Don't like the current CO2 ppm? Then plant something...we can all agree on this....

[justoffal]

I have a gorgeous Rose of Sharon Bush on the edge of my property. I have to say the plant family itself is a superstar as far as being easy to plant and growing prolifically. I know of no other flowering Tree-bush that blossoms so profusely and for such a long period with blossoms hanging in there for over a month at times in bright white, red and purple colors...

This year my Tree-bush has a massive crop of planting seed pods.....so I have set about making planting holes about 12 inches apart all the way around the perimeter of my property. I don't know how efficient they are for CO2 processing but given their dense leafage I would say they are pretty good.

Plant people! Oh and BTW they plant provides an absolute FEAST OF PLENTY for the local bee hives too!

JO

 

[Captain Caveman]

Well, the dinosaurs roamed the planet with co2 levels above 1,000pm. Not sure if they planted any shrubs though.

 

[ReinyDays]

Spouting common sense? ... that shit has no place here ... how dare you ... we're looking for problems, not solutions ... leave your great ideas back in the Real World™ if you don't mind ...

Urban forestry is a thing ... easily demonstrated to lower temperatures by 5ºC ... if our metric is human suffering, then we solve half the world's problem this way ... even if ppm is unchanged ... the downside is your hedge will interfere with police surveillance ... they may ask you to cut it down ... shade trees ruin autonomous drone footage ... better to cook than harbor criminals, or worse ...

 

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

I have a gorgeous Rose of Sharon Bush on the edge of my property. I have to say the plant family itself is a superstar as far as being easy to plant and growing prolifically. I know of no other flowering Tree-bush that blossoms so profusely and for such a long period with blossoms hanging in there for over a month at times in bright white, red and purple colors...

View attachment 543377

This year my Tree-bush has a massive crop of planting seed pods.....so I have set about making planting holes about 12 inches apart all the way around the perimeter of my property. I don't know how efficient they are for CO2 processing but given their dense leafage I would say they are pretty good.

Plant people! Oh and BTW they plant provides an absolute FEAST OF PLENTY for the local bee hives too!

JO

Agreed on all.

Where I have them in the woods they spread pretty readily; however the deer keep the young ones well cropped

 

[Stryder50]

Well, the dinosaurs roamed the planet with co2 levels above 1,000pm. Not sure if they planted any shrubs though.

Probably more like 2,500ppm, but whose counting?

 

[Stryder50]

I have a gorgeous Rose of Sharon Bush on the edge of my property. I have to say the plant family itself is a superstar as far as being easy to plant and growing prolifically. I know of no other flowering Tree-bush that blossoms so profusely and for such a long period with blossoms hanging in there for over a month at times in bright white, red and purple colors...

View attachment 543377

This year my Tree-bush has a massive crop of planting seed pods.....so I have set about making planting holes about 12 inches apart all the way around the perimeter of my property. I don't know how efficient they are for CO2 processing but given their dense leafage I would say they are pretty good.

Plant people! Oh and BTW they plant provides an absolute FEAST OF PLENTY for the local bee hives too!

JO

My wife and I have the classic half acre lot with small three bedroom rambler that was sort of standard back in the 1970s, when built. It's a South facing lot and the house is only about thirty feet back from the main arterial(high traffic) two-lane blacktop in front of us.

She loves to garden and grow things and if there's a bare spot of dirt, it needs planting.

At the far back we've a grove (about thirty feet deep) of a row of Oak and closer in a row of Maple, and then a few others as well. Coming closer towards the hose are the couple of grapevines and the beehives. Closer still the assorted garden plots. We mostly grow assorted shell beans and tomatoes, but also some basil and herbs. Also assorted squashes.

We've a few apple, a couple pear, and a few walnut trees as well. Several lilacs, lots of roses and assorted other flowering plants, especially hollyhocks. Also a bountiful fig tree cluster and some kiwi bushes as well. And blueberry and raspberry bushes. And many other types of plants near too many to mention.

We've jammed a huge flora bio-mass onto our property and definitely cover our "carbon footprint" and likely that of a few other people as well. Unfortunately, we get no "carbon credits" or property tax deduction for the labor and costs we've invested to "do the right thing" for the environment and planet.

But around this time of year we do get a lot of organic food to harvest, so much we need to preserve ~can/freeze/dry~ most of it. And some to share with family, friends, and neighbors.

What I save on lawn to mow, is made up with weeding, tending, and picking, etc.

Many come here in the middle of Summer and describe our backyard as "a jungle" which it often looks like. The local birds enjoy it and so do we.

There's something deeply satisfying about getting dirt under one's fingernails, growing your own food and seeing all this life about us, the flora we plant and nurture and the fauna that enjoy it with us.

"Green Acres" and country living is the place for us!

 

[Stryder50]

Actually 400ppm is barely enough to keep most plants sort of content.
Many greenhouse operations operate at about 800-1200ppm where plants really start to thrive.

 

[Stryder50]

Further FYI, EXCERPTS:
...

Happer on The Truth About Greenhouse Gases​

...
The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,” wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims.

I am a strong supporter of a clean environment. We need to be vigilant to keep our land, air, and waters free of real pollution, particulates, heavy metals, and pathogens, but carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is not one of these pollutants. Carbon is the stuff of life. Our bodies are made of carbon. A normal human exhales around 1 kg of CO2 (the simplest chemically stable molecule of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere) per day. Before the industrial period, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 270 ppm. At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.

Now the Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate atmospheric CO2 as a “pollutant.” According to my Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, to pollute is “to make or render unclean, to defile, to desecrate, to profane.” By breathing are we rendering the air unclean, defiling or desecrating it? Efforts are underway to remedy the old-fashioned, restrictive definition of pollution. The current Wikipedia entry on air pollution, for example, now asserts that pollution includes: “carbon dioxide (CO2)—a colorless, odorless, non-toxic greenhouse gas associated with ocean acidification, emitted from sources such as combustion, cement production, and respiration.”

As far as green plants are concerned, CO2 is not a pollutant, but part of their daily bread—like water, sunlight, nitrogen, and other essential elements. Most green plants evolved at CO2 levels of several thousand ppm, many times higher than now. Plants grow better and have better flowers and fruit at higher levels. Commercial greenhouse operators recognize this when they artificially increase the concentrations inside their greenhouses to over 1000 ppm.
...
The minimum acceptable value for plants is not that much below the 270 ppm preindustrial value. It is possible that this is not enough, that we are better off with our current level, and would be better off with more still. There is evidence that California orange groves are about 30 percent more productive today than they were 150 years ago because of the increase of atmospheric CO2.

Although human beings and many other animals would do well with no CO2 at all in the air, there is an upper limit that we can tolerate. Inhaling air with a concentration of a few percent, similar to the concentration of the air we exhale, hinders the diffusional exchange of CO2 between the blood and gas in the lung. Both the United States Navy (for submariners) and nasa (for astronauts) have performed extensive studies of human tolerance to CO2. As a result of these studies, the Navy recommends an upper limit of about 8000 ppm for cruises of ninety days, and nasa recommends an upper limit of 5000 ppm for missions of one thousand days, both assuming a total pressure of one atmosphere. Higher levels are acceptable for missions of only a few days.

We conclude that atmospheric CO2 levels should be above 150 ppm to avoid harming green plants and below about 5000 ppm to avoid harming people. That is a very wide range, and our atmosphere is much closer to the lower end than to the upper end. The current rate of burning fossil fuels adds about 2 ppm per year to the atmosphere, so that getting from the current level to 1000 ppm would take about 300 years—and 1000 ppm is still less than what most plants would prefer, and much less than either the nasa or the Navy limit for human beings.

Yet there are strident calls for immediately stopping further increases in CO2 levels and reducing the current level. As we have discussed, animals would not even notice a doubling of CO2 and plants would love it. The supposed reason for limiting it is to stop global warming—or, since the predicted warming has failed to be nearly as large as computer models forecast, to stop climate change. Climate change itself has been embarrassingly uneventful, so another rationale for reducing CO2 is now promoted: to stop the hypothetical increase of extreme climate events like hurricanes or tornados. But this does not necessarily follow. The frequency of extreme events has either not changed or has decreased in the 150 years that CO2 levels have increased from 270 to 390 ppm.

Let me turn to some of the problems the non-pollutant CO2 is supposed to cause. More CO2 is supposed to cause flooded cities, parched agriculture, tropical diseases in Alaska, etc., and even an epidemic of kidney stones. It does indeed cause some warming of our planet, and we should thank Providence for that, because without the greenhouse warming of CO2 and its more potent partners, water vapor and clouds, the earth would be too cold to sustain its current abundance of life.

Other things being equal, more CO2 will cause more warming. The question is how much warming, and whether the increased CO2 and the warming it causes will be good or bad for the planet.

The argument starts something like this. CO2 levels have increased from about 280 ppm to 390 ppm over the past 150 years or so, and the earth has warmed by about 0.8 degree Celsius during that time. Therefore the warming is due to CO2. But correlation is not causation. Roosters crow every morning at sunrise, but that does not mean the rooster caused the sun to rise. The sun will still rise on Monday if you decide to have the rooster for Sunday dinner.

The earth’s climate has always been changing. Our present global warming is not at all unusual by the standards of geological history, and it is probably benefiting the biosphere. Indeed, there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 and of the earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years (the “Phanerozoic” period). The message is clear that several factors must influence the earth’s temperature, and that while CO2 is one of these factors, it is seldom the dominant one. The other factors are not well understood. Plausible candidates are spontaneous variations of the complicated fluid flow patterns in the oceans and atmosphere of the earth—perhaps influenced by continental drift, volcanoes, variations of the earth’s orbital parameters (ellipticity, spin-axis orientation, etc.), asteroid and comet impacts, variations in the sun’s output (not only the visible radiation but the amount of ultraviolet light, and the solar wind with its magnetic field), variations in cosmic rays leading to variations in cloud cover, and other causes.

The existence of the little ice age and the medieval warm period were an embarrassment to the global-warming establishment, because they showed that the current warming is almost indistinguishable from previous warmings and coolings that had nothing to do with burning fossil fuel. The organization charged with producing scientific support for the climate change crusade, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finally found a solution. They rewrote the climate history of the past 1000 years with the celebrated “hockey stick” temperature record.
...

Happer on The Truth About Greenhouse Gases • Watts Up With That?

The dubious science of the climate crusaders. by William Happer (from First Things) William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University. The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics...

wattsupwiththat.com

 

[Old Rocks]

Now I happen to think that planting more forests and plants is a good idea. Far too slow to make up for our emissions, but at least it helps. So who is doing the most in that direction?

Which countries plant the most forest? - Beautiful Economics

If we measure total hectares, then China is leading, followed by Canada, USA, Russia and India. Those countries are big, that’s why they manage to plant a lot. However this “planting” appeared to be a bad measure of how “forest … CONTINUE READING >>>

www.beaeconomics.com

 

[justoffal]

Now I happen to think that planting more forests and plants is a good idea. Far too slow to make up for our emissions, but at least it helps. So who is doing the most in that direction?

View attachment 543635

Which countries plant the most forest? - Beautiful Economics

If we measure total hectares, then China is leading, followed by Canada, USA, Russia and India. Those countries are big, that’s why they manage to plant a lot. However this “planting” appeared to be a bad measure of how “forest … CONTINUE READING >>>

www.beaeconomics.com

That's very interesting stuff....

I suppose that Trees are probably the premier Air Cleaners when it comes to Oxygen production simply by virtue of their size. The reason I like the Tree Shrub plants so much however is that they are extremely hardy and grow exceptionally fast while at the same time being prolific seed producers. In fact the Rose of Sharon, despite it's beauty....is hated by many because it can become invasive...... I have never looked at them in that light however.

 

[justoffal]

Further FYI, EXCERPTS:
...

Happer on The Truth About Greenhouse Gases​

...
The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,” wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims.

I am a strong supporter of a clean environment. We need to be vigilant to keep our land, air, and waters free of real pollution, particulates, heavy metals, and pathogens, but carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is not one of these pollutants. Carbon is the stuff of life. Our bodies are made of carbon. A normal human exhales around 1 kg of CO2 (the simplest chemically stable molecule of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere) per day. Before the industrial period, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 270 ppm. At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.

Now the Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate atmospheric CO2 as a “pollutant.” According to my Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, to pollute is “to make or render unclean, to defile, to desecrate, to profane.” By breathing are we rendering the air unclean, defiling or desecrating it? Efforts are underway to remedy the old-fashioned, restrictive definition of pollution. The current Wikipedia entry on air pollution, for example, now asserts that pollution includes: “carbon dioxide (CO2)—a colorless, odorless, non-toxic greenhouse gas associated with ocean acidification, emitted from sources such as combustion, cement production, and respiration.”

As far as green plants are concerned, CO2 is not a pollutant, but part of their daily bread—like water, sunlight, nitrogen, and other essential elements. Most green plants evolved at CO2 levels of several thousand ppm, many times higher than now. Plants grow better and have better flowers and fruit at higher levels. Commercial greenhouse operators recognize this when they artificially increase the concentrations inside their greenhouses to over 1000 ppm.
...
The minimum acceptable value for plants is not that much below the 270 ppm preindustrial value. It is possible that this is not enough, that we are better off with our current level, and would be better off with more still. There is evidence that California orange groves are about 30 percent more productive today than they were 150 years ago because of the increase of atmospheric CO2.

Although human beings and many other animals would do well with no CO2 at all in the air, there is an upper limit that we can tolerate. Inhaling air with a concentration of a few percent, similar to the concentration of the air we exhale, hinders the diffusional exchange of CO2 between the blood and gas in the lung. Both the United States Navy (for submariners) and nasa (for astronauts) have performed extensive studies of human tolerance to CO2. As a result of these studies, the Navy recommends an upper limit of about 8000 ppm for cruises of ninety days, and nasa recommends an upper limit of 5000 ppm for missions of one thousand days, both assuming a total pressure of one atmosphere. Higher levels are acceptable for missions of only a few days.

We conclude that atmospheric CO2 levels should be above 150 ppm to avoid harming green plants and below about 5000 ppm to avoid harming people. That is a very wide range, and our atmosphere is much closer to the lower end than to the upper end. The current rate of burning fossil fuels adds about 2 ppm per year to the atmosphere, so that getting from the current level to 1000 ppm would take about 300 years—and 1000 ppm is still less than what most plants would prefer, and much less than either the nasa or the Navy limit for human beings.

Yet there are strident calls for immediately stopping further increases in CO2 levels and reducing the current level. As we have discussed, animals would not even notice a doubling of CO2 and plants would love it. The supposed reason for limiting it is to stop global warming—or, since the predicted warming has failed to be nearly as large as computer models forecast, to stop climate change. Climate change itself has been embarrassingly uneventful, so another rationale for reducing CO2 is now promoted: to stop the hypothetical increase of extreme climate events like hurricanes or tornados. But this does not necessarily follow. The frequency of extreme events has either not changed or has decreased in the 150 years that CO2 levels have increased from 270 to 390 ppm.

Let me turn to some of the problems the non-pollutant CO2 is supposed to cause. More CO2 is supposed to cause flooded cities, parched agriculture, tropical diseases in Alaska, etc., and even an epidemic of kidney stones. It does indeed cause some warming of our planet, and we should thank Providence for that, because without the greenhouse warming of CO2 and its more potent partners, water vapor and clouds, the earth would be too cold to sustain its current abundance of life.

Other things being equal, more CO2 will cause more warming. The question is how much warming, and whether the increased CO2 and the warming it causes will be good or bad for the planet.

The argument starts something like this. CO2 levels have increased from about 280 ppm to 390 ppm over the past 150 years or so, and the earth has warmed by about 0.8 degree Celsius during that time. Therefore the warming is due to CO2. But correlation is not causation. Roosters crow every morning at sunrise, but that does not mean the rooster caused the sun to rise. The sun will still rise on Monday if you decide to have the rooster for Sunday dinner.

The earth’s climate has always been changing. Our present global warming is not at all unusual by the standards of geological history, and it is probably benefiting the biosphere. Indeed, there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 and of the earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years (the “Phanerozoic” period). The message is clear that several factors must influence the earth’s temperature, and that while CO2 is one of these factors, it is seldom the dominant one. The other factors are not well understood. Plausible candidates are spontaneous variations of the complicated fluid flow patterns in the oceans and atmosphere of the earth—perhaps influenced by continental drift, volcanoes, variations of the earth’s orbital parameters (ellipticity, spin-axis orientation, etc.), asteroid and comet impacts, variations in the sun’s output (not only the visible radiation but the amount of ultraviolet light, and the solar wind with its magnetic field), variations in cosmic rays leading to variations in cloud cover, and other causes.

The existence of the little ice age and the medieval warm period were an embarrassment to the global-warming establishment, because they showed that the current warming is almost indistinguishable from previous warmings and coolings that had nothing to do with burning fossil fuel. The organization charged with producing scientific support for the climate change crusade, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finally found a solution. They rewrote the climate history of the past 1000 years with the celebrated “hockey stick” temperature record.
...

Happer on The Truth About Greenhouse Gases • Watts Up With That?

The dubious science of the climate crusaders. by William Happer (from First Things) William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University. The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics...

wattsupwiththat.com

Yes the Truth is and always has been that 1000 ppm is a level at which we can experience up to 100% increase in edible vegetation production for no additional input in labor or materials. It is obvious that the prehistoric levels created a super growth environment which is why Cretaceous era plants for instance all seem to have gigantic foliage.

 

[justoffal]

Further FYI, EXCERPTS:
...

Happer on The Truth About Greenhouse Gases​

...
The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,” wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims.

I am a strong supporter of a clean environment. We need to be vigilant to keep our land, air, and waters free of real pollution, particulates, heavy metals, and pathogens, but carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is not one of these pollutants. Carbon is the stuff of life. Our bodies are made of carbon. A normal human exhales around 1 kg of CO2 (the simplest chemically stable molecule of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere) per day. Before the industrial period, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was 270 ppm. At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.

Now the Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate atmospheric CO2 as a “pollutant.” According to my Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, to pollute is “to make or render unclean, to defile, to desecrate, to profane.” By breathing are we rendering the air unclean, defiling or desecrating it? Efforts are underway to remedy the old-fashioned, restrictive definition of pollution. The current Wikipedia entry on air pollution, for example, now asserts that pollution includes: “carbon dioxide (CO2)—a colorless, odorless, non-toxic greenhouse gas associated with ocean acidification, emitted from sources such as combustion, cement production, and respiration.”

As far as green plants are concerned, CO2 is not a pollutant, but part of their daily bread—like water, sunlight, nitrogen, and other essential elements. Most green plants evolved at CO2 levels of several thousand ppm, many times higher than now. Plants grow better and have better flowers and fruit at higher levels. Commercial greenhouse operators recognize this when they artificially increase the concentrations inside their greenhouses to over 1000 ppm.
...
The minimum acceptable value for plants is not that much below the 270 ppm preindustrial value. It is possible that this is not enough, that we are better off with our current level, and would be better off with more still. There is evidence that California orange groves are about 30 percent more productive today than they were 150 years ago because of the increase of atmospheric CO2.

Although human beings and many other animals would do well with no CO2 at all in the air, there is an upper limit that we can tolerate. Inhaling air with a concentration of a few percent, similar to the concentration of the air we exhale, hinders the diffusional exchange of CO2 between the blood and gas in the lung. Both the United States Navy (for submariners) and nasa (for astronauts) have performed extensive studies of human tolerance to CO2. As a result of these studies, the Navy recommends an upper limit of about 8000 ppm for cruises of ninety days, and nasa recommends an upper limit of 5000 ppm for missions of one thousand days, both assuming a total pressure of one atmosphere. Higher levels are acceptable for missions of only a few days.

We conclude that atmospheric CO2 levels should be above 150 ppm to avoid harming green plants and below about 5000 ppm to avoid harming people. That is a very wide range, and our atmosphere is much closer to the lower end than to the upper end. The current rate of burning fossil fuels adds about 2 ppm per year to the atmosphere, so that getting from the current level to 1000 ppm would take about 300 years—and 1000 ppm is still less than what most plants would prefer, and much less than either the nasa or the Navy limit for human beings.

Yet there are strident calls for immediately stopping further increases in CO2 levels and reducing the current level. As we have discussed, animals would not even notice a doubling of CO2 and plants would love it. The supposed reason for limiting it is to stop global warming—or, since the predicted warming has failed to be nearly as large as computer models forecast, to stop climate change. Climate change itself has been embarrassingly uneventful, so another rationale for reducing CO2 is now promoted: to stop the hypothetical increase of extreme climate events like hurricanes or tornados. But this does not necessarily follow. The frequency of extreme events has either not changed or has decreased in the 150 years that CO2 levels have increased from 270 to 390 ppm.

Let me turn to some of the problems the non-pollutant CO2 is supposed to cause. More CO2 is supposed to cause flooded cities, parched agriculture, tropical diseases in Alaska, etc., and even an epidemic of kidney stones. It does indeed cause some warming of our planet, and we should thank Providence for that, because without the greenhouse warming of CO2 and its more potent partners, water vapor and clouds, the earth would be too cold to sustain its current abundance of life.

Other things being equal, more CO2 will cause more warming. The question is how much warming, and whether the increased CO2 and the warming it causes will be good or bad for the planet.

The argument starts something like this. CO2 levels have increased from about 280 ppm to 390 ppm over the past 150 years or so, and the earth has warmed by about 0.8 degree Celsius during that time. Therefore the warming is due to CO2. But correlation is not causation. Roosters crow every morning at sunrise, but that does not mean the rooster caused the sun to rise. The sun will still rise on Monday if you decide to have the rooster for Sunday dinner.

The earth’s climate has always been changing. Our present global warming is not at all unusual by the standards of geological history, and it is probably benefiting the biosphere. Indeed, there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 and of the earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years (the “Phanerozoic” period). The message is clear that several factors must influence the earth’s temperature, and that while CO2 is one of these factors, it is seldom the dominant one. The other factors are not well understood. Plausible candidates are spontaneous variations of the complicated fluid flow patterns in the oceans and atmosphere of the earth—perhaps influenced by continental drift, volcanoes, variations of the earth’s orbital parameters (ellipticity, spin-axis orientation, etc.), asteroid and comet impacts, variations in the sun’s output (not only the visible radiation but the amount of ultraviolet light, and the solar wind with its magnetic field), variations in cosmic rays leading to variations in cloud cover, and other causes.

The existence of the little ice age and the medieval warm period were an embarrassment to the global-warming establishment, because they showed that the current warming is almost indistinguishable from previous warmings and coolings that had nothing to do with burning fossil fuel. The organization charged with producing scientific support for the climate change crusade, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finally found a solution. They rewrote the climate history of the past 1000 years with the celebrated “hockey stick” temperature record.
...

Happer on The Truth About Greenhouse Gases • Watts Up With That?

The dubious science of the climate crusaders. by William Happer (from First Things) William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University. The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics...

wattsupwiththat.com

The argument starts something like this. CO2 levels have increased from about 280 ppm to 390 ppm over the past 150 years or so, and the earth has warmed by about 0.8 degree Celsius during that time. Therefore the warming is due to CO2. But correlation is not causation. Roosters crow every morning at sunrise, but that does not mean the rooster caused the sun to rise. The sun will still rise on Monday if you decide to have the rooster for Sunday dinner.


Exactly: I have been arguing this point from the very beginning of this crazy debate. CO2 concentrations in the air are a function of temperature especially in the oceans. If something is causing the ocean temperature to rise ( hint: the sun for instance ) the total reservoir of water here on earth will begin to expel the dissolved CO2 at a pace directly proportional to the temperature increase. Given the sheer massiveness of the oceans and the total tonnage of CO2 we are talking about here even a fraction of a degree could cause hundreds of millions of tons of expulsion forcing the total ppm in the atmosphere to climb. So yeah....it's probably exactly backwards from the way they see it now.....it is most likely the temperature rise causing the ppm to grow and not the ppm causing the temperature to rise. Having said that a secondary effect could also be the greenhouse effect of the CO2....but I suspect that it is exactly that....a secondary effect.

 

[Old Rocks]

Yes the Truth is and always has been that 1000 ppm is a level at which we can experience up to 100% increase in edible vegetation production for no additional input in labor or materials. It is obvious that the prehistoric levels created a super growth environment which is why Cretaceous era plants for instance all seem to have gigantic foliage.

You need to look at the geological history of the Earth. Times of rapid change in GHG's and temperature have been times of extinction.

 

[justoffal]

You need to look at the geological history of the Earth. Times of rapid change in GHG's and temperature have been t

You need to look at the geological history of the Earth. Times of rapid change in GHG's and temperature have been times of extinction.

I'll take my chances. Given the serious nature of global food shortages a CO2 increase it might be just the ticket we need to help us boost food production.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Actually 400ppm is barely enough to keep most plants sort of content.
Many greenhouse operations operate at about 800-1200ppm where plants really start to thrive.

Yup, when you get down to 150 to 180 levels, life starts dying off. So we're still in a bit of a drought at 450ppm. The climate narrative used to global warming, then it morphed into climate change, then that morphed into stage 3, speed of co2 increase. I wonder what the climate freaks will come up with for stage 4.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Just remember guys, planting trees etc.. can cause climate problems -

Planting wrong trees can be at root of climate issues

Tree planting can be harmful to the environment if the wrong species or location is chosen, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, have warned. They say there are potential hidden dangers in mass tree-planting schemes being promoted to combat climate change.Boris Johnson has promised to more

www.thetimes.co.uk

I was well informed by tree huggers that the answer to this complicated problem is to change my car to electric and pay more tax.

 

[mamooth]

Rose of Sharon is native to Asia, and it's a bad invasive in some parts of the USA.

 

[Stryder50]

You need to look at the geological history of the Earth. Times of rapid change in GHG's and temperature have been times of extinction.

Do you understand the chart up in post #5?
Meanwhile, some documentation on "times of extinction" and linkage to GHG levels would provide some credibility.

 

[Old Rocks]

Do you understand the chart up in post #5?
Meanwhile, some documentation on "times of extinction" and linkage to GHG levels would provide some credibility.

OK

Abstract​

The climate change in the Toarcian (Early Jurassic) was characterized by a major perturbation of the global carbon cycle. The event lasted for approximately 200,000 years and was manifested by a global warming of ∼ 6 °C, anoxic conditions in the oceans, and extinction of marine species. The triggering mechanisms for the perturbation and environmental change are however strongly debated. Here, we present evidence for a rapid formation and transport of greenhouse gases from the deep sedimentary reservoirs in the Karoo Basin, South Africa. Magmatic sills were emplaced during the initial stages of formation of the Early Jurassic Karoo Large Igneous Province, and had a profound influence on the fate of light elements in the organic-rich sedimentary host rocks. Total organic carbon contents and vitrinite reflectivity data from contact aureoles around the sills show that organic carbon was lost from the country rocks during heating. We present data from a new type of geological structures, termed breccia pipes, rooted in the aureoles within the shale of the Western Karoo Basin. The breccia pipes are cylindrical structures up to 150 meters in diameter and are mainly comprised of brecciated and baked black shale. Thousands of breccia pipes were formed due to gas pressure build-up during metamorphism of the shales, resulting in venting of greenhouse gases to the Toarcian atmosphere. Mass balance calculations constrained by new aureole data show that up to 1800 Gt of CO2 was formed from organic material in the western Karoo Basin. About 15 times this amount of CO2 (27,400 Gt) may have formed in the entire basin during the intrusive event. U–Pb dating of zircons from a sill related to many of the pipes demonstrates that the magma was emplaced 182.5 ± 0.4 million years ago. This supports a causal relationship between the intrusive volcanism, the gas venting, and the Toarcian global warming.

Hydrothermal venting of greenhouse gases triggering Early Jurassic global warming

The climate change in the Toarcian (Early Jurassic) was characterized by a major perturbation of the global carbon cycle. The event lasted for approxi…

www.sciencedirect.com

Abstract​

The end-Permian mass extinction was the most severe in the Phanerozoic, extinguishing more than 90% of marine and 75% of terrestrial species in a maximum of 61 ± 48 ky. Because of broad temporal coincidence between the biotic crisis and one of the most voluminous continental volcanic eruptions since the origin of animals, the Siberian Traps large igneous province (LIP), a causal connection has long been suggested. Magmatism is hypothesized to have caused rapid injection of massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, driving climate change and subsequent destabilization of the biosphere. Establishing a causal connection between magmatism and mass extinction is critically dependent on accurately and precisely knowing the relative timing of the two events and the flux of magma. New U/Pb dates on Siberian Traps LIP lava flows, sills, and explosively erupted rocks indicate that (i) about two-thirds of the total lava/pyroclastic volume was erupted over ~300 ky, before and concurrent with the end-Permian mass extinction; (ii) eruption of the balance of lavas continued for at least 500 ky after extinction cessation; and (iii) massive emplacement of sills into the shallow crust began concomitant with the mass extinction and continued for at least 500 ky into the early Triassic. This age model is consistent with Siberian Traps LIP magmatism as a trigger for the end-Permian mass extinction and suggests a role for magmatism in suppression of post-extinction biotic recovery.

AAAS

www.science.org

Abstract​

Most mass extinctions during the last 500 m.y. coincide with eruptions of large igneous provinces (LIPs). The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction was synchronous with the Deccan flood volcanism, the Permian-Triassic extinction with the eruption of the enormous Siberian traps, and the end-Guadalupian extinction with the Emeishan volcanic province. The causal link remains disputed, however, and many LIPs apparently had no significant impact on the biosphere. Here we show that a key control on the destructive consequences of LIP emplacement is the type of sedimentary rock in basins beneath the flood basalts. Contact metamorphism around intrusions in dolomite, evaporite, coal, or organic-rich shale generates large quantities of greenhouse and toxic gases (CO2, CH4, SO2), which subsequently vent to the atmosphere and cause global warming and mass extinctions. The release of sediment-derived gases had a far greater impact on the environment than the emission of magmatic gases.

Climate changes caused by degassing of sediments during the emplacement of large igneous provinces | Geology | GeoScienceWorld

pubs.geoscienceworld.org