Co2 and growth rates

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Moe, Jun 2, 2010.

  1. Moe

    Moe Junior Member

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    Hi I am thinking about CO2 and growth rates of plants. In a green house situation, the addition of CO2 into the green house increases the growth rates of the plants in the green house. If we are adding a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere shouldn't there be an increase of plant/tree/algae growth rates globally, which take advantage of these higher CO2 levels?

    Was just thinking about it...
     
  2. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    I think Flying Binghi has recently been pushing that barrow in another thread. The major problem I see with this, without even getting into the science, is that... PEOPLE JUST KEEP CUTTING DOWN ALL THE FORESTS and clearing land! If there are no trees and other plants to soak it up then where does it go?

    If we stopped cutting down forests and re-planted the ones we have already decimated, it would probably go a long way to alleviating the CO2 problems.

    Ya just can't breath without lungs.
     
  3. Don Hansford

    Don Hansford Junior Member

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    Amazing how Gaia will find a way to recover, and usually punish the culprits along the way.
    One of my (completely unsupported by any science I've ever heard of), theories is that the excess CO2 is one of the reasons for the sudden rise in algae blooms, in both fresh water and the sea. Gaia is simply saying - if you keep cutting the trees, I'll grow something else instead. The fact that it will be a poison to our species, like blue-green algae in freshwater impoundments that provide water to our cities, is a perhaps unintended, but nevertheless effective, side effect.
     
  4. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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  5. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    Thanks Mate, I always love to hear some more bad news ;)

    I've got an idea. Why don't we stop burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests...
     
  6. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    The economy, Grahame, think about the economy... What on Earth would our beloved treasurer Mr Swan think of your seditious comments? Really, Grahame, I'm beginning to think that you are becoming a communitarian... One can only hope so :D
     
  7. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Read James Lovelock - he's the originator of the Gaia concept - there's stuff in his latest book about ocean algae self regulating CO2 levels.
     
  8. Don Hansford

    Don Hansford Junior Member

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    Perhaps there is some science to support my theory ... damn!!!! :)
     
  9. Moe

    Moe Junior Member

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    They say that the forest is the "lungs of the earth". I remember on the David Attenborough documentary, "blue planet", he said something like 60% of all oxygen is made by phytoplankton (dont quote me but its very high) I think the amazon does 15% at best, probably less now thanks to deforestation. Another interesting thing I hear from nurseries and grass companies is that grass is excellent at sucking up Co2. If you remember back to the "Biosphere" experiments set up in the 90's, they had enclosed structures for some kind of "life-on-mars/moon" scenario testing. Biosphere 1, the earth itself, was the model for biosphere 2. They basically put food crops, various environments (mock rivers, ocean, desert, field, etc) and the associated wild life into these air tight domes to see if they could sustain life. It was a disaster, they ended up only having bananas to eat, oxygen levels fell dramatically low, and all the insects that pollinate were replaced by ants and cockroaches, which ended up doing some of the pollinating due to the sheer gross amount of them. Biosphere 3 however, a Russian experiment, succeeded because they used algae as to obtain their oxygen.

    I'd like to think the earth is more forgiving in terms of Co2 but its too hard to tell, we haven't ventured into this territory before so we have nothing to compare it to (I think?). During the Carboniferous periods, when the earths atmosphere was around 35% oxygen saturation and we had massive insects. Who knows what will take advantage of the Co2 rich air. Either way, if we want to survive we'd better start looking at a self sustaining economy rather than an inflatable/deflatable one.
     
  10. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    CO2 Science?

    Nothing 'scientific' about this family-run organisation. Just another front for big oil:

    The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CSCDGC) was founded in 1998. It states on its website that its mission is to distribute "factual reports and sound commentary on new developments in the world-wide scientific quest to determine the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content"...

    The Center produces a weekly online science newsletter called CO2 Science Magazine...

    In October 1999 Craig D. Idso and Keith E. Idso [chairman and president of CO2 Science] mentioned that they had "recently completed a project commissioned by the Greening Earth Society entitled "Forecasting World Food Supplies: The Impact of the Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentration," which we presented at the Second Annual Dixy Lee Ray Memorial Symposium held in Washington, DC on 31 August - 2 September 1999"...

    The Greening Earth Society, a front group of the Western Fuels Association...

    Donald Paul Hodel, chairman of Summit Power Group is listed among the "scientific advisors" to the Center...


    Source: Sourcewatch - Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

    Beware big oil dressed up as 'science'!

    Marko
     
  11. .

    Hmmm... seems poor ol ecoharmamark dont like CO2 science. ecoharmamark offers up a school yard level attempt at a smear of the people involved... though, just how good is the science being referenced by CO2 science ?

    The Ocean Acidification Fiction

    "There is considerable current concern that the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content is causing a significant drop in the pH of the world's oceans in response to their absorption of a large fraction of each year's anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It has been estimated, for example, that the globe's seawater has been acidified (actually made less basic) by about 0.1 pH unit relative to what it was in pre-industrial times; and model calculations imply an additional 0.7-unit drop by the year 2300 (Caldeira and Wickett, 2003), which decline is hypothesized to cause great harm to calcifying marine life such as corals. But just how valid are these claims?... https://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N22/EDIT.php
    ....In light of these several diverse and independent assessments of the two major aspects of the ocean acidification hypothesis -- a CO2-induced decline in oceanic pH that leads to a concomitant decrease in coral growth rate -- it would appear that the catastrophe conjured up by the world's climate alarmists is but a wonderful work of fiction"

    References
    Caldeira, K. and Wickett, M.E. 2003. Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH. Nature 425: 365.

    Liu, Y., Liu, W., Peng, Z., Xiao, Y., Wei, G., Sun, W., He, J. Liu, G. and Chou, C.-L. 2009. Instability of seawater pH in the South China Sea during the mid-late Holocene: Evidence from boron isotopic composition of corals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73: 1264-1272.

    Lough, J.M. and Barnes, D.J. 1997. Several centuries of variation in skeletal extension, density and calcification in massive Porites colonies from the Great Barrier Reef: A proxy for seawater temperature and a background of variability against which to identify unnatural change. Journal of Experimental and Marine Biology and Ecology 211: 29-67.

    Pelejero, C., Calvo, E., McCulloch, M.T., Marshall, J.F., Gagan, M.K., Lough, J.M. and Opdyke, B.N. 2005. Preindustrial to modern interdecadal variability in coral reef pH. Science 309: 2204-2207.

    Wei, G., McCulloch, M.T., Mortimer, G., Deng, W. and Xie, L. 2009. Evidence for ocean acidification in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73: 2332-2346

    https://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N22/EDIT.php




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  12. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    Please refrain from the personal Binghy it hardly adds to the debate.
     
  13. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    It appears that the above individual has fallen into the same big oil propaganda trap as the climate change denialists from CO2 Science. In fact, the paper by Wei et al actually finds evidence for ocean acidification as a result of human induced climate change:

    ...Importantly, from the 1940s to the present-day, there is a general overall trend of ocean acidification with pH decreasing by about 0.2–0.3 U, the range being dependent on the value assumed for the fractionation factor α(B3–B4) of the boric acid and borate species in seawater. Correlations of δ11B with δ13C during this interval indicate that the increasing trend towards ocean acidification over the past 60 years in this region is the result of enhanced dissolution of CO2 in surface waters from the rapidly increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, mainly from fossil fuel burning. This suggests that the increased levels of anthropogenic CO2 in atmosphere has already caused a significant trend towards acidification in the oceans during the past decades. Observations of surprisingly large decreases in pH across important carbonate producing regions, such as the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, raise serious concerns about the impact of Greenhouse gas emissions on coral calcification.

    Source: Wei et al (2009) Evidence for ocean acidification in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia

    Lesson #1 for human induced climate change denialists: Always check your primary sources! Big oil doesn't bother, and that's why they get caught out!
     
  14. Hmmm, ... ecodharmamark, it does pay to read just what CO2 science is quoting from Wei et al....

    ... finds 'evidence' if yer only look at bits of the chart. The full reference to the Wei et al quote from CO2 Science. ecodharmamark, please read more closely -

    "Most recently, Wei et al. (2009) derived the pH history of Arlington Reef (off the north-east coast of Australia) that is depicted in the figure below. As can be seen there, there was a ten-year pH minimum centered at about 1935 (which obviously was not CO2-induced) and a shorter more variable minimum at the end of the record (which also was not CO2-induced); and apart from these two non-CO2-related exceptions, the majority of the data once again fall within a band that exhibits no long-term trend, such as would be expected to have occurred if the gradual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since the inception of the Industrial Revolution were truly making the global ocean less basic." (Note, the graph is here - https://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N22/EDIT.php )

    ecodharmamark yer should keep in mind while reading climate research that to get funding for any research related to climate one must find an 'acceptable' answer or no more funding...




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  15. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    Direct from the CO2 Science website:

    "Where do you get your funding?" This is a common inquiry we frequently receive. Our typical response is that we never discuss our funding...

    That we tell a far different story from the one espoused by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is true; and that may be why ExxonMobil made some donations to us a few times in the past; they probably liked what we typically had to say about the issue...


    Source: What Motivates the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change?

    Still not convinced? Maybe a little further reading will see the penny drop:

    ...[the] magazine and website CO2 Science, includes articles both questioning the existence of climate change as well as touting the benefits to the biosphere from carbon dioxide enrichment. All aspects of climate change and its predicted effects - from melting ice caps to species extinction, to more severe weather - are criticized by the Center and either refuted or presented as beneficial. Fred Palmer, head of Western Fuels, said about the center: "The Center's viewpoint is a needed antidote to the misleading and usually erroneous scientific claims emanating from the Federal scientific establishment and adopted by leading politicians, such as Vice President Al Gore." The Center has since tried to distance itself from the Western Fuels Association, however, the Center is run by Keith and Craig Idso, along with their father, Sherwood. Both Idso brothers have been on the Western Fuels payroll at one time or another. Keith Idso, then a doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona, was a paid expert witness for Western Fuels Association at a 1995 Minnesota Public Utilities commission hearing in St. Paul, MN, along with MIT's Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, and Robert Balling (The Heat is On). According to news from Basin Electric, a Western Fuels Association member, Craig Idso produced a report, "The Greening of Planet Earth: Its Progression from Hypothesis to Theory" in January 1998 for the Western Fuels Association (Basin Electric Latest News no date given).

    Source: ExxonSecrets Factsheet - Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Center for the Study of CO2 and Climate Change (my emphasis in bold)

    Not only do they receive regular funding, they are literally on the payroll! I reiterate, there is nothing 'scientific' about 'climate research' funded by big oil.
     
  16. .

    Heh, looks like ecodharmamark has no science to counter this from my previous post -

    "Most recently, Wei et al. (2009) derived the pH history of Arlington Reef (off the north-east coast of Australia) that is depicted in the figure below. As can be seen there, there was a ten-year pH minimum centered at about 1935 (which obviously was not CO2-induced) and a shorter more variable minimum at the end of the record (which also was not CO2-induced); and apart from these two non-CO2-related exceptions, the majority of the data once again fall within a band that exhibits no long-term trend, such as would be expected to have occurred if the gradual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since the inception of the Industrial Revolution were truly making the global ocean less basic."


    Lesson #1 ecodharmamark, if yer going to keep insulting people at least try and use some credible science rather then some pathetic attempt at smear....




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  17. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    Of course there are some whom suggest that to keep denying human induced climate change is the greatest of all insults to human intelligence...

    Clive Hamilton (2010) has very recently published an entire book on the subject titled Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change. In the book, Hamilton devotes a whole chapter (4, Many forms of denial, p. 95-133) to the phenomenon of climate change denial.

    I'm a little tired of the subject, so I will leave the last words on the matter to Hamilton himself. This time from a very recent paper titled Climate denial versus climate science (p. 15):

    Denial strategies aim primarily at suppressing anxiety associated with predictions of climate disruption by not allowing the facts to be accepted in the conscious mind. By denying the reality of the facts, no emotions need be felt. "Climate sceptics" actively reject all or most of the main propositions established by climate science. It seems that for many such individuals, acceptance of climate science and the response it calls for conflict with one or more of their fundamental beliefs...
     

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