Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!

You're going out on a limb with this one but, amazingly, I agree with you.

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@farmerman,

I may just be a country boy, but I do have a BS in Biology and I did do a research project on the effects of increased levels of CO2 on plants. The majority of plants on Earth are C3 plants. C3 plants are limited by the amount of CO2 available to them. Now it is true that in a higher temperature environment C4 plants can be more productive, but that does not limit the growth of C3 plants in controlled conditions, like say a farmers field. But, some other fine examples of C4 plants that your failed to mention are corn, sorghum and sugarcane. If you have followed 20th century food dynamics, you know that corn has a variety of uses. If needed, we can play with Nitrogen content in the soil to get better results.

Will we lose stuff? Maybe. But more likely as a result of the loss of farmers than elevated CO2 levels.

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@McGentrix,

no I mentioned corn and cane. C3's are already in danger because they selectively adsorb C12 in transpiration.

Keep reading , Ill bet you didnt even know of the existence of the classes of plants

Transpiration occurs within a differing chemical basis between the two classes. (there are several other classes but thse are Archean

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@McGentrix,

Youre right, I just used the term "grasses" and only included " bamboo and canes". If you are a bio guy, youd a known that ll the C4's you mentioned were actually grasses.
One other point, all plants only take up CO2 with the aid of sunlight. There's where life doesnt obey the second Law of Thermo. Life goes AGAINST the energy path of going to greater disorder. Life "Builds"

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@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

Plants love CO2. We'll be fine.

Plants will be fine. Insects, too. Human beings, not so much.

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@Olivier5,

Why?

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

Insects, too.

That's not certain, as many of them didn't evolve to survive in the higher temperatures predicted to occur with increased CO2 levels.

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@Olivier5,

plants will only be "selectively" fine. Plants are evolved in fairly narrow chemical and ecological environments. Figs, for example, require commensal insects that are sub tropical to serve as pollinators. No pollination, no new generations of fig trees.

EVOLUTION is the racekeeper. Im using the polar bear as an exaample of how animals, "So finely adapted to an environment, are held prisoner to it"

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Science News (March 25, 2008): Insects Take A Bigger Bite Out Of Plants In A Higher Carbon Dioxide World

Quote:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising at an alarming rate, and new research indicates that soybean plant defenses go down as carbon dioxide goes up. Elevated carbon dioxide impairs a key component of the plant's defenses against leaf-eating insects, according to a new article.

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@McGentrix,

At some point, food production will take a big hit from continuous climate change, and some of us will starve. All it will take is one or two bad years in nearly all the cereal exporting regions of the world, sending food stocks close to zero and food prices through the roof.

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Quote:

Though temperatures have cooled somewhat in Australia, providing much-needed relief for the overworked and exhausted firefighters, provides some critical time to strengthen containment lines the firestorms have not stopped. They are predicted to intensify in the next few days as yet another heatwave will desiccate the soils, plants, and trees of Australia to tinder.

Many scientists now believe some of the planets forests may never recover. If the forests somehow can defy all odds in an increasingly warming world, it still may take burned forests around the globe decades to recover. Those are decades that we don’t have to save ourselves from the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

thepoliticus

This is sure is a great time to be burning down the Amazon rainforest.

1 Reply

@hightor,

Amazon?

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

At some point, food production will take a big hit from continuous climate change, and some of us will starve. All it will take is one or two bad years in nearly all the cereal exporting regions of the world, sending food stocks close to zero and food prices through the roof.

This is where real science comes into play, creating crops that can grow in reduced water environments or even colder than normal growing temps, for your sake and the rest of the worlds, I hope you are not one of the anti-GMO people. The doom and gloom painted by the left is always fascinating.

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@Baldimo,

I thought it was hotter than normal?

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@McGentrix,

Yes Amazon. Look at the satellite photos.

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@McGentrix,

Quote:

Many scientists now believe some of the planets forests may never recover.

Yes, the Amazon rainforest is being burned and converted into farmland. Scientists believe that once a certain percentage of the canopy is destroyed the natural weather patterns which sustain the rainforest will no longer function and the area will return as a savannah.

Quote:

A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses.

This sort of ecosystem doesn't sequester carbon the way a climax forest does. It would have been bad to lose this carbon sink any time but it's especially troubling now, given the buildup of atmospheric carbon from fossil fuel combustion.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

That's magic thinking. GMOs can't do miracles. It's the entire food system that needs to adapt.

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@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

This is where real science comes into play, creating crops that can grow in reduced water environments or even colder than normal growing temps, for your sake and the rest of the worlds, I hope you are not one of the anti-GMO people. The doom and gloom painted by the left is always fascinating.

Our farmers are "forced" to plant fruits and crops which usually grew in sub-tropical regions, there are now vineyards in Scandinavian countries - we definitely don't need to create crops for colder than normal growing temps.

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@hightor,

Insects are very mobile. Species are moving towards higher latitudes as climate warms up, so climate change is not their most pressing problem, and could even help them at high latitudes because they are "cold-blood", not homeothermic as mammals and birds are. A long, cold winter is known to decimate insect larvae in temperate climates.

Pesticides currently represent the biggest problem for insect populations in industrialized countries and have led to a massive decrease in insect biomass in those countries, in turn culling the bird population in North America, Europe and some Asian countries, because many bird species feed on insects. See for instance:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/insect_numbers_declining_why_it_matters

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

A long, cold winter is known to decimate insect larvae in temperate climates.

But there are insects which evolved to survive during cold winters in temperate climates. We have cold winters where I live — it used to drop below 0 F pretty regularly but there was always a good supply of insects once it warmed up.

As far as insects moving to higher latitudes — this may help some species but a lot of insects can only survive in a particular ecological niche. And even if we were hoping to preserve pollinators, the crops they pollinate may not grow in those latitudes.

1 Reply

Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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