The benefits of Carbon Dioxide

Historically, the “bread and circuses” era occurred in Rome after it had almost entirely farmed out its military service to provincials, and the citizenry was mostly unemployed, poor, and idle. Which is the much-hoped-for condition pursued by progressives, greens, and Warmists.

@Patrick Davis
I take it you are new to all this as Sourcewatch is not a reliable resource,
Sourcewatch (Discover the Networks)

A project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), […]
These “exposes,” which tend to be critical of their subjects, deal predominantly with conservative entities… […]
As with the online reference Wikipedia, the contents of SourceWatch are written and edited by ordinary Web users. Says SourceWatch: “You don’t need any special credentials to participate — we shun credentialism along with other propaganda techniques.” While stating that it seeks to maintain fairness in the profiles and articles appearing on its website, SourceWatch does acknowledge that “ignoring systemic bias and claiming objectivity is itself one of many well-known propaganda techniques.” […]
…The perspectives are mostly leftist; the entries rely heavily on leftist and far-leftist sources.

Center for Media and Democracy (Discover the Networks)

An anti-capitalist, anti-corporate organization that seeks to expose right-wing “public relations spin and propaganda”.
In CMD’s view, capitalism generally, and corporations in particular, are the principal root causes of societal ills in the U.S. and abroad. The Capital Research Center, which rates the ideological leanings of nonprofit organizations, places CMD near the extreme far left of the spectrum. The website ActivistCash, which provides “information about the funding source[s] of radical anti-consumer organizations and activists,” characterizes CMD as “a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization.” […]
CMD was founded by the leftist writer and environmental activist John Stauber, who continues to serve as the Center’s Executive Director. Stauber began his activism in high school when he organized anti-Vietnam War protests and early Earth Day events. The co-author (with SourceWatch founder Sheldon Rampton) of six books, Stauber created the now-defunct website Vote2StopBush.org. He is also an unpaid advisor to several organizations, including the Action Coalition for Media Education, the Center for Food Safety, the Liberty Tree Foundation, the Media Education Foundation, and the Organic Consumers Association.
The aforementioned Sheldon Rampton currently serves as CMD’s Research Director. A graduate of Princeton University, Rampton was formerly an outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, a group established in 1984 to oppose President Reagan’s efforts to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, and currently dedicated to promoting a leftist vision of “social justice in Nicaragua through alternative models of development and activism.”
An April 2001 commentary in the liberal publication Village Voice said of Rampton and Stauber: “These guys come from the far side of liberal.”

People need to look farther then their first Google result.

Oxygen is good. What would happen if we doubled the concentration of oxygen? I can’t imagine there might be a downside.
http://secure.ntsg.umt.edu/publications/2010/ZR10/Zhao_Running_Science_2010.pdf

eadler says:
February 11, 2011 at 9:55 am
[snip – eadler, if you want to continue posting here, learn not to cite videos produced by a an Gore trained antogonist as “proof” of anything. And how about actually buying the book and READING it before make pronouncements on how terrible it is. You really are nothing more than an uncurious dogma regurgitator when you post comments like this. – Anthony]
The idea that droughts and floods would impact agriculture in AGW proceeded past 2C comes from the IPCC report and the US EPA. The USDA points out that weeds would benefit the most from CO2, and the effect of weed killers would be reduced, and that the plants grown with higher CO2 concentration contain a lower concentration of the nutrients that humans need.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/agriculture.html
Agriculture is highly sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes, such as droughts, floods and severe storms. The forces that shape our climate are also critical to farm productivity. Human activity has already changed atmospheric characteristics such as temperature, rainfall, levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and ground level ozone. The scientific community expects such trends to continue. While food production may benefit from a warmer climate, the increased potential for droughts, floods and heat waves will pose challenges for farmers. Additionally, the enduring changes in climate, water supply and soil moisture could make it less feasible to continue crop production in certain regions.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded:
Recent studies indicate that increased frequency of heat stress, droughts and floods negatively affect crop yields and livestock beyond the impacts of mean climate change, creating the possibility for surprises, with impacts that are larger, and occurring earlier, than predicted using changes in mean variables alone. This is especially the case for subsistence sectors at low latitudes. Climate variability and change also modify the risks of fires, pest and pathogen outbreak, negatively affecting food, fiber and forestry.
I don’t need to read their book to see that the Idsos’ assessment is one sided. It is evident from the description you provide.
REPLY: You are one to talk about being “one sided”- you have only one train of thought here – Anthony

JPeden says:
February 11, 2011 at 12:31 pm
R. Gates says:
February 11, 2011 at 7:11 am
Perhaps the American Medical Association should print a pamphlet about the benefits of carbon dioxide in the human bloodstream. Of course, they’d have to mention that there is a RANGE in which carbon dioxide is beneficial, below which or above which, the system undergoes some unpleasant changes.
So, Gates, it’s always “Be afraid, be very afraid of CO2″? Yep, that sure sounds exactly like Climate Science = Post Normal Science = Not Real Science, to me.
_____
Point is, which it seems you missed, is that there is a RANGE, in which CO2 is “good”, and of course, the definition of “good” is relative to the life form or species or ecosystem you’re referring to. There are undoubtedly benefits to CO2, so long as it remains within a range, as it has for the past 800,000 years, during which time (mainly during the past 10,000 years) humans have enjoyed the benefits of that range. We are now out of that range and continuing upward into uncharted territory so far as modern humans are concerned. The whole nature of the climate debate is what that uncharted territory will be like.

John Brookes says:
February 11, 2011 at 6:28 am “…I’m lookng (sic) forward to their next volume…”
And we’re looking forward to your next stupid statement. 😉
PS: lookng is actually spelled “looking”. Just fyi! Regards!!
Otherwise, on serious matters, I look froward to reading this book. Bravo, Messrs. Idso.

Re eadler says:
February 11, 2011 at 4:55 pm
eadler says:
February 11, 2011 at 9:55 am
[snip – eadler, if you want to continue posting here, learn not to cite videos produced by a an Gore trained antagonist as “proof” of anything. And how about actually buying the book and READING it before make pronouncements on how terrible it is. You really are nothing more than an uncurious dogma regurgitator when you post comments like this. – Anthony]
“The idea that droughts and floods would impact agriculture in AGW proceeded past 2C comes from the IPCC report and the US EPA. The USDA points out that weeds would benefit the most from CO2, and the effect of weed killers would be reduced, and that the plants grown with higher CO2 concentration contain a lower concentration of the nutrients that humans need.”
Eadler, you should read the book. A lower concentration of nutrients, maybe, yet the mass increases far more, so there is a NET GAIN in nutrients. Also the weed points is addressed, but you need to do a little research on your own. (hint)
Eadler goes on…”Agriculture is highly sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes, such as droughts, floods and severe storms. The forces that shape our climate are also critical to farm productivity.”
Eadler, do you recognize tautology in the above statement, the fact is that increases in CO2 make plants MORE tolerant of heat drought and weather extremes, hint, read the book.
Eadler continues….
“Human activity has already changed atmospheric characteristics such as temperature, rainfall, levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and ground level ozone. The scientific community EXPECTS such trends to continue. While food production MAY benefit from a warmer climate, the increased POTETIAL for droughts, floods and heat waves WILL pose challenges for farmers.”
Eadler for your edification, MAY and POTENTIAL refer to things that have not happened, so one cannot say they WILL do anything,
Eadler continues….”Additionally, the enduring changes in climate, water supply and soil moisture COULD make it less feasible to continue crop production in certain regions.” Wow Elder, OK, climate ALWAYS changes, water supplies ALWAYS have flux, crops ALWAYS have some good and some bad years. The fact is that increased CO2 is KNOWN to increase the ability of food to grow, even with a reduction in water and or an increase in heat, and there is evidence that more CO2 will reduce drought.
Eadler and the IPCC continue…”The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded: Recent studies INDICATE that increased frequency of heat stress, droughts and floods negatively affect crop yields and livestock beyond the impacts of mean climate change, (Elder, a pause for your reading skills and a chance for you to recognize yet more tautology, of course studies have KNOWN this for a long time, and any increase of extreme events will of course have greater impacts, but there has been NO SUCH INCREASE OBSERVED.
Eadler continues…” creating the POSSIBILITIES for surprises, with impacts that are larger, and occurring earlier, than predicted using changes in mean variables alone. This is especially the case for subsistence sectors at low latitudes. Climate variability and change also modify the risks of fires, pest and pathogen outbreak, negatively affecting food, fiber and forestry.
Eadler think, much more likely and as has been OBSERVED, increased CO2 can and DOES positively affect food fiber and forestry in the real world. READ the Book.
Eadler concludes “I don’t need to read their book to see that the Idsos’ assessment is one sided. It is evident from the description you provide.”
Respectfully Eadler you do, as the book carefully compares what the IPCC says COULD, MAY, POSSIBLY and POTENTIALLY will happen, with what REAL WORLD studies and PEER REVIEWED research says DOES happen.

The Brookhaven National Lab FACE site has a wide range of global Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment site data and resulting scientific paper listings. http://www.bnl.gov/face/Publications.asp. The authors’ conclusions drawn from the various studies do not agree with each other. Tracking back through some of the authors personal views indicate scientific fault lines here as well.

R. Gates says:
February 11, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Point is, which it seems you missed, is that there is a RANGE, in which CO2 is “good”…. We are now out of that range and continuing upward into uncharted territory so far as modern humans are concerned. The whole nature of the climate debate is what that uncharted territory will be like.
Gates, since you don’t think that I was in any way talking about CO2 concentration “ranges”, it seems we might simply have a difference of word definitions for “range”: imo, you are possibly confusing your own given psycho de-range-ment, which does indeed appear to necessarliy involve that you will always be “continuing upward into uncharted territory”, with a consideration of what a “range” of CO2 concentrations might mean back here in the real world.
Well, at least it works for me.

David says:
February 12, 2011 at 12:20 am
Eadler, you should read the book. A lower concentration of nutrients, maybe, yet the mass increases far more, so there is a NET GAIN in nutrients. Also the weed points is addressed, but you need to do a little research on your own. (hint)
A lot of work has been done on the effect of CO2 on plant growth. It turns out that the effect depends very heavily on the type of plant, and the conditions of growth in addition to CO2. According to this paper, the experimental results of CO2 stimulated growth need to be characterized by these other conditions in order to determine what the effects are.
http://se-server.ethz.ch/Staff/af/AR4-Ch4_Grey_Lit/Ko110.pdf
Plant CO2 responses: an issue of definition, time and
resource supply
Christian Körner, Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, CH-4056 Basel Switzerland
Conclusions
In this review I tried to highlight major co-determinants of plant CO2-responses, which need to be accounted for, should the resultant trends not just reflect the abundance of a certain type of studies (Pendall, 2002). The results of 20 experiments, with examples for plants growing under conditions of a close to natural nutrient cycle in >160 ppm above ambient CO2, yield a different picture of CO2 biomass effects as had previously
emerged from not separating expanding versus steady state, fertilized versus
unfertilized or young versus mature plant stands. These types of experimental
conditions appear to be far more important than whether plants grow in enclosures or not.
….
Studies conducted under conditions in which plant growth was coupled to the nutrient cycle, and particularly those in which plants had reached a steady state canopy development, revealed far smaller (often zero) influences of elevated CO2 on standing crop biomass and productivity than had been found in systems decoupled from natural resource supply by either fertilizing, disturbing or wide spacing. Altogether these data warn at overstating beneficial effects of a CO2 rich world for plant growth, based on
inappropriate experimental conditions for such projections or unconstrained models, in essence based on photosynthesis. I had not presented any mean responses as became popular in such reviews, because any such mean would simply reflect the mix of data used. A best guess may be that the upper limit of a long-term steady biomass response is below +10 %, with steady state effects close to zero being most likely under natural conditions. The biosphere may in fact be carbon saturated already at current CO2 concentrations (Körner, 2003b). It is important to keep in mind that any growth stimulation would enhance forest dynamics and would translate into greater abundance
of fast growing taxa, with likely negative effects on overall carbon storage. Disregarding such forest dynamics effects, a global upper limit of net ecosystem C-fixation due to elevated CO2 was considered to be 10 % of the projected anthropogenic CO2 release by 2050 (Hamilton et al., 2002). Even agricultural yield predictions for a double CO2 world have come down dramatically (to ca. 10%), after experimental approaches adopted the
28 relevant scales (Kimball et al., 2002). Such trials are, unfortunately, missing for the major natural forest biomes of the globe, but are urgently needed in light of the rapid alteration of the globes carbon diet and its effects on biodiversity (Körner et al., 2006).
This science definitively has to move beyond primarily looking for missing carbon.
REPLY: LOL! Eadler will write up most anything to keep from having to read the book – A

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