by Craig and Sherwood Idso
Special Issue
This week we announce the release of our newest major report, Carbon Dioxide and Earth’s Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path. Based on the voluminous periodic reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ongoing rise in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration has come to be viewed as a monumental danger — not only to human society, but to the world of nature as well. But are the horrific “doomsday scenarios” promulgated by the climate alarmists as set-in-stone as the public is led to believe? Do we really know all of the complex and interacting processes that should be included in the models upon which these scenarios are based? And can we properly reduce those processes into manageable computer code so as to produce reliable forecasts 50 or 100 years into the future? At present, the only way to properly answer these questions is to compare climate model projections with real-world observations. Theory is one thing, but empirical reality is quite another. The former may or may not be correct, but the latter is always right. As such, the only truly objective method to evaluate climate model projections is by comparing them with real-world data.
In what follows, we conduct just such an appraisal, comparing against real-world observations ten of the more ominous model-based predictions of what will occur in response to continued business-as-usual anthropogenic CO2 emissions: (1) unprecedented warming of the planet, (2) more frequent and severe floods and droughts, (3) more numerous and stronger hurricanes, (4) dangerous sea level rise, (5) more frequent and severe storms, (6) increased human mortality, (7) widespread plant and animal extinctions, (8) declining vegetative productivity, (9) deadly coral bleaching, and (10) a decimation of the planet’s marine life due to ocean acidification. And in conjunction with these analyses, we proffer our view of what the future may hold with respect to the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content, concluding by providing an assessment of what we feel should be done about the situation.
Click on the links below to read the report, or download the full report in a pdf file (2.5 mb in size) below.
Carbon Dioxide and Earth’s Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path
1. Unprecedented Warming of the Planet
2. More Frequent and Severe Floods and Droughts
3. More Frequent and Severe Hurricanes
4. Rising Sea Levels Inundating Coastal Lowlands
5. More Frequent and Severe Storms
7. Widespread Plant and Animal Extinctions
8. Declining Vegetative Productivity
10. Marine Life Dissolving Away in Acidified Oceans
Executive Summary
As presently constituted, earth’s atmosphere contains just slightly less than 400 ppm of the colorless and odorless gas we call carbon dioxide or CO2. That’s only four-hundredths of one percent. Consequently, even if the air’s CO2 concentration was tripled, carbon dioxide would still comprise only a little over one tenth of one percent of the air we breathe, which is far less than what wafted through earth’s atmosphere eons ago, when the planet was a virtual garden place. Nevertheless, a small increase in this minuscule amount of CO2 is frequently predicted to produce a suite of dire environmental consequences, including dangerous global warming, catastrophic sea level rise, reduced agricultural output, and the destruction of many natural ecosystems, as well as dramatic increases in extreme weather phenomena, such as droughts, floods and hurricanes.
As strange as it may seem, these frightening future scenarios are derived from a single source of information: the ever-evolving computer-driven climate models that presume to reduce the important physical, chemical and biological processes that combine to determine the state of earth’s climate into a set of mathematical equations out of which their forecasts are produced. But do we really know what all of those complex and interacting processes are? And even if we did — which we don’t — could we correctly reduce them into manageable computer code so as to produce reliable forecasts 50 or 100 years into the future?
Some people answer these questions in the affirmative. However, as may be seen in the body of this report, real-world observations fail to confirm essentially all of the alarming predictions of significant increases in the frequency and severity of droughts, floods and hurricanes that climate models suggest should occur in response to a global warming of the magnitude that was experienced by the earth over the past two centuries as it gradually recovered from the much-lower-than-present temperatures characteristic of the depths of the Little Ice Age. And other observations have shown that the rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations associated with the development of the Industrial Revolution have actually been good for the planet, as they have significantly enhanced the plant productivity and vegetative water use efficiency of earth’s natural and agro-ecosystems, leading to a significant “greening of the earth.”
In the pages that follow, we present this oft-neglected evidence via a review of the pertinent scientific literature. In the case of the biospheric benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, we find that with more CO2 in the air, plants grow bigger and better in almost every conceivable way, and that they do it more efficiently, with respect to their utilization of valuable natural resources, and more effectively, in the face of environmental constraints. And when plants benefit, so do all of the animals and people that depend upon them for their sustenance.
Likewise, in the case of climate model inadequacies, we reveal their many shortcomings via a comparison of their “doom and gloom” predictions with real-world observations. And this exercise reveals that even though the world has warmed substantially over the past century or more — at a rate that is claimed by many to have been unprecedented over the past one to two millennia — this report demonstrates that none of the environmental catastrophes that are predicted by climate alarmists to be produced by such a warming has ever come to pass. And this fact — that there have been no significant increases in either the frequency or severity of droughts, floods or hurricanes over the past two centuries or more of global warming — poses an important question. What should be easier to predict: the effects of global warming on extreme weather events or the effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations on global temperature? The first part of this question should, in principle, be answerable; for it is well defined in terms of the small number of known factors likely to play a role in linking the independent variable (global warming) with the specified weather phenomena (droughts, floods and hurricanes). The latter part of the question, on the other hand, is ill-defined and possibly even unanswerable; for there are many factors — physical, chemical and biological — that could well be involved in linking CO2 (or causing it not to be linked) to global temperature.
If, then, today’s climate models cannot correctly predict what should be relatively easy for them to correctly predict (the effect of global warming on extreme weather events), why should we believe what they say about something infinitely more complex (the effect of a rise in the air’s CO2 content on mean global air temperature)? Clearly, we should pay the models no heed in the matter of future climate — especially in terms of predictions based on the behavior of a non-meteorological parameter (CO2) — until they can reproduce the climate of the past, based on the behavior of one of the most basic of all true meteorological parameters (temperature). And even if the models eventually solve this part of the problem, we should still reserve judgment on their forecasts of global warming; for there will yet be a vast gulf between where they will be at that time and where they will have to go to be able to meet the much greater challenge to which they aspire.
Idso – CO2 and Earth’s Future 1-31-11 (PDF 2.5MB)
h/t to Bob Feguson, SPPI
In the article you say that real world observations are always right. Is that before or after they have been cooked?
Mike, the flaw in your analogy is that slowing down costs me nothing, except a little time. The warmists are demanding nothing less than the dismantling of modern society.
@ur momisugly Mike:
“If you were driving fast along a foggy road and you saw a sign that said, “There is a 30% chance the bridge is out,” wouldn’t you at least slow down? The idea that you need 100% certainty before you take acti0n to prevent harm is absurd.”
Very lame strwaman attempt Mike, poor show indeed. No one is saying, or has said, we must have 100% certainty to justify doing something. All we’re saying is we must have *some evidence* that the CAGW hypothesis has merit. Computer model simulations, of course, are not evidence. They are merely possible outcomes based on a thousand-and-one ifs and buts. Models cannot even hindcast, let alone forecast (unless they are continually adjusted and tweaked and adjusted again continually to show the “right” ansawer). Get real Mike, get with the program. You should be demanding answers from those proposing these tax hikes, not bending over and saying “go ahead, shaft me, I trust you.”
Mike says:
January 31, 2011 at 9:15 pm
Probably not if slowing down would cost a trillion dollars and damage the economy of dozens of countries.
Especially if the road agent’s name was Jim Hansen.
Pertaining to the last peak observed on the graph showing interglacial periods. It is apparent we have peaked, but the temperature is not going down as quickly as it has in the past. The alarmists point to this as abnormal. Can someone provide a 10,000 foot view on this for me?
Well, let’s see…
Between the advancement of AG technologies, i.e. fertilizers & pesticides, not to mention GM tech, and a bumper crop of the main nutrient required for plant growth, C02, the planet should be enjoying a banner decade of crop yields. Better, this should be humanities answer to biofuels, as the theoretical suggests that based on the ‘historical’ C02 levels, there should be 30-50% greater yields, both in gross & unit size. Where’s the ‘bushel’?
The converse assertion that successfully reducing so-called AGW-induced C02 levels would create a global disaster of epic proportions due to reduced crop yields has basis, as well as the fact that, if successful (presuming, for a moment, that AGW warms the planet) would reduce in a corresponding cooling, suggest that the ‘AGW’-disaster has not, in fact, been ongoing, but has just begun.
Ok, Mike, just to pile on your analogy:
There’s a 30% chance of global warming that MAY “inconvenience Man”, although historically, a warmer world seems to be beneficial on the whole.
There’s a 20% chance of an impending ice age that WOULD cause massive numbers of deaths, and perhaps push Man close to extinction.
Do we try to cool down the world, or warm it up? IMHO, the climate will change, as always, with or without Man, and if we are LUCKY, it will get warmer.
This is Diogenes speaking.
I am seeking a GW alarmist who accepts the scientific method.
Method: conceive an hypothesis.
Collect data concerning the hypothesis.
Evaluate whether the hypothesis accurately predicts the results of future collection of data.
Answer will be yes or no.
If one accepts the scientific method, then one makes use of a computer model up to a certain date (1950, 1980, whatever). Then one compares the actual data during the time of the model to the predicted data after the model run ends.
Is the predicted data correlated with the actual data? Yes or no.
It appears, from what I have read, that the predictive ability of the extant models is pretty close to zero.
I am not engaging in satire here; I am looking out my window at the snow cover outside my suburban Maryland townhouse.
Data: the Maldives are not disappearing. Neither is Manhattan (at least not last week when I was there). Data: the hurricanes are not increasing. Data: the more that is learned about the measurement of temperature, the less faith one has in the absolute accuracy of the purported temperature records.
I could go on. A model which cannot predict next year cannot possibly predict the next 50 years.
Conclusion: GW alarmism is not science.
If the new findings of for how long man has existed, I believe it was for 400 000 thousand years now.
That would mean us puny little humans have managed to survive for several ice ages and are now on our fifth interglacial, which, apparently then, indicates, supposedly rather strongly, we also survived four previous doom and gloom major warmings.
That’s some amazing feet . . . them cave men must’ve had to have been able to beat around the bush for so long looking for the snake. :p
The problem with Mike’s analogy is that all of the costs and risks are known and one of the costs is certain death. With AGW tthe risks are either unknown or worse, unknowable. The costs, however, are known and do not favor the alarmist case, i.e., if the “bridge is out” life will benefit.
For an analogy to work the relationship and relative magnitudes must be similar. Clearly Mike’s fits neither requirement.
Mark
I am always disturbed when “scientists” on any side of a dispute claim that “observations are never wrong” or “facts are certain” or the like. In fact, measurement errors, observer bias, recording errors, inadequate sampling, and erroneous assgnment of proxies (think ‘tree rings for temps’) are all sources of wrong facts.
Here at WUWT each of these sorts of errors at the root of failed warmist theories have been exposed. What is the surfacestations project if not an attempt (successful) at demonstrating the wrong facts on which global warming projections have been based? We know, thanks to WUWT, that tree ring width may have more to do with rainfall than temps and the Briffa data should not have been used as temp proxies. We know that arctic temps used for global mean temp data sets are woefully undersampled for good science. We know that temps of minus 30 degress have been recorded as plus 30 degrees in data sets.
The first failure of climate science is bad and/or inadequate data. As many have said with respect to models: GIGO.
k winterkorn:
With respect, your comment at February 1, 2011 at 9:08 am misunderstands the point.
The issue is not as you assert that some ” “scientists” on any side of a dispute claim that “observations are never wrong” or “facts are certain” or the like. ”
The fact is, as the Idos’s say, that in a scientific assessment;
“Theory is one thing, but empirical reality is quite another. The former may or may not be correct, but the latter is always right. As such, the only truly objective method to evaluate climate model projections is by comparing them with real-world data.”
And in a scientific assessment the empirical data HAS to be taken as being correct unless and until it is shown to be wrong. This is why assessment of the accuracy, precision and reliability of the used data is important in any scientific assessment.
Simply, if the empirical data and the theory disagree then the theory must be rejected as disproved unless and until the data is shown to be wrong.
That rejection of theory by comparison with empirical data is a fundamental scientific principle and anything else (e.g. suggestion that the data may be wrong) is pseudoscience. All empirical data may be wrong and is to some degree, but that is not relevant. Showing that the data IS significantly wrong is required for the theory to not be disproved by the data.
Richard
“”””” Mike says:
January 31, 2011 at 9:15 pm
“But are the horrific “doomsday scenarios” promulgated by the climate alarmists as set-in-stone as the public is led to believe? Do we really know all of the complex and interacting processes that should be included in the models upon which these scenarios are based?”
If you were driving fast along a foggy road and you saw a sign that said, “There is a 30% chance the bridge is out,” wouldn’t you at least slow down? The idea that you need 100% certainty before you take acti0n to prevent harm is absurd. “””””
Well you didn’t say how far it is to the bridge. If I slow down, that will likely increase the chances that the bridge WILL be out by the time I get there, if it is thought to be under attack from debris or something coming down the river.
So why wouldn’t I continue on my way, since there’s a 70% chance the bridge is NOT out, and I’ll be safely across it and on my way. Yes if when I get to where I can see the bridge, and it appears to be under hazard; then I can stop safely, and not go onto the bridge.
And don’t forget that you chose the analogy, not me, so I presume my rational realistic plan would be satisfactory in the real case.
When Mother Gaia decides to stop adding CO2 to the Atmosphere around the north polar regions each and every year, the atmospheric CO2 starts to fall at the rate of 3.6 ppm per month, and it continues at this rate until Mother Gaia starts adding CO2 again. (about 5 months later)
In the next 50 years, the CO2 may climb from 400 to say 500 ppm (who knows). That’s a 1.25:1 ratio of increase or about 0.322 of a doubling of CO2, and by the IPCCs measure of climate sensitivity, that should cause the global temperature to rise by about 1 deg C, pretty much the same amount it has risen since CO2 was 280 ppm.
By then we will have had 50 years of experience with the consequences of having earth’s temperature increase by one deg C out of a total range of 150 deg C on any given day. If we don’t like what happened in that 50 years, we can stop adding any more CO2, and Mother gaia, will get rid of that additional 100 ppm in about 28 months; well wait on; mother Gaia doesn’t simply maintain a short term trend indefinitely, like climatists do, so it will take her five times as long or about 11.5 years to remove 99% of the excess.
At the risk of overdoing the road sign analogy, I often see warning signs on the motorway telling me ‘CAUTION! QUEUE AHEAD!’ What do I do? Nothing, apart from looking well ahead (as I always do anyway) to see if there is any real evidence of a queue. Any brake lights, any sign of traffic bunching up? No? Then I carry on as before, safe in the knowledge that, once again, the original reason for the flashing sign – the accident, the breakdown – has disappeared long since and the sign has simply been left on. In these cases the sign itself becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Drivers see it, ease off a bit and the result is – guess what? Yep, a queue! We have seen many flashing, strident warning signs from the warmists – Manhattan drowned, no more snow in the UK and all the rest of it – and they’ve all been, well, rubbish! Like the boy who cried ‘wolf’, their warnings are starting to fall on deaf ears. Perhaps that’s the real reason why Monckton’s audience in that BBC ‘documentary’ was quite old – we’ve seen it all before!
Mike says:
“This “report” seems to mainly presents caricatures of the various scientific claims – notice they are not referenced – ”
Perhaps Mike is referring to the “ten of the more ominous model-based projections” which Idso specifies in the third paragraph of the Introduction. It is true that these ten projections are nowhere referenced by Idso. If Mike is not discussing the lack of references in the paper, how can he claim that these ten issues addressed by the paper are “caricatures” of the major scientific claims made by AGWers?
1. Unprecedented warming. Fundamental AGW claim
2, 3, 5. More frequent severe weather Fundamental AGW claim
4. Rising sea level Fundamental AGW claim
6. Higher temps impact species mortality Fundamental AGW claim
7. Loss of species Fundamental AGW claim
8. Declining plant productivity ? (Fundamental)?
9, 10. Coral bleaching, Ocean acidification Fundamental AGW claim
None of these are caricatures and only ONE might be on the outskirts of climate alarmists major fears. Perhaps Mike can provide us with other claims by AGWers of the dangerous effects of increasing CO2?
Even if one were to grant that the warmists are correct, the Mega-Trillion costs that the US would have to shoulderover the next century would have next to no effect on the climate… that, even according to warmist “scientists”. Something on the order of a fraction of 1/10 of 1 degree over a century. Sounds like a good investment in lives (poor people will die) and fortune to me.
Smokey (January 31, 10.05 p.m.) has a link to the story about Himalayan glaciers. In it, the quote says: ‘Contrary to popular belief, the ice flows are not retreating…etc, etc…’
Hang on a minute – ‘Contrary to popular belief..??’ What kind of scientific research method is that..?? So – once the IPCC ‘scientists’ have said it, its ‘popular belief’, is it..?
Where does that fit with ‘peer review’, I ask myself..?
Here is the long term perspective on CO2 and the earth’s future:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B9p_cojT-pflYzNhMTc3NzktMWYyOS00ZTRkLWI4YjgtNzgzY2JiOTNkZWNl&hl=en_GB
CO2 is the biosphere’s future. No CO2, no biosphere. Eventual biosphere extinction in about 1 billion years is predicted to be caused by CO2 starvation, not temperature.
George E. Smith says:
February 1, 2011 at 11:01 am
By then we will have had 50 years of experience with the consequences of having earth’s temperature increase by one deg C out of a total range of 150 deg C on any given day. If we don’t like what happened in that 50 years, we can stop adding any more CO2, and Mother gaia, will get rid of that additional 100 ppm in about 28 months; well wait on; mother Gaia doesn’t simply maintain a short term trend indefinitely
You seem to be forgetting that Mother Gaia also releases ~150 GtC into the atmosphere as well as removing it. It will take a lot longer than 11.5 years to remove the excess above 280 ppm.
Mike says:
January 31, 2011 at 9:15 pm
And if you knew that the only way to slow down was to explosively dump the air out of your tires, and there was a 95% chance that you would sink into the mud and falling tree branches would crush your car, would you not just floor it and fly over the bridge as fast as you could?
Goofy Warmist “what-if” hand-waving analogies are not helpful, Mikey.
Once again, the Idsos are my favorite climate scientists, because they study the point of the whole thing–actual living organisms. And because all their arguments are based squarely on measured data, not long-streams-of guesswork based 10 assumptions ago on data.
This report is a parody of Climate Science, it seems like a special report from The Onion!
Let’s address the self-contradicting claims there:
1. Unprecedented Warming of the Planet
It is claimed:
“Combining these two observations, we have a situation where, compared with the mean conditions of the preceding four interglacials, there is currently 100 ppm more CO2 in the air than there was then, and it is currently more than 2°C colder than it was then, which adds up to one huge discrepancy for the world’s climate alarmists and their claim that high atmospheric CO2 concentrations lead to high temperatures. The situation is unprecedented, all right, but not in the way the public is being led to believe.”
What a joke! This does not more and not less than confirming what climate scientists have been saying for decades. Hansen make exactly the same observations, to support his views.
Then we have the Ljungqvist’s 2010 reference, showing a graph that show the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods as warm as today temperatures. The problem is that the Ljungqvist’s is mutilated: the HADCRU actual temperatures are not showed in the graph that Craig D. Idso and Sherwood B. Idso show as the Ljungqvist’s (2010) one. It is better then to read the full Ljungqvist’s (2010) article here:
NEW RECONSTRUCTION OF TEMPERATURE VARIABILITY IN THE EXTRA-TROPICAL NORTHERN HEMISPHERE DURING THE LAST TWO MILLENNIA
http://agbjarn.blog.is/users/fa/agbjarn/files/ljungquist-temp-reconstruction-2000-years.pdf
See fig 3.
And remember that HADCRU excludes most of the Arctic, so its estimate is a lower bound on recent warming. Including the Arctic, as does GISTEMP, will show a greater warming. And of course the timeseries of Ljungqvist’s (2010) ends in 1999, while the Earth has continued warming all those 11 years.
So the best approximation to today NH extratropics temperature is this:
Temperature anomaly 2001-2010 (HADCRU baseline: 1961-1990)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=12&year1=2001&year2=2010&base1=1961&base2=1990&radius=1200&pol=reg
Note the range for the zone 90–30°N: between 0.4ºC and a full 3ºC temperature anomaly relative to the HADCRU baseline (1961–1990). That’s certainly bigger than the 4ºC anomaly in the Ljungqvist’s 2010 that is already at the peak of the MWP.
So the conclusion comparing proxies to data is that current warming is indeed bigger than in the Medieval and Roman times, unless you hide the incline of course.
(Note: comparing proxies to actual temperatures isn’t comparing apples to oranges: is comparing reconstructed past temperatures to measured present temperatures. Temperatures vs. temperatures. No problem unless you want to hide the incline)
And then the most important point, that get us back to the present interglacial vs. previous interglacial periods. Climate “skeptics” like to show that past climate change is bigger or similar than current climate change. But then claim that climate sensitivity is low. This two claims are contradictory, if one is true the other is false. Let’s see why:
Climate change, manmade or natural, does not occur spontaneously. It occurs because there is an extrnal forcing in the Climate System. It can be astronomical cycles (Milanktovich cycles), changes in solar activity, changes in volcanic activity or changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. If the climate responded strongly to past (natural) forcings, then it MUST respoind also strongly to manmade forcing. That simple and clear.
If the medieval warm period and the Roman Warm period were indeed warmer than today (forced by lower volcanic activity and higher solar activity), then climate sensitivity is higher than assumed in the climate models and future global warming will be bigger than predicted.
Hansen used the past warming/cooling events between glacial and interglacial period to calculate climate sensitivity. The result is near 3ºC per doubling of CO2 or 0.8ºC/(W/m^2). This is used as input for the equation:
Warming/cooling= forcing * sensitivity
That gives the amount of global warming or global cooling.
All I have shown is based on empirical observations, not in climate models. The main article statement:
“these frightening future scenarios are derived from a single source of information: the ever-evolving computer-driven climate models”
Is quite false.
From Peru – we scan see how warm the planet has become in your part of the world:
=========
BBC NEWS | Americas | Peru cold snap kills 70 children
25 Jul 2007
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(250) Children die in harsh Peru winter
BBC – July 12, 2009
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BBC News – Peru declares emergency over cold weather
24 Jul 2010
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Peru declares emergency as cold snaps kill hundreds – GlobalTimes
26 Jul 2010
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Now you produced a lot of meaningless waffle designed to support Hansen, but you neglected to address a single point on biology from the paper in your effort. Unlike those in the scientology industry, the authors’ seem to understand that a biosphere includes not just thermometers but…living stuff. (Blasphemy!)
For example, plants really do grow 2-3 times faster in a post normal CO2 situation. Did you know that? This is not some socially-constructed paradigm that can be changed at whim: it is a bio-logical fact.
You don’ have to accept this claim, however: you could conduct the experiment yourself, assuming that the climate in Peru improves.
The executive summary of the Idso’s book shows how flawed the thinking is.
Paragraph 1 makes the point the CO2 is a small percentage of the earths atmosphere. This is an old skeptic argument that is scientific nonsense. Scientists have calculated that the effect of CO2 plus the feedback effect of water vapor has increased the average temperature of the earth by 33C. The physics underlying these calculations are ironclad.
The next paragraph essentially says that since we don’t know everything, we know nothing. This assumes that what we don’t know will cancel out the effects that we do know, which project a warmer average temperature, and more extreme events associated with increased evaporation and higher concentration of water vapor. The uncertainties associated with clouds, decline of glaciers etc. actually have the potential to make things worse. To use the uncertainties as an excuse to do nothing is to assume an ostrich like posture.
Paragraph 3, is the claim that more CO2 has been good for plant growth, thus far. However the IPCC report recognizes that initially, some areas will benefit from global warming, but the effects are non linear and will be quite damaging above an increase of 2C. CO2 doesn’t do plants any good when increased frequency and intensity of drought in some areas, and inundation of flood prone agricultural areas destroy agricultural areas. Climate change already threatens some species because earlier spring is interfering with the synchronization of events depended on by many species.
The f inal paragraph demands that climate models do what they are incapable of doing – accurately predicting year to year behavior of a chaotic system. This is not a requirement for the job that they are supposed to do, estimation of long term trends with statistical uncertainty. Calling CO2 a non meteorological parameter is nonsense. This has been understood since 1859 when John Tyndall measured to spectrum of Greenhouse Gases to confirm the theory of how the earths temperature us maintained, which Fourier proposed in 1824. It is pretty clear that the Idso’s are using the wrong part of their brains to think about this subject.
REPLY: And it’s pretty clear to me you need to “get a life”. All you do is complain about what others do, but you yourself contribute nothing beyond complaints. It is rather tiring. – Anthony
Khwarizmi:
These cold snaps occur every year, because in July-August Peru is in the middle of WINTER.
But warming can be disastrous to my country:
Catastrophic Drought Looms for Capital City of Bolivia
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=118047&org=NSF&from=news
Amazon may be headed for another bad drought
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/03/us-amazon-peru-idUSTRE6825EU20100903
This drought was caused, like in 2005, by high Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SST), as shown in this article:
The Drought of Amazonia in 2005
http://mudancasclimaticas.cptec.inpe.br/~rmclima/pdfs/publicacoes/2008/Marengoetal2008.pdf
With global warming, the frequency of high Tropical Atlantic SST years will obviously increase.
Then you said:
“For example, plants really do grow 2-3 times faster in a post normal CO2 situation. Did you know that? This is not some socially-constructed paradigm that can be changed at whim: it is a bio-logical fact”
But:
“Higher carbon dioxide levels generally cause plants to grow larger. For some crops, this is not necessarily a benefit because they are often less nutritious, with reduced nitrogen and protein content”
“Weeds, diseases, and insect pests benefit from warming, and weeds also benefit from a higher carbon dioxide concentration, increasing stress on crop plants and requiring more attention to pest and weed control”
Source:
http://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimpacts/pdfs/agriculture.pdf
A source of this report is this:
The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture http://www.sap43.ucar.edu/documents/Agriculture.pdf
In this report is is clear that the CO2 increases plant growth by at best 30-40%, not the 200-300% you said. Temperature increases reduce this benefit to at best 10% and in some cases the net result is harm, not benefit. Add to this droughts and floods…