This is a bonus Climate Craziness of the Week. It seemed that while Climategate was raging, we saw an end to bizarre claims such as this. Now they seem to have resumed again as we saw in yesterday’s story claiming global warming causes more violence. What’s hilarious about this story is that is cites one environmental fear (AGW) and uses another even more feared solution (genetic modification) to save the flowers from AGW. This assumes they need saving. Reading the story, I wonder; maybe public transportation for the pollinators will help?
Excerpt From Asiaone News
Flowers Losing Scent Due to Climate Change
KUALA LUMPUR: A rose may stop smelling like a rose.
This is the concern of environmentalists as flowers are losing their scent due to climate change and air pollution. And their fragrance may be lost forever.
Science and Technology Professor Emeritus at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Dr Abdul Latif Mohamad, said genetically modified flowers might be the way out.
Climate change is also the reason Kuala Lumpur City Hall is increasingly turning to shady trees, because flowers which previously formed the centrepiece of its beautification programme have been wilting fast.
Datuk Bandar Datuk Ahmad Fuad Ismail said City Hall used to spend RM1.5 million ($635,100) a month to plant and maintain flowers in the city, but the contractor’s services were terminated in March last year.
City Hall has taken over the planting, opting for bou-gainvillea and the tropical shrubs, Ixora, for their durability and cheaper cost.
Under the previous arrangement, some of the small flowers cost RM3.50 per seedling.
“It was getting too costly to beautify the city. Flowers were dying fast,” he said, adding that City Hall would continue to plant shady trees more suited for soaking up the increasing pollution and coping with global warming.
Latif said UKM might have offered plausible reasons as to why some pollinators were not spreading flower seeds, a pattern caused by the missing “scent trail” with scent tissues burning easily due to global warming.
“The aroma producing chemical compounds in flowers dry up faster now compared with before.”
The only way out, he said, was to genetically modify the flowers so that the effects would not be permanent and the future generation would not be robbed of nature’s beauty.
“The act is almost like producing essential oils. Scientists add on certain chemicals for stronger scent.”
He said scents in flowers last longer in colder climate as plants can hold on to their essential oils longer.
“The flowers may still have strong scents in colder climate. But locally, we fear this might be lost forever.”
With flowers emitting lesser scent, the insects and butterflies are travelling further and longer to get a share of nectar.
Latif said birds and insects were heading towards hilly areas and deeper into the jungles where the weather is cooler.
He related an incident in Sungai Siput, Perak, where the farmers failed to get fruits from their orchards.
Upon investigation, Latif’s team discovered that the flowers were no longer pollinating after dust from a hill blast blocked the growth of stigmas.
He said Malaysians could no longer rely on nature to heal itself without the help of science.
…
Read the whole mess at Asiaone News
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Commenter John in GA who made the tip writes:
Note that there’s no mention of any application of that “scientific method” thing — some professor at a Malaysian university simply declared it to be true, and so verily it is. Look for this new AGW “fact” to appear in your kids’ textbooks next year.
The article also states that Kuala Lumpur has had to take somewhat drastic measures, eliminating the planting of flowers in public areas because they were “dying too fast”. In fact, he says, “The aroma producing chemical compounds in flowers dry up faster now compared with before.” Really? When was “before”? A hundred years ago? Two months ago? And how did he establish that chemical compounds are drying up faster due to warming? With a controlled experiment? No mention of that. If his scientific method follows the Gore/IPCC model, it probably went something like this: “Hmm, flowers aren’t doing so well. Couldn’t be soil quality, amount of water, quality of seed stock, or anything like that. No, the only plausible explanation is that the planet is getting hotter, because if there’s one thing we know for certain, it’s that tropical flowers don’t like warmth. And we know that global warming is caused by CO2 emissions. Therefore, man-made global warming is killing off flowers, and with them, birds, bees, and farmers. Call the press.”
Then there’s this:
“Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) director-general Datuk Dr Abdul Latif Mahmod said recently the extreme weather change might affect the life span of trees as a result of lighter or heavier rain.
‘We should look at how trees can be mutated so that they will not be destroyed.'”
I love it — straight from whimsical hypothesis to policy recommendation! No need to bother with troublesome experiments or any of that stuff. In the brave new world of AGW, it goes like this: “Hey, it might be possible that changes in temperature will cause changes in rainfall, and if that happens, then perhaps that would adversely affect trees. Let’s start genetically mutating trees to compensate.”
“OK, but you said that AGW might cause *more* or *less* rainfall. Which condition should we try to genetically adjust for?”
Give this guy money. I love mutant flowers and trees.
Having had more than a little exposure to how Malaysian science offices operate, I would say that all of this was a bid for funding from the Malaysian Govt. With Petronas generating vast quantities of funds for the Govt, the scientists all hang around the trough waiting for the next feeding time. Those who squeal the loudest are the ones who get fed the most, and first.
It’s sad, as there were some excellent scientists whom I met who didn’t play the game, however they left the quasi-private research center for freer climes.
Is it possible that they can’t smell the flowers because they’ve shoved something else up their nostrils?
Or am I not allowed to say that?
UHI.UHI.UHI.UHI.UHI. (Infinity)
If skeptics were so powerfully organized these fools would be shamed hardcore-like. Come on Wattsy, go get ’em with your goblin minions!
Most flowers are now grown with much attention payed to the show of the bloom, not the scent. Farmers carefully select “standard bloom bearers” for seed production. What this means is that by such careful and selective pollination and seed production practices, the properties we don’t select for, but like nonetheless, may not ride the “standard bloom bearer” DNA string.
We may have shot ourselves in the foot on this one. It could be, in nature, that strong scent may not come with a strong flower show, and visa versa. If farmers continue to select for strong bloom, our own desires for “more beautiful” may have caused the scent to disappear.
This made Fox News last night – at the end of the segment they quoted Roy Spencer as saying that the researchers must have mixed mushrooms with the flowers . ( Or words to that effect .)
“Flowers Losing Scent Due to Climate Change”
This claim doesn’t pass the “smell test”.
In a couple of years, they’ll release a study that Flowers have increased scent due to global warming. Oh wait – they can’t do that, that would be assigning a positive attribute to global warming.
I feel so much better now.
Years ago, for romantic moments, I merely had to buy my wife some roses.
The amorous paybacks more than made up for the financial investment.
However, I’ve noticed this is no longer true.
“Is this due to a drop in my attractiveness to her?”, I would say in my secret heart.
But now I know.
It’s not me, its the roses. They just ain’t what they used to be.
Whew.
Hmm. Do these “domestic” species attract anything other than hovering horticulturalists for pollinators? Sounds like “foetida persiana” might lure bugs like flies and beetles, moths, etc.
There’s a Colorado wildflower, a genre of primrose, that likes bogs and streamsides, and it smells terrible. It’s called a Parry Primrose. As far as I know, it got to smelling that way all by itself. Maybe the stinky ones reach a “tipping point” where they are just available to the “lower classes” of pollinators (“Hey, sailor…”)
There’s an Italian opera here somewhere.
Come to think of it, the only place I’ve ever seen this flower in Colorado is on alpine streamsides – by flowing water – which might itself serve as the agent for the spread of its pollen.
Which probably raises some questions too. You’ve got your sweet smellers, your stinky smellers, and some flowers and plant scents to which insect pollinators shrug with indifference.
So, what climate conditions created the need for wind, or water-born, or asexual reproduction? If climatic transformations weren’t partly responsible, I would be surprised. Long cold periods no doubt killed off a lot of flowers dependent on a single pollinator, but the “perfect” glacier lily (with both male and female reproductive organs) probably managed without bumblebees.
The warmers love the phrase “tipping points”, but they must have been routine in nature, no CO2 necessary.
P Walker (11:12:38) : ….. Roy Spencer as saying that the researchers must have mixed mushrooms with the flowers..
Or maybe it was the ‘nose candy’ ? (C’mon, does anyone really believe they actually spent $30 billion on climate research alone?)
I came upon this article when looking for an answer to my concern that flowers no longer are producing scent like they used to. As a child growing up in the southwestern desert, I was fortunate to be raised to enjoy nature and spent many hours outside. I revelled in the smell of blooming flowers and trees. We also had an area of many hundreds of acres of Japanese flower gardens in the south of the city and some spring afternoons we would drive there to enjoy the beauty and buy fresh-cut bouquets of different flowers from the growers. These flowers would infuse our home with fragrant aromas for several weeks. Later, I worked in the travel industry and traveled all over the world. The first trip to Hawaii left the memory of being intoxicated by the amazing floral scents at the airport where the flower vendors sold their leis. About 6 yrs. later, I traveled to the same airport and was surprised and disappointed that the floral aroma was not there any longer. I did not understand why that was, and assumed that there must be fewer vendors, but realized later that many of the flowers I sniffed no longer gave off that wonderful smell. I have a beautiful lawn and pots of flowers and flowering bushes. Rarely can I detect an aroma, regardless of the time of year. By the way, I have an extremely keen sense of smell, so this is not the issue. I have been troubled by this for several years now, and am looking for the reason. I still am well traveled, and ask others if they can smell any aroma from natural flowers or floral shop displays and most cannot. I find this to be the case everywhere! This Easter I received a gift of a potted white Easter Lilly. It had no discernable fragrance, unless you put your nose right in it. However, a few days ago, I came home from a meeting late at night and was greeted by a heavy beautiful fragrance that filled my entire kitchen where the plant was on display. It lasted just for one night, and now is back to giving off very little smell. I wish I knew why and how this happened.
Rather than arguing about global warming pros & cons, and whether people are misconstruing facts, why not examine a real, verifiable issue. Flowers are not giving off fragrances like they used to. Something has changed. But, what, and why?
I wonder if there’s a connection to the use of Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether in gasoline? MTBE easily dissolves such scent oils – maybe it only takes only a trace amount of it to screw up a flower’s ability to manufacture them?
The scent in flowers is there as an attractor for the bees to find them. Given that bees have had a rough time over the last several years, I then also wonder if this lack of scent has any bearing on the decrease in the bee population?