A new study published by the journal, Global Ecology and Conservation, claims that a phenomenon known as CO2 fertilization is contributing to a net greening of the globe.
The authors of the study, entitled “The global greening continues despite increased drought stress since 2000”, used the measurement of Leaf Area Index (LAI) to shows that more than half of the globe is greening at an accelerated rate since 2000.
They note that “numerous studies have confirmed the greening phenomenon, investigated the drivers and corresponding influences”, but that “the conclusion of greening has recently been challenged, with some studies finding that global greening stagnated or even turned browning after 2000”.
Using leaf area index datasets that had been “significantly updated”, the scientists analyzed the global vegetation change trends from 2001 to 2020 based on the latest version of LAI datasets.
“Importantly, we also introduced the concept of LAI growth rate to analyze the rate of greening (browning). Finally, we further analyzed the drivers of LAI trend and LAI growth rate trend,” they said.
They conclude that “global greening is an indisputable fact” and “the rate of global greening increased slightly” between 2001 and 2020.
Further, they looked at “global browning” – decreases in vegetation which are often attributed to climate change – and found that the drought trend “only slowed down global greening, but was far from triggering browning”.
The authors also looked at studies that found global greening “could reduce climate warming by increasing terrestrial carbon sequestration and cooling the surface”.
“Greening acceleration occurred in 55.15% of the globe (positive trend and positive growth rate trend), while browning acceleration occurred in only 7.28% (negative trend and positive growth rate trend),” the study found.
The findings suggest that increased CO2 has been a net gain for the environment, which would stand contrary to the claim that CO2 endangers public health; a claim that was made by Environmental Protection Agency president Lisa Jackson in 2009. More recently, legislation in the U.S. has described CO2 as a pollutant.
It begs an interesting question: is CO2 a pollutant, or can its higher concentration actually a positive thing?
Strange as it seems, that is a question that is never asked in the main stream discourse – unless one of the many self-described ‘fact-checkers’ are finding against a claim that CO2 might not be the bogeyman we are expected to believe it is.
There is an assumption by a large section of the general public who rely on the corporate media for their views on the world (and their assessment of truth), that CO2 is a pollutant, and that it should by all measures be reduced. This is assumed a-priori, but it shouldn’t be.
Similarly a lot is made of a ‘prima facie’ notion that there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere, but it would be very difficult to get these same people to answer the following questions concerning atmospheric CO2. What is too much; what is optimal, and what is too little?
It is quite certain that many of the children who are driven to anxiety over a hypothesized climate catastrophe, if asked, might say that you cannot have too little. That assertion would be wrong. At 150 ppm (parts per million) all plant life starves for lack of CO2.
CO2 is the substance of life. Without it, the carbon cycle, which is the foundation of life on earth, cannot exist. And yet; the climate alarmists pay very little attention to this fact and its consequences.
If 150 ppm is starvation level, what is the optimum level for plant growth? Plants thrive in CO2 enriched environments, in fact commercial greenhouse growers pump CO2 into their greenhouses to enrich the atmosphere to 1000 ppm. Studies suggest that the optimum level is between 1100 and 1300 ppm.
The plants would do better with even higher levels of CO2 but the growers come up against the economics of diminishing returns as the cost of the gas has to be factored against the accelerated growth.
The new study suggest earth’s atmosphere has benefitted from this CO2 enrichment in the last 40 years in particular, and the evidence suggests that the benefits outweigh the costs. Despite concerns about droughts and desertification, the earth is generally becoming lusher as the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increases. And it’s not just slightly greener, the gains are massive.
The net greening of the planet since 1980 has covered an area nearly twice the size of the territory of the United States, according to a study quoted by NASA 2016.
The study states that CO2 was by far the biggest factor in this greening, much more so than soil moisture or temperature. “We found that CO2 dominated the LAI trend of 75.63% of the globe, and temperature and soil moisture only could reach 11.34% and 7.30% respectively, which were mainly concentrated in the high latitude areas of the northern Hemisphere and western Australia,” the authors state.
In short, the effects of weather and climate were far outweighed by the effects of CO2 fertilization and this trend was in spite of droughts.
This makes sense because one of the consequences of CO2 enrichment is that the respiration of plants requires far less water.
Respiration in plants happens through a process named photosynthesis where the plant absorbs CO2 from the air through tiny openings in its leaves called stomata. These stomata allow CO2 to enter the leaf, but also allow water vapour out through the open pores. The higher the concentration of CO2 the less water vapour passes out through the stomata, and the less water is needed by the plant to survive. So CO2 fertilization actually counters the effect of drought and does two things concurrently; it increases plant growth and increases the efficiency of water use.
There should be plenty of food for thought from this new study and the undeniable evidence that the most of the world is greening, not browning, and doing so at an accelerated rate. Most of all, this inconvenient truth should lead to an honest re-evaluation of the accepted wisdom that CO2 is a pollutant.
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I don’t read much about Climate Change ever really but this is the first time I’ve ever read something about it that has actually given numbers for what is optimal for plants.
Well done.
I remember when I first came across the concept of climate change and that CO2 levels increasing would be a problem and my first thought back then was – more plant food could lead to more plant growth i.e. greening. I hadn’t realised that increased CO2 concentrations meant plants needed less water. It’s been a very long time since I studied photosynthesis and I’m not sure that was mentioned at the time. Very interesting
Too many evil people misusing the climate narrative to limit our rights and movement. Our evil problem is, as usual, Leo! The first anti-Irish Taoiseach, along with Micheal, in history!
That’s why I drive just below the red line on the way to work, higher engine revs mean more plant food for the vegans reeing at my polluting habits.
I’m literally feeding my enemy.
Of course its not- it was just a handy way of controlling access to energy/work. Dont forget, civilisations and their economies are built on energy/work.
G”man Thade . . Thank goodness someone is talking sense.. Many thanks !
Only the Irish Freedom Party can save Ireland
65% of the human body is made from oxygen+water, 18.5% of the human body however is made from carbon………………..when the climate cult wants to remove carbon from the environment……………what exactly are they referring to? Bill Gates has a theory on this!
Link to the studay at the start of the article is broken.
Gript doesn’t like links in comments, but if you search for ““The global greening continues despite increased drought stress since 2000”, the title of the paper, it comes up first.
Also search for “leaf area index” and “greening” to get other similar papers.
Thanks MMG..
I’m shocked, SHOCKED…well not that shocked…
There can be no argument that CO2 promote plant growth, enables the atmosphere to retain more moisture andm as Putin pointed out to Carlson this week, warming would increase the productive areas of Siberia (and Canada which has almost as much permafrost regions already beginning to sprout as the treeline moves steadily north.
The fly(ing elephant) in the ointment however is the continued deforestation of the Amazon basin, the few remaining jungles of Africa & SE Asia – the industrial rates of devastation far overtake the natural growth of wild vegetation.
Sounds like Coillte could finally have a worthwhile function – cover Ireland in real trees and pay the soon to be EU regulation ruined farmers well for their partnerships.
NB ONLY using native hardwoods not the wood weed of spruce & sitka pine so beloved of the shiny pants, soft handed bureaucrats in their Dublin offices.
No…CO2 is the elixir of life!
Sighs and slaps head… Nobody has ever called c02 a pollutant. Human beings and all living mammals breathe out c02 when we exhale. The issue is that there is too much c02 in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels which traps heat from the sun causing climate change. Concluding that the earth is greening is just proof that there is too much c02 in atmosphere. Climate change is a reality people… Just get used to it
That’s not correct. CO2 accounts for 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere, of which only between 3% and 5% is claimed to be anthropogenic. This equates to roughly 0.0012 – 0.002%.
Those are small numbers; the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere is negligible. I have yet to be convinced that such a proportionally minute gas in our atmosphere could have any effect whatsoever on warming.
I’m also pretty surprised this point is not brough to the forefront more often to question this madness.
It’s patently nonsense.
Thanks Frankie for seeking to put the actual percentage of CO2 in perspective. Even if the CO2 accounts for 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere, and between 30% and 50% is anthropogenic (there is disagreement) the amount is still very small but CO2 is plant food and beneficial as shown in greenhouse use.
Consider the CO2 emissions of various countries looking at the largest emitters and ranking Ireland alongside them (from EDGAR Emissions Database for Global Economic Research 2023 report for 2022):
China 29.16%
USA 11.19%
EU 6.67%
India 7.33%
United Kingdom 0.79%
Ireland 0.12%
Africa 3.92%
There are 675 coal fired plants at various stages of planning and 381 under construction, mainly in India and China (see Global Energy Monitor Coal Plant Tracker). Of the 0.79% that the UK and 0.12% that Ireland contributes Google suggests half comes from “anthropogenic emissions.” So politicians in these countries would destroy their economies and agriculture for less than 0.4% and 0.06% to reduce total world emissions – and that while Asia is replacing this CO2 by a hundred fold.
Are our politicians, ecologists and activists totally ignorant? Why have they not made an effort to look up these facts or are they deceiving the public for some hidden agenda? We need honesty, transparency and open discussions on climate. We must insist on the inclusion of experts who refuse to be alarmed by climate changes and the assertion that this threatens humanity. We need to support our farmers by informing them of these facts. We must showing them climate alarmism distorts reality, will ruin many small farmers and contribute to famine.
The scam is the design of the globalists: UN sustainable Development Goals is te framework for how this agenda will be used to justify ever more intrusive and restrictive controls over everything from travel to food supply, more punative taxes and the imposition of global government.
Also, as per the article, CO2 absolutely has been listed in US legislation as a pollutant.
This is not true. CO2 is demonised and it’s inferred that it’s a pollutant all the time. Con, seeing as you’ve weighed in here with your knowledge on climate change would you mind giving some numbers? What are the comparisons between the amount of CO2 emitted from volcanoes and from burning fossil fuels?
I think that climate change has always been a reality, no?
And why did you conclude that greening of te Earth is “proof that there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere”? Surely greening is positive? Should this not be regarded as proof that there is “just enough” or even “not yet enough” CO2 in the atmosphere?
Climate change is a reality; very few people doubt or deny that.
What is not a reality is the cause of climate change being related to man-made CO2 emissions or the notion taht climate change can be slowed or altered by reducing CO2 emissions..
Wrong.
.
The US EPA has managed to declare CO2 a pollutant in order to gain authority to regulate it.
There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth has been consistently warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and the rate of recent warming is largely unprecedented.[1]: 8 [2]: 11 This warming is mainly caused by the rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since 1750 from human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and land use changes such as deforestation,[3]: 10–11 with a significant supporting role from the other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.[1]: 7 This human role in climate change is now considered “unequivocal” and “incontrovertible”
Thank God you idiots are a minority…
Many issues that are settled in the scientific community, such as human responsibility for global warming, remain the subject of politically or economically motivated attempts to downplay, dismiss or deny them—an ideological phenomenon academics and scientists call climate change denial. Climate scientists, especially in the United States, have reported government and oil-industry pressure to censor or suppress their work and hide scientific data, with directives not to discuss the subject publicly. The fossil fuels lobby has been identified as overtly or covertly supporting efforts to undermine or discredit the scientific consensus on global warming.[11][12]
Industrial, political and ideological interests organize activity to undermine public trust in climate science.[13][14][15][8]: 691–698 Climate change denial has been associated with the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates, ultraconservative think tanks, and ultraconservative alternative media, often in the U.S.[10]: 351 [16][8] More than 90% of papers that are skeptical of climate change originate from right-wing think tanks.[17] Climate change denial is undermining efforts to act on or adapt to climate change, and exerts a powerful influence on the politics of global warming.[15][8]: 691–698
Con my friend,
There is no point even discussing it with brainwashed people like you
It is worth noting that the IPCC “expert” group have in one of their earlier reports had an executive summary (for the media and politicians too lazy to read the full report) that make claims that the actual text does not. It is also worth noting they have made changes in later reports that try and address some of the shortcomings without actually saying what the alarmists would like to hear. So much for settled science!!!
IPCC is another selected pack of charlatans whose existence relies upon furthering the myth that, A) carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and, B) our current period of warming/cooling,including any ice melt or other such occurrence, is anything other than a normal cycle that has been repeated since time immemorial.
Also, remember that the western world, Europe, US and a few others Australia for instance, are the only ones buying into this con. China, Russia, India, all the rest of Asia, all of Africa, a grouping representing 2/3 of the worlds population are laughing at the west’s collective flagellation on this issue.
Perhaps disingenuous describes them?
Excellent discussion between Chris Williamson and Brett Weinstein on the ‘Here’s why I disagree with Sam Harris’ episode about the rot and lies in the institutions and the charlatans that are selected to run them
“… issues that are settled in the scientific community…”
Ah, back to “settled science”, eh? Real scientists would never regard science as “settled” on anything. The essence of scientific investigation is to question and challenge established hypothesis. Always.
Very well paid ‘scientists’ like to talk about their “settled science”.
“There is a strong scientific consensus…”
You lost me. No there isn’t.
How did fluctuations in global temperature occur before humans began burniung fossil fuels?
How did fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentration occur before this?
Hint: atmospheric CO2 content and global temperature are not influenceed by human activity.
“Consensus”..there’s that word again.
Consensus is not science