Catastrophism and Greenmail

The Great Irony of our Day

When C0₂ is released into the atmosphere, wonderful things happen.  These things are so basic and obvious that a ten year old middle schooler can grasp them (provided they attend a reactionary institute that still teaches science).  But adults long ago gave up on science and replaced it with ideological catastrophism.  There is a certain attraction to believing the world is on the verge of destruction.  It relieves the general ennui.  It makes one feel alive.  Much like the endorphin laden thrill anticipating a bungy-jump. 

Carbon dioxide, we are told, is going to destroy the planet by heating the atmosphere and baking us all to death.  Except for a couple of realities.  The first is that C0₂ is a "heavy" gas and one would expect that it would naturally slurp around the surface of the earth, rather than head off into the upper atmosphere.  This is good news because of another reality: large amounts of carbon dioxide are absorbed by the oceans and green growing things.  It is the latter which interests us.

The reality is that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide greens the earth.  It is the greenest gas there is.  Ideological Greenists stupidly oppose the cutting down of the world's forests and the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The latter is critical to the preservation and growth of forests.  What the left hand gives, the right hand would snatch away.  Despite the best efforts from the luddite Greenists, it turns out that the world's forests are growing much faster thanks to all the wonderful food they are getting from increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Greening of the Earth

90 Percent of CO2 Emissions Go Towards Fuelling Rapid Forest Growth Rate

by Donna Rachel Edmunds  

12 Nov 2014

BreitbartLondon

 

A new examination of the distribution of CO₂ has found that some areas of the earth experience huge seasonal variation by as much as 16 parts per million (ppm), whilst in other areas, notably at the Antarctic and equator, levels remain relatively stable. The analysis suggests that vast majority of CO₂ emissions are captured in boreal forests, which have consequently been enjoying a ‘greening’ over the past few decades.

Writing on the blog of Joanne Nova, the Australian science writer who uncovered the vast amount of money driving the climate change industry in 2009, fellow scientist Tom Quirk explains his findings. Quirk explains that a recent isotopic analysis of atmospheric CO₂ shows that only around 10 percent of man-made emissions find their way into the atmosphere. He asks, where, then, is the remainder going?

In order to solve this question he turned to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography’s data on atmospheric CO₂. The Institute provides both raw and ‘smoothed’ versions of the data – but only the raw data exposes the seasonal variations experienced by certain regions. At Barrow Point in Alaska, for example, the levels swung by as much as 16ppm each year, well beyond the 2ppm that humans are contributing to the atmosphere. Moreover, the swings are amplifying as the years progress, causing Quirk to deduce that they are down to the seasonal variations in plant growth (as the plants grow in spring and summer they suck CO₂ out of the atmosphere; in the winter the CO₂ is left in place, causing the swings observed).

The amplification is down to the fact that, across the northern hemisphere, plants are becoming more abundant (the more plants there are, the more CO₂ they can capture). Quirk cites three studies showing increases in vegetation over the last few decades. In Sweden, biomass was recorded as increasing by as much as 19 percent between 1997 and 2010 in birch forests, whilst in Russia, forest biomass increased by 11 percent. A third European report attributed 61 percent of forest growth to an increase in CO₂ availability, and only 26 percent to changes in climate.

“These three reports give an annual forest growth of between 0.5 percent and 1.6 percent while the annual growth rates for the seasonal variations [of atmospheric CO₂] are between 0.5 percent and 0.9 percent,” Quirk writes. 

With such entirely expected positive outcomes for the world's forests because of more CO₂ being released into the atmosphere, we would expect the climate change doomsters to rejoice.  But no.  Pseudo-apocalypticism will never let the facts get in the way of a scary story.

Even NASA’s own satellite data shows that the planet is steadily greening, by as much as 1.5 percent a year in northern latitudes. Yet in May last year, the world’s media mournfully reported that atmospheric CO₂ had just passed the 400ppm mark for the first time in three to five million years, with NASA clamouring to paint the news in a calamitous light.

NASA scientist Dr Michael Gunson said “Passing the 400 mark reminds me that we are on an inexorable march to 450 ppm and much higher levels. These were the targets for 'stabilization' suggested not too long ago. The world is quickening the rate of accumulation of CO₂, and has shown no signs of slowing this down. It should be a psychological tripwire for everyone.”

To be fair, maybe the NASA ideologues are on to something.  Maybe the increase in  CO₂  does represent a clear and present danger, but "not as we know it, Jim".  Maybe the forests and the plants are going to take over and squeeze humanity off the earth.  The Day of the Triffids draws nigh and H. G. Wells will finally become a true prophet.

His colleague Laura Faye Tenenbaum, an Oceanography professor was more emphatic: “As a college professor who lectures on climate change, I will have to find a way to look into those 70 sets of eyes that have learned all semester long to trust me and somehow explain to those students, my students – who still believe in their young minds that success mostly depends on good grades and hard work, who believe in fairness, evenhandedness and opportunity – how much we as people have altered our environment, and that they will end up facing the consequences of our inability to act.”

Dr William Patzert, a Research Oceanographer, was more political in his outlook: “Scary scorecard: catastrophic climate change 400, humanity zero. Listen to the scientists, vote wisely, beat carbon addiction and put humanity into the game,” he said. 

Whoa.  We find the passion compelling as we do the All Blacks' performance of  the haka.  But the facts, ma'am.  We need reliable data and reasonable inferences in this matter--not apocalyptic scare-mongering.

But Nova and Quirk are firm that there is no reason to draw alarming conclusions over rises in atmospheric CO₂, as nature is more than capable of not only dealing with the rise, but of capitalising on the extra CO₂.

Commenting on Quirk’s findings, Nova says “the northern Boreal forests are probably drawing down something like 2 – 5 gigatons of CO₂ every year, and because the seasonal amplitude is getting larger each year, it suggests there is no sign of saturation. Those plants are not bored of extra CO₂ yet. This fits with Craig Idso’s work on plant growth which demonstrates that the saturation point — where plants grow as fast as possible (and extra CO₂ doesn’t help) is somewhere above 1000 and below 2000ppm. We have a long way to go.”

And that, dear friends, is that.  More atmospheric CO₂ please. Quickly. Wonderful, beautiful green growing things depend upon us releasing more of the greenest of all gases into the atmosphere.  Breathe faster. At least the splenetic splutterings of apoplectic Greenists, despite their deepest fears, are doing their bit for more atmospheric CO₂.  We have to give them credit for that.