The opening assumptions are wrong: Greater warmth PROMOTES plant growth (as anybody who has visited the tropics knows) and warmer seas should produce MORE evaporation/rain (and hence more soil moisture). And the innovative aspect of the article -- causing an unenclosed space to preserve an unusually high concentration of CO2 -- sounds a very approximate and hard-to-control procedure, given the speed of gaseous diffusion etc. Talk about false premises! Editorial summary given below followed by the journal abstract. The article is of course from the now sadly misnamed "Science" magazine. The findings can only have been arrived at via one of those famous "models", which will give you any result you want -- dependant only on the assumptions plugged in. And you can be assured that the assumptions were very "Green"
Plant Productivity Benefits of High Carbon Dioxide Busted
Although rising CO2 levels may reduce global crop yields through the effects of higher temperatures and decreased soil moisture, arguments have been made that direct fertilization effects will more than offset these losses. Long et al. (p. 1918; see the Perspective by Schimel) present a critical analysis of data on which the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change base their projections that elevated CO2 will have a fertilizing effect. The original estimates came from experiments conducted in the 1980s in greenhouses and sheltered enclosures. More sobering figures are derived from open-field studies in which increased CO2 levels enhanced crop yields ~50% less than in enclosure studies.
Food for Thought: Lower-Than-Expected Crop Yield Stimulation with Rising CO2 Concentrations
Stephen P. Long et al.
Model projections suggest that although increased temperature and decreased soil moisture will act to reduce global crop yields by 2050, the direct fertilization effect of rising carbon dioxide concentration ([CO2]) will offset these losses. The CO2 fertilization factors used in models to project future yields were derived from enclosure studies conducted approximately 20 years ago. Free-air concentration enrichment (FACE) technology has now facilitated large-scale trials of the major grain crops at elevated [CO2] under fully open-air field conditions. In those trials, elevated [CO2] enhanced yield by 50% less than in enclosure studies. This casts serious doubt on projections that rising [CO2] will fully offset losses due to climate change.
EARLY WARNING?
I have just received the email below (from maria@crewcreative.com) but have not had time to follow it up
My name is Maria at Crew Creative. We are currently working on Discovery Channel's new special GLOBAL WARMING - Hosted by award-winning journalist Tom Brokaw and produced by the global alliance of Discovery Channel, the BBC and NBC News Productions, the two-hour special presents the facts and leaves it up to the viewers to determine their own truth about global warming.
We would love to send you a screener of the show, so you can decide how you feel about this show. Please let me know if you'd be willing to write a review on your site. The special premieres Sunday, July 16, 9-11 PM.
At the link below, you'll find video, photos, the program press release and more.
http://68.178.158.128/Discovery/GlobalWarming/assets/assets.html
You are more than welcome to and are highly encouraged to utilize any of the assets on the page, but please do not link directly to our server.
COAL RUSH: GERMANY GIVES COAL OPT OUT UNDER CO2 EMISSION PLAN
Even Germany cannot afford the Kyoto nonsense so they resort to underhand methods to break their foolish promises
Germany proposes to tighten its greenhouse gas emissions limit in the second round of the EU's carbon market, but will allow new coal plants to opt out, the environment minister said on Wednesday. The plan cuts the number of free pollution permits handed to heavy industry by nearly 6 percent, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told a news conference in Berlin. But the limits do not apply to new power plants, including heavily polluting coal plants, for 14 years from 2008, the start of the new 2008-12 phase. This potentially undermines the emissions limits set under the plan, and could allow Germany to avoid replacing its nuclear power plants. Nuclear is carbon-free but faces some public opposition.
All EU states must submit their phase 2 plans to the European Commission by June 30, and the European Commission can reject plans if it deems these too soft on pollution. The new German carbon dioxide (CO2) quota is 482 million tonnes per year, down from 499 million tonnes in the first phase of the trading scheme, 2005-07, and includes 12 million tonnes to be handed out to new power plants.
German CO2 emissions by heavy industry in 2005 were 474 million tonnes, and the new plan proposes to include an additional 11 million tonnes emissions, from so-called chemical cracker units, implying 485 million tonnes emissions which the new quota will cut by 3 million tonnes.
The plan cuts the quota disproportionately more for utilities, to combat windfall profits in 2005. But the overall quota is also diluted by allowing German firms to buy up to 60 million tonnes a year of CO2 pollution permits from abroad through a trading tool allowed under the Kyoto Protocol.
The trading scheme accounts for some 55 percent of all German CO2 emissions. Transport and households are not included in the scheme but are set reduction targets of their own under national climate measures.
The World Wildlife Fund said the plan was too weak and suggested the EU Commission reject it. "In our assessment, the plan is a climate political sell-out and kowtows to the interests of the big energy companies," it said in a statement. The WWF also estimated that the energy companies would still be able to make windfall profits of up to 8 billion euros (US$10.06 billion) a year.
Reuters, 29 June 2006
FALSE PREMISES AND PROMISES UNDERLIE ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS
(An editorial in "The Australian" newspaper below)
When federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran declared this week that wind farms are a "complete fraud" that "only exist on taxpayer subsidies", he injected the first dose of sanity seen in the renewable energy debate for a long time. Wind power fulfils just 2 per cent of the country's electricity needs, is unreliable even on the gustiest of days and is emblematic of everything wrong with the quest for so-called sustainability. Greens love wind farms for symbolic reasons, as does federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell - so long as no turbines are sited in a marginal Liberal seat within cooee of a protected parrot. But, so far, the only ones who do well off wind farms are the companies that own them - and not even they dispute their poor economics. Wind farmers get huge subsidies and a guaranteed market share and return.
It is not just on wind farms where politics and feelings are allowed to trump economic reality. Senator Campbell and his ilk like to be seen on the "right" side of the environment. Meanwhile, so-called progressives try to shut down debate over global warming even though the science is far from settled. When The Philippines' Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it threw out vast amounts of ozone-depleting greenhouse gases. But the particles it cast skyward also lowered temperatures. Scaremongering polemics such as The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery (who is a paleontologist, not a climatologist, by training) have been shown to be riddled with errors. The Kyoto Protocol is far too flawed an instrument to reduce pollution. Australia needs to apply cost-benefit analyses to environmental issues, not sentiment or politics.
Seen in this light, Australia's environmental policy is all over the shop. It is not just wind power that fails the cost-benefit test. Plastic shopping bags are set to be phased out by 2008 at a cost of $840 million simply because inner-city voters don't like them, despite Productivity Commission data showing the bags to be only a minor threat. Water policy is driven by Greens, farmers and politicians, each with an interest in making city-dwellers feel guilty over every flush. Yet capital city residents consume less than 10 per cent of Australia's water; the real waste occurs in agriculture, particularly in the cultivation of cotton and rice. In Queensland, the Greens are doing their best to hold up a dam that will supply water for the fastest-growing region of the country. Recycling plants dump toxic chemicals and salt into rivers - including the Murray. Nor do "sustainable" policies create sustainable jobs. Victoria spends between $599,565 and $999,782 in subsidies per job, per year, in the renewable energy sector. And creating jobs sorting glass is hardly the stuff of a knowledge nation. Even in a world where carbon use is constrained, technologies such as clean coal and geosequestration make more sense for coal-rich Australia than wind power (or nuclear, for that matter). Feelgood environmentalism may win votes. But not only does it fail to pay the bills - it also doesn't save the planet.
Source
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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.
Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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