or perhaps not.
From New Scientist:
Climate myths: Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production - environment - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist
and you can also find articles that say increased CO2 will benefit some plants growth.
Bit of a red herring, if you don't mind me saying.
john, I'm with you all the way on this, but would like to pick up a couple of things:
"The 'science' behind CC due to MMGW" has been proven: global temperatures are" climbing at an alarming rate, faster than would be expected from Mother Nature alone”. But it's not too late. The predicted rate of climb is not “predicted to be beyond the rate at which mankind can successfully adapt”. It will cause vast economic disruption, shifts in global resource production, vast amounts of coastline flooding, and possible major conflicts.But adaptation per se is not the issue.
On your two points:
On Point 1/, there are very strong reasons to accept the science. It is based on basic GCSE-level physics and countless observations on Earth and Venus. It is so unlikely to be wrong that it is not worth making any other assumption. That being said, no science is 100% accurate; and nor do the climate models carry 100% certainty. What certainty there is lies in the fact that the extra energy has to go somewhere, and the atmosphere must be the agent for distributing it. The major concern about MMCC (other than the very unlikely event of a total runaway) is not the new stability: it is the disruption which will occur during the period of transition.
On point 2/, the science is right, but we are not, fortunately, on the brink of tipping the balance. Even the 2-3deg rise which is predicted will be bad enough.
On NikB's points:
We have less accurate data - tree rings, ice cores etc going back much further but they can't give us a day, week, month, year data readout.
Well, that's only partially true. In fact they can give us season and year readouts, and such information is vital in reconstruction ancient climates. But anyway that's besides the point. Climate modelling is statistical, based on trends. Nobody claims that these readouts can give day, week, month. But so what? Climate is weather averaged over years, and this information is perfectly good enough for that.
For us to be told that we're on the brink of runaway temperature rises (which has been quoted time and again in the news) I believe is naive and probably deliberately misleading.
Well, it would be if we were to believe the news (though to be honest I can't remember a single instance of any news item I have come across which actually made that claim). Luckily, runaway events are not being predicted. Unluckily, they are not needed for the effects of MMCC to be pretty devastating.
Some examples of runaway climate change from the media
Extract: Global Warning: The Last Chance for Change | Environment | guardian.co.uk
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Climate crisis near 'in 10 years'
World has only ten years to control global warming, warns Met Office - Telegraph
This is not a news item, it is a Guardian editorial disguised as a book review (look at the publishers!). It does not specify who the author is, or his qualifications. It goes down the typical scaremongering root of the impersonal: "Some scientists believe..", "some scientists estimate ..", "many who undersatnd the science believe ..". There is no scientific basis for believing that the tipping point is reached at 2deg, and plenty for believeing that it isn't.
I hadn't seen this item before.
However, the only reference to runaway effects that I can see is "Above the 2C level, the risks of abrupt, accelerated or runaway climate change also increase". Well, yes, true in itself. But as it doesn't attempt to quantify the risk, it's hardly to be read as a prediction.
The only mention of 'runaway' in the whole article is in the headline. Again, a bit of grandstanding. It's basically a run-of-the-mill bit of reporting on CC and concerns about a >2C rise..
Well as you mentioned fish, you might like to take a look at this. Natural Plant System
The use of artificially raised CO2 levels to promote plant growth is widely established in aquatic circles with a plethora of products, such as the above, being on offer.
....and here is one for raising the CO2 in your greenhouse. Greenhouse Carbon Dioxide (Co2) Enrichment Equipment at Home Harvest Garden Supply
Please tell me you are not equating the effects in a pond and a greenhouse with those of the entire planet?!
I think you're missing my point. You're looking for qualifications and authors etc, that's not what I was getting at. The media is giving this doom and gloom information and it is yet another way of getting the sheep to conform. Most people just accept what they see without challenging it so the media can get away with sensationalising in this way. How many people do you think even bother to read the full article let alone hunt through references for peer reviewed papers.
One thing that annoys me about this peer review process is that it is not unbiased. Many papers remain unpublished (I'm not necessarily referring to climatology here) because the publisher doesn't meet the approval of the peers. It happens in my own industry which should be very unbiased but if you have an 'out there' theory you stand little chance of publication.
Unfortunately that may not be a valid argument as some plants simply cannot absorb and process more CO2 because they already do it so efficiently. It will work for some plants so in theory we could genetically modify some crops to use up more CO2 but that would not meet with global approval (despite the fact that increased crop yields from GM may be the only way to feed 9 billion people).
No. Just pointing out that CO2 is an essential trace elemement rather than the "polutant" that it is being demonised into. As an aside though, given that we are all being told that mankind must reduce CO2 output, do you think we should ban commercial growers from artificailly raising CO2 levels to increase crop yields?