More Thoughts On Global Warming

Let us set aside for the moment the three salient currentpoints of contention over AGW:
1. Is Warming going on? (“My scientists are smarter than your scientists”)
2. Burning of carbonaceous fuels is the cause
3. The only remedy is more government involvement: taxation and regulation
We need to set these aside for a while to discuss another, usually unexamined point: If true, is atmospheric warming harmful, or is it beneficial.

I think strong scientific and historical cases can be made for the latter.

a. In an aerobic environment, carbon dioxide is necessary for plant life. Plant life is essential for animal life as animals tend to eat plants. Across the board, plants grow faster as carbon dioxide concentration increases. Research in Australia into growing algae industrially as a feedstock for biofuels found that algae can be grown at such rates only in water saturated with carbon dioxide. More plant biomass equals more food for animals.
b. A warmer environment will have longer growing seasons in temperate zones. This fact is obvious and doesn’t even have to be discussed, but longer growing seasons allow for a greater variety of plant growth.
c. Arable land ranges further from the Equator. This is related to item b). In a warmer atmosphere, vast reaches of Canada and Siberia become useful for something other than growing conifers. In a warmer past (the High Middle Ages – roughly 1000 A.D. to 1300 A.D.) vineyards in England as far north as York produced excellent wine. So much so that French vineyards in France demanded import tariffs on English wine. Today, only recently have English vineyards made a comeback and only into Kent. In the High Middle Ages oats grew in Iceland (they don’t today despite genetic engineering) and hay grew in Greenland. Growing seasons were longer and supported these crops.
d. Desertification would be reversed. In warmer ancient times and in the High Middle Ages the northern edges of the Sahara and Arabian deserts were hundreds of kilometers north of where they are today. Ancient texts mention lions wild in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Lions are big carnivores that need a lot of food. That bespeaks lush plant life to feed prey animals. That is not true in the cooler climate of today. Ancient texts and medieval chroniclers describe Timbuktu as a town set in lush grasslands with varied crops growing as well. Today, in a cooler climate, Timbuktu exists only as a desert crossroads – hundreds of kilometers from grasslands or arable croplands. I submit to the forum that the denizens of Timbuktu would approve of a warmer climate.
e. Any rise in ocean levels will make more liquid water available for evaporation by the sun. That will transport more water inland for rain and that increases the amount of land suitable for “dry land” (non-irrigated) agriculture. Increased rain inland added to increased carbon dioxide will drive much more vigorous plant life.
f. Ancient ice samples show that in Ice Ages the carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere were about 300 ppm. That is much closer to today’s 380 ppm than to the 2,000 ppm of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The PETM was not characterized by a lot of deserts or exceptionally high sea levels but rather by a rather lush plant biomass.
I could go on, but there is clearly a case to be made that a higher carbon dioxide concentration and a warmer atmosphere is beneficial rather than harmful.

 

The other side is of course the kinds of things that will happen if we do everything we "must" do to stop global warming. I wouldn't mind my own life being made somewhat worse, but it's not about me. Millions of people depend on indusrialization for basic survival. America provides much of the food used around the world. And those crops are available because of pesticides and fertilizers (many of them actually made from petroleum), and those are pollutants. But removing them would reduce the planet's ability to feed actual humans -- if Africa starves when we artificially raise crop yields, imagine what would happen if we didn't use those evil fertilizers and pesticides. The same thing with pollution. There's a reason why the only nations that favor regulating carbon are in North America and Europe -- we no longer depend on manufacturing to drive our economy. It's not true in India, China, Brazil or other places -- they aren't going to give up on the chance for a middle class existance to save polar bears. If you shut down their factories because of global warming, they're going to riot because those factories are food and a chance at an education.

I think the biggest driver of "environmental catastrophism" is the very fact that we don't need to make our own things. We're by and large beaureucrats -- most Americans and Europeans live in cities and type data into a computer. So the loss of a factory doesn't mean much. We don't sweat it because it has so little to do with US. The most we'll see is a few pennies more for food and clothing and useless crap. We won't have the food shortages, we won't lose our jobs, we won't wonder how we'll pay for our kid's education. We're the clueless elite of the world.

 

Does that response address the premise that AGW (if true - a big if) may be more beneficial than detrimental?

 

Still no response to the assertion that warming (if it did exist) is more beneficial than detrimental?

 

That's not the only remedy, just the cheapest one.

Not true. CO2 only increases plant growth where carbon is the limiting factor for plant growth. That's true in a few environments, but not many. The most common limiting factor for plant growth is water; the second most common is phosphorus; and the third most common is fixed nitrogen. That's why fertilizer is composed mostly of phosphorus and nitrates. Only after a plant has abundant water, phosphorus, and nitrate does more CO2 enhance growth. That occurs in human-managed situations like greenhouses and irrigated fields, but in nature, not so much.

Just ask the farmers and ranchers in Texas how climate change is working for them.

Algae harvesting is difficult and expensive. And while saturating the oceans with CO2 might help algae, it also increases oceanic acidity, which makes it difficult for calcate hard shells to form, resulting in fewer coral, clams, oysters, lobsters, and other shellfish. The economic loss is far greater on the increased CO2 side.

A longer growing season also increases the risk to crops from severe weather; and one of the other problems with climate change is increased risk for severe weather. Further, in temperate zones you're only going to get one crop per year regardless of the length of the growing season. So once again, the economic loss outweighs the benefit.

So does non-arable land. Deserts are currently advancing northward in both North America and southern Europe. The economic impacts of drought in Texas are felt in a single year. The benefits from more wheat in Canada will take decades to manifest. The economic loss in the meantime is strongly against climate change.

There have been vineyards in northern Michigan since the 19th century, and Michigan gets more severe winters than anything in England OR Scotland. (Traverse City, center of the Michigan wine industry, is in zone 6a; the coldest region of Scotland is zone 7a, and most of England is in zone 8b, two-and-a-half zones warmer than Traverse City.) The reason people don't drink English wine has a lot to do with modern varietal snobbery and skillful consumer marketing, and almost nothing to do with climate.

Not true. Oats have been grown in Iceland continuously since it was colonized, and still are today.

Now compare the economic value of Greenland hay and increased oat yields in Iceland to the economic loss from the Russian drought of 2009, the Texas drought of 2011, or the Pakistani floods of 2011. It's not even close.

Completely untrue: in ancient Rome, Libya was one of the biggest wheat-growing provinces in the empire.

Those ecological changes are the result of human hunting, not climate change.

Like all river towns in an arid environment, Timbuktu looks like an oasis to the desert nomads (because it was, and is). Its legendary status among Europeans was a result of secondhand accounts told by caravaneers at northern Sahara cities where they were picked up (and exaggerated) by European traders. There are in fact no reliable climate records from Timbuktu before the era of European colonization.

They probably would, since one of the effects of climate change is a northward move of the Sahara, bringing more tropical rains to the Sahel. But more goats in Mali and Chad doesn't even come close to offsetting the damage to olive and grape crops in Greece and Sicily. The economic scales weigh heavily against climate change.

The increase in ocean surface area from a 2-meter rise in sea level would be about 0.3 percent: a totally trivial increase in terms of increased evaporation. But that same 2-meter sea level rise would cause 175 million coastal refugees worldwide.

Once again, the cost is heavily against climate change.

Uh, no. Ice cores show that during ice-covered periods of the Pleistocene, CO2 was about 180-220 ppmv, and during inter-glacials (where we were before the industrial revolution) it rose to generally about 280 ppmv (although three inter-glacials ago it did reach 300).

The PETM was characterized by a mass extinction event affecting 35-50% of deep-sea species. Numerous land extinctions also occurred but are harder to quantify. The only commonality among the land and sea extinctions was the increased temperature, which during the PETM amounted to 6° C in 20,000 years (.003° C per decade). The current rate of temperature increase is more than 30 times faster than that.

Another look at the alleged benefits of CO2 on plants
From this week's news:

An extended article in the New York Times took a look at the actual real-world impacts of climate change on our food supply. The results aren't pretty:

 

More taxation and regulation are the cheapest remedy? On what planet?

Poor Debater posted:
“The economic loss is far greater on the increased CO2 side.”

Taxcutter says:
Unsubstantiated claim.


Poor Debater posted:
“…in temperate zones you're only going to get one crop per year regardless of the length of the growing season.”

Taxcutter says:
If the growing season is longer you have the options of either different multi-crop planting or higher-yielding crops that need a longer season.


Poor Debater posted:
“The economic impacts of drought in Texas are felt in a single year.”

Taxcutter says:
That’s weather, not climate. Climate takes decades to establish.



Poor Debater mentions:
“…the Russian drought of 2009, the Texas drought of 2011, or the Pakistani floods of 2011.”

Taxcutter says:
Again…weather, not climate. This is similar to the Warmers’ claim that all hurricanes are caused by AGW. But then to warmers, everything is caused by AGW and only more taxation and regulation will suffice.



Poor Debater posted:
“…in ancient Rome, Libya was one of the biggest wheat-growing provinces in the empire.”

Taxcutter says;
Indeed so. The times were warmer in earlier Roman times.



Poor Debater posted (re: lions in Mesopotamia and Egypt):
“Those ecological changes are the result of human hunting, not climate change.”

Taxcutter says:
If they have luxuriant supplies of food you simply can’t hunt animal populations down. Hunger is a far greater killer than any predator, even man. Do you think modern Egypt or Iraq could support any significant lion population?

Cutesy map of Europe, northern Africa, and southwest Asia, but the question is: millimeters of what?

Any change in climate can result in mass extinctions as better adapted life supplants poorly-adapted life.

Back up and listen to what the Warmers are saying. Viz: Colder is better than warmer. Is suppose that makes an ice age a veritable nirvana. I don’t think many people would buy that idea.

 

On planet Earth, where most of us live. Estimated cost of climate change mitigation: 2% of global GDP. Estimated cost of doing nothing: 5-10% of global GDP.
Both a carbon tax and cap-and-trade would work, but the tax is cheaper to administer. and probably fairer.

Mussel & oyster loss, Gazeau et. al. 2006; coral loss, Hoegh-Guldberg et. al. 2007; economic impacts, Cooley & Doney 2009.

Right back at you: Unsubstantiated claims.

And climate change has been going on for decades. Climate change loads the dice in favor of extremes, which we have actually been seeing with increasing frequency.

Strawman. Nobody has ever claimed that "all hurricanes are caused by AGW", nor anything even remotely close to that. What global warming does do is make hurricanes more severe. In fact, the Russian heat wave has been linked to global warming (Rahmstorf & Coumou 2011), and the Texas drought is expected to continue for at least another year.

So you're saying wheat doesn't grow in Libya now because it's too cold? That's a hot one.

It certainly could in the absence of agriculture. That would leave the river valleys full of gazelle and ibex instead of cattle, and lions would have an easy ecological niche.
But when you start agriculture, you get rid of pests: animals that graze your crop before harvest, and other animals that are just too dangerous to have around.

Rainfall anomaly. It's dry all across southern Europe.

So mass extinctions are OK with you?

Strawman again. It's not that colder is better than warmer. It's that stable is better than unstable. And we are destabilizing the climate worldwide on a massive scale.

 

Cutesy, snarky answers.

This issue needs some serious discussion by everyone, not just those who benefit from higher taxes and greater regulation.

 

I was giving it serious discussion. Don't blame me because you haven't thought it through.

 

Granny says, "Remember UNICEF this holiday season...

UNICEF Treats Record Number of Sahel Children for Malnutrition
December 12, 2012 — The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says that aid agencies treated a record number of children in the Sahel region of West Africa for life-threatening severe acute malnutrition this year. Though many lives were saved, experts say that episodes of severe acute malnutrition in children have irreversible, life-long impacts on health, which are further compounded by widespread chronic malnutrition in the region.

 

do people ever tire of repeating that (*)(*)(*)(*)te...obviously you nothing of farming or of northern canada and russia, I've lived in northern canada it will never be commercial farmland...virtually all the viable arable farmland is being exploited, loss of arable land in the south will not be recovered in the north unless you invent a plow that breaks up bedrock...and what's not bedrock is bottomless muskeg...

 

Sometimes i wonder if some posters on this forum post here as an experiment to see if their nonsense will have traction.

Plants do have optimum temertatures and that varies with the plant. A cabbage or turnip grows better in a cool season as opposed to a corn or tomato plant that needs a warmer environment . But they all need water at the right time. Water is much more effective to a growing plant than an increase in CO2. Plants need water for photosythesis also.

Rain is also a major factor in cattle production. Good pasture can produce one cow on one acre. Dry land produces much less (if at all). Some plaves in New Mexico produces a hundred cows on 8,000 acres...So don't even try to convince me a warmer planet is better for farming....it is just plain untrue.

Plants need the big three (NPK) and many trace elements.

It may be too late to affect MGW (or we may be able to get a handle on it) but we need to start managing our land and water resources or we are in for a very rough time.

By the way Hoosier...HOW MUCH ICE YA GOT THIS YEAR....HOWS THE ICE FISHIN!!!

 

Jovue or The Sun has more influence on planetary weather than some imagined psy-fi insanity.

The Earth consists of 196, 940,000 square miles. Of this there is 139,685,000 square miles of water and 57, 255, 000 of land.
Of this land, only 29,000, 000 is used by all of the peoples of the planet. Of this, about 90,000 (gross exaggeration) is developed and used for industrialized purposes; this includes housing, commercial real estate, etc.

It is because of these facts I do not believe in the Global Warming Theory. It is impossible for such a tiny amount that is being used for commercial/industrial purposes to effect 90,000 to effect 850,000. This is only dealing with the hundred thousands so I did not include the millions. As you can see, it is an impossibility coming from this position.

 

land use has little to do with AGW...although the recovery of rain forests due to man would help lessen the the effects of climate change...

you "do not believe in the global warming" because you do not understand the problem...

 

Poor Debater posted:

CO2 only increases plant growth where carbon is the limiting factor for plant growth. That's true in a few environments, but not many.

I have two videos that offer evidence to the contrary. Are they wrong?http://theconservativeagenda.org/?page_id=1358

 

PD likes to make up his science.

 

Really? What happens to plant CO2 uptake and O2 release when the plant is kept in the dark 24/7. What happens to CO2 uptake and O2 release when when the plant has no water:
here's a hint : CO2 + H2O + light = ????

If CO2 is the only limiting factor, as you suggest, then why has there been an increqse in CO2 in the atmosphere at all? Why haven't the plants made use of the extra CO2 and kept the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere stable?
It is not Pd that has "make up" the science.

And the video does not mention the amount of water the trees were given. More pseudo-science.

 

Not forgetting the additional methane released by the already-melting "permafrost" (which turns out not to be so "perma" as we thought.)

[video=youtube;NVpQnpWS2wU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVpQnpWS2wU[/video]

 

Hmm wouldnt we have more water? I mean if the oceans are a larger percentage of the earth and the temps higher, wouldnt that mean more rainfall? Im no scientist but it seems logical.

 

Rain may not fall where, or in a manner that, it's useful. With higher humidity, more water in the atmosphere so more rain at each event, ie more downpours. Too much water also will not help plants to grow.
Food quality is also an issue:

 

What plants are kept in the dark 24/7? What plants get no water? Are those plants at all? That makes no sense. I do not argue that there is an increase in carbon dioxide. My point is the earth counteracts this with plants and it will not be a catastrophe as many suggest. Carbon dioxide is as natural as you and me. We breathe it out. Now, you tell me this is a pollutant? I just looked it up and CO2 is four tenths of one percent of the air in the atmosphere. Now, you tell me that is too high?

Yet, we are basing a large part of our economy on that. We are spending money on dozens of failed projects like Solyndra. As other projects fail, the more they plan. Politicians led by President Obama want to increase taxes on oil and their main reason is too much carbon dioxide.

I suspect many of those who subscribe to this gloom and doom theory depend on it for a living. If a scientist was paid to study global warming, will he still have a job if he says there is nothing to worry about?

I like Jackster's idea that "if" the earth warms up, there would be more water from more rainfall as the ice melts. I think many of the worlds deserts, now dried up would absorb this. MannieD's answer was,

"Rain may not fall where, or in a manner that, it's useful."

Wow. Nothing will go right. The key word here is "may". In ALL of the writings of this climate change lunacy, there is that word along with "could". That means it also may not or could not, right?

 

the earth counteracts CO2 increase...veeeery slowly, and deforestation really slows the process down even more...

CO2 is natural, so is radon gas but I wouldn't recommend building a home on a radon site...

nearly everything is natural, anything out of normal proportions is abnormal, CO2 in high levels will make you sick and can even kill you...

and doing nothing to limit CO2 will cost much much more...

I suspect those who rely on the energy sector for a living will deny it until they're ready to collect their pension. Vulcanologists study volcanism what money secret profit motive do they have? Climatologist study the climate regardless what it does, warmer, colder, static, it's irrelevant they still have a job.

there is no "if", the earth is warming...

you miss the point of "climate change" it's unpredictable (now you know why there are climatologists) assuming everything will work out perfectly and rain will only fall where it will do the most good in amounts that are usable is like leaving cancer untreated, "hey! it may go into spontaneous remission"...

 

Poor Debater stated that factors other than the amount of CO2 can limit plant growth. Both you and windy denied that fact. I was merely pointing out that if there were no other factors limiting plant growth, then keeping a plant in the dark or withholding water should not affect a plant's growth.

I see wyly has already addressed the rst of the post. Thanks, wyly!

But you, Kulafu have not addressed this part of my post:
"If CO2 is the only limiting factor, as you suggest, then why has there been an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere at all? Why haven't the plants made use of the extra CO2 and kept the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere stable?"

 

Ne he said that there are a few circumstances where it can but not many. He was speaking out of his ass. Higher CO2 will almost always lead to some CO2 fertilization. If you remember you tree ring discussion CO2 fertilization is a major problem with tree ring reconstructions.

 

I do not understand why someone would consider CO2 as fertilizer any more than I would consider O2 as food.

Yes...carbon dioxide will increase plant growth to some degree and that is why greenhouses are opened in the morning to give the plants inside some "fresh air".

But a person would be better served if they took a real close look at NPK, trace elements, water, and light if they are going to grow plants...oh and don't forget the proper light and temperature.

By the way H2O and CO2 plus light makes sugar...and sugar makes cellulose.