By Plants Need CO2
More CO2 in the air means more plant growth.
Earth’s current atmospheric CO2 concentration is almost 390 parts per million (ppm). Adding another 300 ppm of CO2 to the air has been shown by literally thousands of experiments to greatly increase the growth or biomass production of nearly all plants. This growth stimulation occurs because CO2 is one of the two raw materials (the other being water) that are required for photosynthesis. Hence, CO2 is actually the “food” that sustains essentially all plants on the face of the earth, as well as those in the sea. And the more CO2 they “eat” (absorb from the air or water), the bigger and better they grow (see enlargment of table below here).
Larger image here.
Adding more CO2 to the air also benefits plants in other ways: They generally do not open their leaf stomatal pores as wide as they do at lower CO2 concentrations, and they tend to produce fewer such pores per unit area of leaf surface. Both of these changes tend to reduce plant transpiration or water loss; and the amount of growth they experience per unit of water lost (water-use efficiency) therefore rises, greatly increasing their ability to withstand drought. And with fewer and smaller stomatal openings, plants exposed to elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 are also less susceptible to damage by noxious air pollutants, including ozone and oxides of nitrogen and sulfur, that gain entry into plants via these portals. Higher CO2 concentrations also help plants by reducing the negative effects of a number of other environmental stresses, such as high soil salinity, high air temperature, low air temperature, low light intensity, low levels of soil fertility, oxidative stress, and the stress of herbivory.
A visual example of the benefits described above is portrayed in the figure below, where the results of growing a common house plant (Devil’s Ivy or Golden Pothos) at about 200 ppm below (left) or 350 ppm above (right) the atmosphere’s current CO2 concentration is shown. As you examine this figure, ask yourself in which direction would you like to be heading if you were a plant: toward higher or lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations?
Yes, CO2 is green; and a wealth of research has shown that more of it in the air is a very good thing. See more here. See the CO2 Science set-up experiment detailed here.
By Penny Rodriguez
Environmentalist groups have filed a federal lawsuit to require operators of a proposed West Virginia wind farm to obtain a “takings” permit under the Endangered Species Act before they can begin operations.
According to the Animal Welfare Institute and Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, the proposed Beech Ridge Energy wind farm in Greenbrier County will disrupt the habitat and likely kill an unacceptable number of endangered Indiana bats.
Road Building Has Begun
Beech Ridge Energy received approval for the project from the state Public Service Commission after four years of government study and community opposition. The company has begun clearing brush and building roads to haul turbine parts to the site of the proposed wind farm.
Beech Ridge Energy plans to construct 124 turbines - each 390 feet tall - along a 23-mile stretch of mountain ridge tops.
Few Bats Remain
According to the Animal Welfare Institute and Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, the proposed wind farm will injure and kill scores of Indiana bats that live in caves near the wind farm.
The groups say Beech Ridge Energy will be violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to obtain a federal “incidental take” permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This permit is required if an otherwise-lawful activity results in the incidental death of or harm to an endangered species.
Beech Ridge Energy conducted two studies to count bats in the area, but opponents say the surveys are inadequate. A proper bat count and estimation of resultant bat deaths is necessary, the lawsuit states, because the Indiana bat is one of the most endangered land mammals in the world.
Turbines in Critical Habitat
According to the environmental groups, a local cave expert has identified 27 caves within five miles of the project site, and another 113 caves between five and 10 miles from the site, that serve as Indiana bat habitat.
In addition to deaths caused by wind turbine blades directly striking bats, the lawsuit alleges the whirring of gigantic turbine blades will create low-pressure zones that cause bats’ lungs to hemorrhage, killing them almost instantly.
‘Largely Discarded Technology’
The environmental groups claim they are not seeking to stop wind power projects completely, but they believe developers must choose a more-suitable location and better mitigate environmental damage. Tom Stacy, president of Save Western Ohio, has long opposed similar wind farms in neighboring Ohio.
“Sacrificing anything, especially endangered species, to enable one of the dumbest modern energy ideas imaginable is anathema,” Stacy said.
“Wind is an ancient and largely discarded energy technology that can only provide volatile, sporadic energy, not the modern power performance and effective capacity we rely upon for affordable, secure electricity,” said Stacy. “Massive wind projects sited throughout West Virginia’s ridge tops will not close one coal plant.”
Read more here.
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The relative electrial energy potential of various sources thanks to Bill DiPucchio. Larger version here. It clearly shows why wind and solar must be considered supplemental sources in any sane energy plan.
By H. Sterling Burnett
ICECAP UPDATE: From the Washington Post today: “Nearly six in 10 of those polled support the proposed changes to U.S. energy policy being developed by Congress and the administration. Fifty-five percent of Americans approve of the way Obama is handling the issue, compared with 30 percent who do not. A narrower majority, 52 to 43 percent, back a cap-and-trade system; that margin is unchanged since June. A cap-and-trade system would set a ceiling for the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and it would allow firms to buy and sell emissions permits.” Please educate family and friends on the disaster that Cap-and-Tax would be for America.
The Waxman-Markey bill to restrict carbon dioxide emissions would cost $846 billion in the next decade alone, in the form of required payments for emissions allowances, according to a June 5 report from the Congressional Budget Office. The bill has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and is pending action in the Senate.
The CBO findings support statements, by both critics and supporters of the bill, noting consumers will pay higher energy prices if carbon dioxide restrictions are imposed on the American public.
“Government likes cap-and-trade because it is a hidden, or indirect, tax for which industry, rather than Congress or the president, will get the blame when
energy prices rise,” said Drew Thornley, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis. “The public gets smacked twice - once by higher food and fuel prices and a second time by having to pay for those unemployed by the bill,” said Thornley. In addition, Thornley observes, “The increased unemployment benefits will require cuts to other programs, higher taxes, or bigger deficits.”
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the congressional Western Caucus, says Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is not truly concerned about the effects of the bill on energy prices or jobs. “Right now, many Americans are making the responsible decision to cut back on expenses and tighten their belts in order to weather these challenging economic times,” Bishop said. “Yet Democrats in Congress refuse to adopt that same type of fiscal restraint. Instead, they remain more steadfast than ever in their commitment to excessive spending habits - habits bankrolled by the hardworking American taxpayer.
“Cap-and-trade captures the very essence of the Democrat tax-and-spend model that continues to wage war on the American pocketbook,” Bishop added.
“This national energy tax will discourage job creation, drive up energy costs, derail energy independence, and diminish domestic supply. And yet, there is
no sound scientific evidence that proves these policies will bring about effective and measurable change other than job loss and increased costs. This is not the kind of change Americans need, and it’s surely not the kind of change I support”
Several amendments were offered by the Republican minority in an effort to lessen the bill’s impact on jobs. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) offered an amendment that would have suspended the emission caps in the United States if China (the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter) and India did not adopt
similarly stringent emission caps. Every Democrat voted against the proposal.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) proposed suspending the act if unemployment reaches 15 percent, and Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) offered an amendment suspending
the act if 10,000 steel jobs were lost. Democrats rejected both amendments. Republicans also offered several amendments to contain energy price hikes.
Roy Blunt (R-MO) offered an amendment to suspend the emission caps if electricity prices rose in any region by more than 10 percent after inflation. Lee Terry (R-NE) offered an amendment suspending the act if gasoline prices rose above $5.00 per gallon. Those amendments, too, were rejected.
Despite its June 26 approval in the House on a 219-212 vote, the bill’s fate is uncertain. Its narrow margin of victory in the House may indicate trouble in the Senate, where tougher sailing has been predicted. Many Democrats, particularly in the nation’s heartland, warn they may not be able to support it because it is too extreme. “I think there’s more likely to be compromises this year, because everyone understands the economy is in such a fragile condition that you don’t want to pass anything that’s going to have the opposite impact [from what] we’re trying to have on the stimulus,” said Sen.
Claire McCaskill (D-MO) according to Greenwire on June 29. “We don’t want to work against ourselves here in terms of job creation.”
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
By Patrick J. Michaels on Planet Gore
On August 18, both the New York Times and Washington Post featured uncharacteristically shrill top-of-masthead editorials demanding immediate climate-change legislation. The Post warned of an imminent geophysical “tipping point” because of global warming, while the Times went one better, threatening the national security of the United States.
Why the desperation? Perhaps because the great unwashed who live outside the Beltway or somewhere other than Manhattan are in open revolt, and not just against Obama’s health care proposals. In their role as the nation’s opinion leaders, these mastheads can’t let such behavior go unchallenged.
Things are getting out of hand in the real world. Since the June 26 House vote on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, lawmakers from both chambers have backed significantly away from the legislation. The first raucous town-hall meetings occurred during the July 4 recess - before health care. Voters in swing districts were mad as heck then, and they’re even angrier now. In order to rescue global-warming regulations the Post thinks people can be mollified by ditching the detestable 1,400-page cap-and-trade bill, while the Times thinks they can be pandered to by appealing to their patriotism.
The Post resignedly confesses its favored approach to the warming menace: “Yes, we’re talking about a carbon tax.” The idea there is that a carbon tax will be less complicated than cap-and-trade (true), and that the cost to individuals and businesses “could be rebated...in a number of ways.”
While ostensibly tackling the all-encompassing peril of global warming, the Post would have Congress rejigger other areas of the tax code to achieve a zero net loss in economic productivity or jobs. Right.
The Times, meanwhile, accurately notes that “proponents of climate change legislation have now settled on a new strategy: warning that global warming poses a serious threat to national” and that absent regulation, global warming could induce resource shortages that would “unleash regional conflicts and draw in America’s armed”.
Utter nonsense. Every nation is short of some kind of resource, and the supply of many are dependent upon year-to-year fluctuations in weather, as well as to long-term fluctuations in climate. This is why we have markets. It’s too cold in Canada to buy corn, so they import ours and export ice hockey. Markets are always more efficient than Marines, and will doubtless work with or without climate change.
Cynically, the Times admits that “this line of argument could also be pretty good politics - especially on Capitol Hill, where many politicians will do anything for the Pentagon....One can only hope that these arguments turn the tide in the Senate.” Militarization of domestic issues is often the last refuge of the desperate. How many lives has this cost throughout history?
Simultaneously, the evidence for this climatic tipping point has gone AWOL. Global surface temperatures haven’t budged significantly for 12 years, and it’s becoming obvious that the vaunted gloom-and-doom climate models are simply predicting too much warming.
Nor will any conceivable law do much about climate change. If every nation on earth that has obligations under the United Nations’s failed Kyoto Protocol on global warming successfully adopted the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade approach, only 7 percent of the warming forecast by the UN’s own “midrange” climate models would be prevented over the course of this century. By mandating a reduction of over 80 percent in current emissions by 2050, Waxman-Markey will allow the average American the same carbon dioxide emissions of the average American in 1867.
Alternatively, consider the Post’s energy tax. How high does it have to be? The last time gasoline hit $4.00 a gallon, we managed to reduce our consumption by a grand total of 4 percent. How high does the price have to go to knock out 80 percent? The answer is pretty simple: no one knows, because a technologically and politically feasible alternative does not exist. How expensive will fossil-fuel powered electricity become?
Nonetheless, one must admire the Post and Times for their altruism. The economic distress caused by a carbon tax, militarization, or any other radical climatic policy certainly won’t be good for their already shaky finances, unless, of course, the price of their support is a bailout by the Obama administration.
Now that’s cynical. See post here.
Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know.
By David Warren , The Ottawa Citizen
We learn from the Copenhagen Post, via Benny Peiser, that the Danish foreign ministry has already cancelled 20,000 overnight hotel reservations for people attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference, upcoming in December. That’s 40 million kroner of revenue lost to the hoteliers of Copenhagen, for whom we may grieve. Still, from an environmentalist perspective, think of all the energy savings.
Through the same channel (Peiser’s excellent work as an aggregator of media and research items that global warm-mongers could not wish you to read), we, the obsessively well-informed, have also been following an entertaining scandal of “settled science” in the U.K.
It is a tale of dendro-chronology gone strange, as the purveyors of suspicious tree-ring studies, used to justify well-publicized warming scare stories, resist the determined requests of a certain Steve McIntyre to see their raw data. “They are my data,” as Peter M. Brown, then president of the Tree-Ring Society, tried at first to insist. But no, the funny thing is, data collected at the expense of taxpayers, who also pay the collectors’ salaries, do not belong to private persons, outside of maybe Russia. The excuses since used to withhold the raw data have degenerated through various assertions of bureaucratic privilege, to the logical equivalent of “the dog ate my homework.”
I could go on like this, ridiculing the crazed, Al-Gorey, joke science on which the “climate change crisis” was erected, at huge cost to ourselves, both directly for twisted “research,” and indirectly for the destructive government legislation it supports.
But I’m inclined to relent: for the global warm-alarmists are destroying themselves, with chance help from a weak solar cycle. And as I mentioned in my last column on this topic (July 29), full-length books such as Ian Plimer’s on Global Warming: The Missing Science, do a more compendious job of exposing the alarmists’ false premises and assumptions.
As Napoleon used to say, echoing an ancient Chinese sage, “Never interfere with an enemy who is in the process of committing suicide.” The truth is, despite all the gloom and doom I spread myself, about the decline of western civilization (but at least I have solid proof!) that “nature will take care of it,” on many different levels. This is a principle expounded by Delhi trilor (three-wheel) drivers: “A path will emerge.” Sometimes, alas, that path leads suddenly to our own extinction, but there are many by-ways off the Road to Hell.
Read more here and be sure to read the RJK August 23, 2009 - 10:33 AM comment. You may wish to copy the questions the commenter asks and use them on your favorite stubborn alarmist.
By Robert S. Boyd, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Has Earth’s fever broken? Official government measurements show that the world’s temperature has cooled a bit since reaching its most recent peak in 1998.
That’s given global warming skeptics new ammunition to attack the prevailing theory of climate change. The skeptics argue that the current stretch of slightly cooler temperatures means that costly measures to limit carbon dioxide emissions are ill-founded and unnecessary. Proposals to combat global warming are “crazy” and will “destroy more than a million good American jobs and increase the average family’s annual energy bill by at least $1,500 a year,” the Heartland Institute, a conservative research organization based in Chicago, declared in full-page newspaper ads earlier this summer. “High levels of carbon dioxide actually benefit wildlife and human health,” the ads asserted.
Many scientists agree, however, that hotter times are ahead. A decade of level or slightly lower temperatures is only a temporary dip to be expected as a result of natural, short-term variations in the enormously complex climate system, they say. “The preponderance of evidence is that global warming will resume,” Nicholas Bond, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said in an e-mail.
“Natural variability can account for the slowing of the global mean temperature rise we have seen,” said Jeff Knight, a climate expert at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, England. According to data from the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala., the global high temperature in 1998 was 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.37 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for the previous 20 years. So far this year, the high has been 0.42 degrees Celsius (0.76 degrees Fahrenheit), above the 20-year average, clearly cooler than before.
However, scientists say the skeptics’ argument is misleading. “It’s entirely possible to have a period as long as a decade or two of cooling superimposed on the long-term warming trend,” said David Easterling, chief of scientific services at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “These short term fluctuations are statistically insignificant (and) entirely due to natural internal variability,” Easterling said in an essay published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in April. “It’s easy to ‘cherry pick’ a period to reinforce a point of view.”
Climate experts say the 1998 record was partly caused by El Nino, a periodic warming of tropical Pacific Ocean waters that affects the climate worldwide. “The temperature peak in 1998 to a large extent can be attributed to the very strong El Nino event of 1997-98,” Bond said. “Temperatures for the globe as a whole tend to be higher during El Nino, and particularly events as intense as that one.” El Nino is returning this summer after a four-year absence and is expected to hang around until late next year. (Icecap Note: try till late this year)
“If El Nino continues to strengthen as projected, expect more (high temperature) records to fall,” said Thomas Karl, who’s the director of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville. “At least half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998, the warmest year currently on record,” predicted Jeff Knight, a climate variability expert at the Hadley Centre in England. (Karl and the Haldey center control the data bases and make adjustments like removing the urban adjustment, and most recently for NOAA removing satellite input into their global assessment in July which resulted in an additional blip up in temperatures. Without these adjustments, current temperatures globally would be un remarkable in the last 100 years).
John Christy, the director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who often sides with the skeptics, agreed that the recent cooling won’t last. “The atmosphere is just now feeling the bump in tropical Pacific temperatures related to El Nino,” Christy said in an e-mail. As a result, July experienced “the largest one-month jump in our 31-year record of global satellite temperatures. We should see a warmer 2009-2010 due to El Nino.”
Christy added, however: “Our ignorance of the climate system is still enormous, and our policy makers need to know that . . . We really don’t know much about what causes multi-year changes like this.”
In addition to newspaper ads, the Heartland Institute sponsors conferences, books, papers, videos and Web sites arguing its case against the global warming threat. The skeptics include scientists such as Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who thinks that climate science is too uncertain to justify drastic measures to control CO2. He calls the case for action against global warming “silly” and “grotesque.”
Others go further. For example, Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, thinks the world is in a 30-year cooling phase. “The most recent global warming that began in 1977 is over, and the Earth has entered a new phase of global cooling,” Easterbrook said in a talk to the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in San Francisco in December.
Government scientists strongly disagree. “Claims that global warming is not occurring ... ignore this natural variability and are misleading,” said NOAA’s Easterling. In reality, global warming “never ceased,” said Karl, the climate data center director. Read more here.
Karl is flat out wrong. See UAH MSU satellite and Hadley CRU temperature versus CO2 last 8 years here. Temperatures will pop up some the net few months as El Nino continues. It appears it will be weaker than 2002/03 and 2006/07 and given the cold PDO should fade quickly to another La Nina with another drop as we saw after the January 2007 spike.
By Thomas J. Pyle, Washington Times
Federal energy policies spell shortages, rising prices. “Energy prices certainly would surge under cap-and-trade. President Obama said so. His budget director said so. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said so. And most recently, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent statistical government agency, said so.”
While the nation’s leaders focus on expanding government’s role in our health care system, they are working simultaneously to chew away at another foundation of America’s economic strength and our individual liberties - affordable, reliable energy.
The assault comes, as most rhetorical attacks do, cloaked in righteousness. The government, through the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation, aims to save us from global warming by imposing arbitrary limits on domestic carbon emissions. This regime would enable its proponents’ Wall Street allies to trade and swap the allowances and offsets - the new currency under this system - among themselves. Think Bernard Madoff.
In doing so, the federal government would seize control of our energy use, rationing it to ensure it is both more expensive and less plentiful. The certain loss of manufacturing jobs to China and India that would result from this scheme, while unfortunate to some, is a side benefit to a group of ideologues who never really cared much for manufacturing anyhow - too dirty, too blue-collar, too old-fashioned, too capitalist, too American.
Of course, those who favor such a regime do not say they plan to ration energy. Rather, they talk about “efficiency.” This efficiency would require Americans to reduce their energy use by nearly 85 percent by 2050. On a per capita basis, that means each American would use about as much energy as did each American living in 1790.
Energy prices certainly would surge under cap-and-trade. President Obama said so. His budget director said so. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said so. And most recently, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent statistical government agency, said so.
The legislation provides for amelioration of increased energy costs to lower- and fixed-income persons. Estimates of the increased costs have ranged from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars per year per household. Notably, no analysis or credible person has suggested that the legislation would not increase energy costs.
The legislation also would reduce our gross domestic product. Again, each study, including the one by the EIA, indicated that cap-and-trade legislation “increases the cost of using energy, which reduces real economic output, reduces purchasing power, and lowers aggregate demand for goods and services. The result is that projected real gross domestic product (GDP) generally falls relative to the [status quo].”
Cap-and-trade’s supporters don’t mention job destruction. In fact, they claim the legislation would be a boon to job creation. Why let the facts get in the way of a good argument? Numerous studies and real-world trials have shown that cap-and-trade and “green jobs” subsidies result in a net job loss. Those jobs that are created are temporary and unsustainable without continued government subsidies and mandates. While the figures of lost jobs vary, they all reach the same conclusion: Cap-and-trade kills jobs.
Read more of the commentary here.
Check out on the Institute for Energy Research site, this interactive map showing how much of your state’s energy comes from what the congress defines as renewable or non fossil fuel based. Ironically hydro and nuclear don’t count as carbon free.
By Aldo Santin, Winnipeg Free Press
Too many cool, wet days resulted in a lousy summer—but you won’t find any polar bears complaining. The cooler-than-usual summer produced thicker ice on Hudson Bay, giving the area’s polar bear population several extra days to feed on tasty ringed seals.
“This is the time of year when polar bears eat the most, and the ringed seals are so full of fat and energy,” said Daryll Hedman, the northeast regional wildlife manager for Manitoba Conservation.
Hedman said polar bears stay on the Hudson Bay ice for as long as possible so they can feed, adding this year the ice was so thick that the bears stayed out for an extra two weeks.
That’s resulted in fatter, healthier bears this summer, Hedman said, adding the development is not likely a long-term trend (want to bet?).
“It’s probably a blip,” Hedman said of the thicker ice and cooler temperatures.
Last month, the Polar Bear Specialist Group—scientists from Denmark, Norway, Russia, the U.S. and Canada—passed a resolution to urge the governments to take the animals into consideration when planning Arctic development.
(Of course that should a seal not a penguin which is Antarctica) - from Polar Bear Party here. See the next morning below.
