. Plus ca change Eric, plus ca change….
Lots o’ leafs, but less to eat.
“Without new innovations, present rates of increase in yields of food crops globally are inadequate to meet the projected rising food demand for 2050 and beyond. A prevailing response of crops to rising [CO2] is an increase in leaf area. This is especially marked in soybean, the world’s fourth largest food crop in terms of seed production, and the most important vegetable protein source. Is this increase in leaf area beneficial, with respect to increasing yield, or is it detrimental? It is shown from theory and experiment using open-air whole-season elevation of atmospheric [CO2] that it is detrimental not only under future conditions of elevated [CO2] but also under today’s [CO2]. A mechanistic biophysical and biochemical model of canopy carbon exchange and microclimate (MLCan) was parameterized for a modern US Midwest soybean cultivar. Model simulations showed that soybean crops grown under current and elevated (550 [ppm]) [CO2] overinvest in leaves, and this is predicted to decrease productivity and seed yield 8% and 10%, respectively. This prediction was tested in replicated field trials in which a proportion of emerging leaves was removed prior to expansion, so lowering investment in leaves. The experiment was conducted under open-air conditions for current and future elevated [CO2] within the Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment facility (SoyFACE) in central Illinois. This treatment resulted in a statistically significant 8% yield increase. This is the first direct proof that a modern crop cultivar produces more leaf than is optimal for yield under today’s and future [CO2] and that reducing leaf area would give higher yields. Breeding or bioengineering for lower leaf area could, therefore, contribute very significantly to meeting future demand for staple food crops given that an 8% yield increase across the USA alone would amount to 6.5 million metric tons annually.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/gcb.13526/asset/gcb13526.pdf;jsessionid=8D81BD4C6D61A494CACFAACB69877D25.f02t04?v=1&t=j0aiensx&s=52fc18ce93b25f57ec9a460b81c990484ab3eaa5
“the quotes are from the study that I and NASA quoted earlier.”
If you have the full study then I will assume you would have no problem block-quoting the part where it refers to increased food supply (the claim you made earlier). And yet you haven’t done that. Why?
Eric, you clearly don’t get biology. NASA’s stats do not lead to the conclusion that you can grow more food, or that increasing CO2 does not also increase heat which leads to LESS plant growth due to a lack of water and desertification. PLants do not survice on CO2 alone.
Here’s what real climate scientists say about this manufactured skeptic’s talking point:
It is possible to boost growth of some plants with extra CO2, under controlled conditions inside of greenhouses. Based on this, ‘skeptics’ make their claims of benefical botanical effects in the world at large. Such claims 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. It is a simple task to increase water and fertilizer and protect against insects in an enclosed greenhouse but what about doing it in the open air, throughout the entire Earth? Just as increasing the amount of starch alone in a person’s diet won’t lead to a more robust and healthier person, for plants additional CO2 by itself cannot make up for deficiencies of other compounds and elements.
https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm
Alex; the study was reported on worldwide by such notable outlet as NASA, BBC, etc. It was originally published by Nature which is part of Holtzbrinck who also publish Scientific American.
There are always contrarians. This was a detailed study using extensive satellite data. It clearly shows the opposite of browning and drought that some doom-meisters have been preaching. Many of us are not surprised.
We understand that deniers in the benefits of warming will cling to feeble straws in vain attempts to discredit and denounce proof that goes against their agenda. It’s what they do.
Warmer climate = better ability to absorb moisture in air = more clouds = more rain (or snow) = more (and not less) desserts in some areas. Add man-made irrigation techniques & new fertilizer technologies and we will see more and not less food production.
The future is warmer AND BRIGHTER for man-kind !
Other issues deserve far more focus than the current “Man must reduce CO2 or die” mantra: malnutrition for certain parts of the world, education of girls & women, clean water, ocean pollution, ocean over-fishing, noise pollution (from noisy diesel trucks along Broadway for example .. where are the e-buses, gas buses or e-subways?), affordable housing, excessively paid civil servants etc
It’s good to see that Eric is flirting with rationality and giving NASA its due when it comes to scientific credibility. I’ll just leave this here:
“In many of the world’s critical growing areas—from California’s Central Valley to Iowa farms to the plains of sub-Saharan Africa—erosion and drought are damaging arable land. In parts of the world these are creating a “dust bowl” situation.”
We face complex problems that can’t be solved with reductionist thinking that a single factor such as increased CO2 can be a panacea. Those who would obfuscate with such an approach… you can’t do much more than feel sorry for people who engage in that kind of behaviour. It must be hard to look in the mirror.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/esd-food-security
That was then. This is now.
“NASA has estimated rainfall from the Pineapple Express over the coastal regions southwestern Oregon and northern California from the series of storms in February, 2017.
The West Coast is once again feeling the effects of the “Pineapple Express.” Back in early January one of these “atmospheric river” events, which taps into tropical moisture from as far away as the Hawaiian Islands, brought heavy rains from Washington state and Oregon all the way down to southern California. This second time around, many of those same areas were hit again.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-nasa-eyes-pineapple-california.html#jCp”
It’s so easy to find whatever one wants.
And just a month earlier:
“California which has long been suffering through a strong, multi-year drought, is finally beginning to see some much needed relief as a result of a recent series of storms that are part of a weather pattern known as the “Pineapple Express.”
Confusing weather with climate — the hallmark of the low-information opinionator.
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-nasa-pineapple-heavy-california.html#nRlv
Don’t panic. At least, try not too. Shrill cries of panic are so boring. Anyone that wants an accurate measure of food supply worldwide can simply go the FAO and see that food production has grown massively and is expected to keep on growing.
“Diets in developing countries are changing as incomes rise. The share of staples, such as cereals, roots and tubers, is declining, while that of meat, dairy products and oil crops is rising.
Between 1964-66 and 1997-99, per capita meat consumption in developing countries rose by 150 percent, and that of milk and dairy products by 60 percent. By 2030, per capita consumption of livestock products could rise by a further 44 percent. As in the past, poultry consumption will grow fastest.
Global warming is not expected to depress food availability at the global level, but at the regional and local levels there may be significant impacts. Current projections suggest that the potential for crop production will increase in temperate and northerly latitudes, while in parts of the tropics and subtropics it may decline. This may further deepen the dependence of developing countries on food imports, though at the same time it may improve the ability of temperate exporters to fill the gap. Rising sea levels will threaten crop production and livelihoods in countries with large areas of low-lying land, such as Bangladesh and Egypt.”
A collection of facts and guesses.
Less poor. More meat.
here’s the link:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/y3557e/y3557e03.htm
There are no ‘shrill cries of panic.’
Don’t try to feed us strawmen.
Jeff, if you are still reading… Is this Anon persona one of Eric’s sock puppets?
Yes.
When Eric has posted in the same thread previously, using multiple IDs but a single IP address, he has claimed it was accidental and he used a second computer. That doesn’t make sense. I have multiple devices, and am logged in on all of them. Eric apparently sees the need to provide counterpoints and/or support to his own posts.
This type of activity used to go on over at Frances’ blog as well.
Eric:
Absolutely bad form old boy. What say you to this?
I have always considered the message more important than the messenger.
I have a number of devices that access the internet. On all of those devices are multiple browser applications that can access the ‘net.
Sometimes I find myself in a room or a place and I look around at news or fake news and I comment. If one is not signed in to Gordon’s blog and one posts, it registers as ‘Anonymous’. Jeff is full of it, in imagining that this is done using multiple IDs purposely. Certainly not by me. He is clearly bothered and trying to find something.
Oh Finnegan. You are a naughty, naughty dog.
How odd then that in this very thread we see you defending some messengers and questioning others — pointing to qualifications and credentials as though they are important.
It takes about a second to make sure one is posting with the right account from multiple devices. I suspect most of us who post here do so from phones, tablets, and desktop computers. I know I do — and don’t find it even slightly onerous to ensure that I do so with the same credentials every time.
It’s either on purpose or careless to not do so. It’s deceiving to other readers and very much frowned upon as bad form online.
https://i.cbc.ca/1.3184129.1438998381!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/mr-dressup.jpg
These things are important in your life. OK. Party on dude. File me as a contrarian without a care.
Well, I guess there may be another way of making this point. We’re all Eric now!
“Turner compared real-world data from 1970 to 2000 with the business-as-usual scenario. He found the predictions nearly matched the facts. “There is a very clear warning bell being rung here,” he says. “We are not on a sustainable trajectory.”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/looking-back-on-the-limits-of-growth-125269840/
Eric / Anon is a believer in click bait. There are bots that can do that automatically, and they seem to be mostly in the hands of those who love their alternative realities and special facts.
CO2 and plants. Well, here’s the full body of the post by the scientists at Skeptical Science on this ‘CO2 is only good’ contrarian talking point:
What would be the effects of an increase of CO2 on agriculture and plant growth in general?
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 (1, 2).
On the other hand, as predicted by climate research, we are experiencing more intense storms with increased rainfall rates throughout much of the world. One would think that this should be good for agriculture. Unfortunately when rain falls in short, intense bursts it does not have time to soak into the ground. Instead, it quickly floods into creeks, then rivers, and finally out into the ocean, often carrying away large amounts of soil and fertilizer.
2. Unlike Nature, our way of agriculture does not self-fertilize by recycling all dead plants, animals and their waste. Instead we have to constantly add artificial fertilizers produced by energy-intensive processes mostly fed by hydrocarbons, particularly from natural gas which will eventually be depleted. Increasing the need for such fertilizer competes for supplies of natural gas and oil, creating competition between other needs and the manufacture of fertilizer. This ultimately drives up the price of food.
3. Too high a concentration of CO2 causes a reduction of photosynthesis in certain of plants. There is also evidence from the past of major damage to a wide variety of plants species from a sudden rise in CO2 (See illustrations below). Higher concentrations of CO2 also reduce the nutritional quality of some staples, such as wheat.
4. As is confirmed by long-term experiments, plants with exhorbitant supplies of CO2 run up against limited availability of other nutrients. These long term projects show that while some plants exhibit a brief and promising burst of growth upon initial exposure to C02, effects such as the “nitrogen plateau” soon truncate this benefit
5. Plants raised with enhanced CO2 supplies and strictly isolated from insects behave differently than if the same approach is tried in an otherwise natural setting. For example, when the growth of soybeans is boosted out in the open this creates changes in plant chemistry that makes these specimens more vulnerable to insects, as the illustration below shows.
6. Likely the worst problem is that increasing CO2 will increase temperatures throughout the Earth. This will make deserts and other types of dry land grow. While deserts increase in size, other eco-zones, whether tropical, forest or grassland will try to migrate towards the poles. Unfortunately it does not follow that soil conditions will necessarily favor their growth even at optimum temperatures.
In conclusion, it would be reckless to keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Assuming there are any positive impacts on agriculture in the short term, they will be overwhelmed by the negative impacts of climate change.
Added CO2 will likely shrink the range available to plants while increasing the size of deserts. It will also increase the requirements for water and soil fertility as well as plant damage from insects.
Increasing CO2 levels would only be beneficial inside of highly controlled, enclosed spaces like greenhouses.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm