Only Sherwood has any experience or qualifications in any subject related to climatology in that he received a minor in physics in 1966, other than that their area of expertise lies in soil sciences, botany and geography.
The Idso’s have published more papers than any other person or persons attempting to discredit the science of global warming. Between them they hold fifteen positions within oil inmdustry funded denialist organisations. All three of them were on the payroll of the Western Fuels Association.
Exxon and Western Fuels have paid millions to people like the Idso’s to publish bogus reports about global warming, something they have now publicly acknowledged and apologised for.
Together the Idso’s are the President, Founder, Vice President and Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change which has received at least $100,000 from Exxon alone.
Through their organisation and it’s website (CO2 Science) they seek to promote global warming as beneficial. Initially they had the backing of both Exxon and Western Fuels but, it seems largely as a result of their wild and unsubstantiated claims, Western Fuels have sought to distance themselves from the organisation and Exxon have ceased all funding.
In all honesty, it would be hard to find a less reliable and less credible source.
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The claims of the Idso’s et alia is that more CO2 means more plants. That’s an over simplistic and unrealistic viewpoint. Enhancing CO2 levels can, in some circumstances, benefit plant growth but only if there is a proportionate increase in the availability of the other photosynthetic requirements such as water, nutrients and sunlight.
And therein lies the problem – there isn’t an increase in these other requirements, far from it. In fact, more and more places are now experiencing drought conditions and when the rains do come they tend to be more intense which washes nutrients out of the soils and/or washes the soils away altogether.
If the world were as simple as the Idso’s make out then there should be a 42% increase in plant growth – to correspond with the 42% increase in CO2 levels. Are trees really that much bigger than they used to be and have crop yields increased by that amount? Of course not.
The Idso’s seem to have forgotten to mention that warmer temperatures are more beneficial than enhanced CO2 levels and it’s this factor that is the primary reason why some crops, in some parts of the world, are now producing higher yields.
Globally this is more than countered by increased losses through more frequent and intense droughts, floods and heatwaves.
Unfortunately the skeptics all too often take one single piece from a complex climatological jigsaw and focus exlusively on that to the detriment of all other factors. This presents a biased and unrealistic view. It’s only when you look at the full picture, the good and the bad, that you can get a balanced overview of the effects of global warming.
"Is global warmng is good for the earth?"
Earth adjusts.
Man has little lines on maps that change with sea level, since lawyers cannot seem to stop it. So we try and hold back the ocean, at the cost of billions annually (both to dike it, and when the dikes fail) to keep our imaginary lines "valid".
The problem is, increased temperature both lofts more water vapor, and weakens the protective thermocline between the troposphere and the stratosphere, that keeps water vapor out of the ozone layer. So global warming decreases the amount of ozone between us and the Sun (and also makes the ozone hole larger).
Decreases in ozone layer protection kills plants, sterilizes soil, makes crops smaller, and leaves less nutrition in crops since the plant spends time / energy making its version of sun screen. To say nothing of the animals dependent on those plants, what the increased UV does to them.
So with the ban of CFCs, now a couple of decades old, the ozone layer protection far from the equator is increasing, but is still weakening closer to the equator. Where the lion's share of plants and food crops are grown.
It *isn't* the CO2 per se, it is the increase in greenhouse gas, the change in Earth's surface reflectivity. The picture is bigger than just one chemical compound.
ask the farmers in a drought and heat wave if CO2 is good.
(Link) 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.
Most of our oxygen is generated by algae not trees There is already too much CO2 in the atmosphere for all of the vegetation on earth to absorb. The majority off CO2 and soil bound carbons end up in the ocean BUT the oceans also emit CO2 back into the atmosphere
The corruption of The Fossil Fuel Industry is rotting your brain
See Trevors answer. when you cant disprove the evidence/facts then attack the persons credibility, this usually proves they are losing the argument.
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/glob...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/th...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...
I don't know, I am burning up here at 40 below zero
Hi God, you have to be right on this, also a nice tutorial, thanks.
Sorry Shill, senior moment there.
Where does oxygen come from? Plants, right?
And what do plants require to live & grow? What must they inhale to exhale oxygen?
Obviously, it is CO2, which animals & human exhale after we inhale oxygen. It is also what we inject in the air when we burn fossil fuels.
Every study of which I'm aware shows that the Earth is greening now largely due to increased CO2. And every one shows that, thus far, rising CO2 levels are a net PLUS for the economies of people around the world, especially in desert regions (rising CO2 means plants use water more efficiently).
"The Effect of Temperature on Plant Response to Higher Levels of CO2"
Photosynthesis consists of chemical reactions. Chemical reactions procede at a higher rate at higher temperatures. The rule of thumb is that there is a doubling of the reaction rate for every 10°F rise in temperature. Plants grow faster at a higher temperature providing they have adequate levels of CO2, water, sunlight and plant nutrients. The C4 plants have a great response rate for a higher temperature than does the C3 plants.
A higher temperature without adequate level of the necessary ingredients for
growth might produce no response or even damage. Sylvan Wittwer, quoted above, states that under most circumstances the availability of CO2 is the factor which limits growth. Thus with a higher level of CO2 in the air plants can grow faster with a higher temperature.
Plants transpire water vapor to keep an even temperature. There are tiny holes on the underside of plant leaves, called somata, which are the openings through which the plant absorbs CO2. With higher level of CO2 concentration in the air the somata do not have to be open as wide. The narrower opening means that less water is transpired and thus less water is required by the plants. In other words, higher levels of
CO2 increase the efficiency of water use by plants. This was confirmed in experiments reported by K.E. Idso and S.B. Idso. They found that enhanced CO2 increased growth by 31 percent in plants with adequate moisture butit increase growth by 62 percent for plants in moisture-stressed condition. In effect, enhanced CO2 by reducing water loss created the same effect as providing more water. Thus the effect in moisture-stressed plants was the effects of enhanced CO2 plus the effect of increased water.
The effect of increased CO2 in narrowing the stomata of plants has the additional benefit that a lesser amount of pollutants in the air will make it through the narrower openings. Thus enhanced CO2 has the effect of protecting plants against damage from air pollutants such as ozone or sulfur dioxide.
The effect of enhanced CO2 is even greater for plants grown under low light conditions. The enhance growth is greater than 100 percent for a 100 percent increase in CO2. This compares to less than 50 percent for plants grown in normal light conditions."
