Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
This is Part 3 of a four part series. If you are not familiar with The Fight Against Global Greening – Part 1 and Part 2, you can either read them in their entirety and then read this, or read the introduction of Part 1 up to the line “Let’s look at #1” and then read this. — kh
Carl Zimmer of the NY Times has said “‘Global Greening’ Sounds Good. In the Long Run, It’s Terrible.”. In collaboration with Dr. J. E. Campbell of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, he has stated that position, offering us these:
Bad Things About Global Greening: (quoted from Zimmer’s article)
1. “More Photosynthesis Doesn’t Mean More Food“
2. “Extra Carbon Dioxide Can Make Plants Less Nutritious”
3. “More Plants Won’t Prevent Climate Change”
4. “Global Greening Won’t Last Forever”
In Part 1, we looked at the question of the relationship between increased photosynthesis and food production (Zimmer’s #1). In Part 2, we discussed the claim that “extra carbon dioxide can make plants less nutritious”.
Let’s Look at #3: “More Plants Won’t Prevent Climate Change”
Here’s what Zimmer and Campbell say:
“More Plants Won’t Prevent Climate Change
“It’s not just strawberries and other crops that are taking in extra carbon dioxide. So are the forests, grasslands and other wild ecosystems of the world.
When scientists take into account both extra photosynthesis and respiration, they estimate that plants remove a quarter of the carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere.
“That’s on par with what China emits,” said Dr. Campbell. “And China is the biggest global polluter.”
Even more remarkably, the plants have been scrubbing the same fraction of carbon dioxide out of the air even as our emissions explode.
“Every year we build more power plants, and every year the plants take out more CO2,” Dr. Campbell said.
But that isn’t cause to celebrate. It’s a bit like hearing that your chemotherapy is slowing the growth of your tumor by 25 percent.
Despite global greening, carbon dioxide levels have climbed over the past two centuries to levels not seen on Earth for millions of years. And the carbon dioxide we’ve injected into the atmosphere is already having major impacts across the planet.
The six warmest years on record all occurred after 2010. The weather has already become more extreme. Sea levels have risen. The oceans are acidifying.
If plants keep on absorbing only a quarter of our carbon dioxide in the future, then we can expect all these trends to get stronger.
In other words, if global greening isn’t saving us now, we can’t rely on it to save us in the future.”
Let’s try to figure out the logic to what Zimmer and Campbell are saying. They accept without argument that:
- “plants remove a quarter of the carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere.”
“That’s on par with what China emits,” said Dr. Campbell. “And China is the biggest global polluter.”
2. “the plants have been scrubbing the same fraction of carbon dioxide out of the air even as our emissions explode.”
“Every year we build more power plants, and every year the plants take out more CO2,” Dr. Campbell said.
Now, if any other process could be credited with removing a full 25% of all CO2 emitted by mankind every year, year after year, it would be labelled heroic. Governments and laboratories are fielding schemes to hopefully remove fairly small amounts of CO2 or to prevent them from being emitted in the first place — these pages here at WUWT feature these ideas, one after another — schemes to convert CO2 into rocks, capture CO2 into fuels like ammonia, capture and store CO2 in caves and oil wells. Just imagine for a moment that we were talking about China reducing its CO2 emissions to zero overnight. This is what Global Greening is currently doing, cost free.
But instead of applauding this biologically-induced geoengineering feat, Zimmer offers us (and I am actually embarrassed, on his behalf, to quote him) this:
“But that isn’t cause to celebrate.
It’s a bit like hearing that your chemotherapy is slowing the growth of your tumor by 25 percent.”
[ Let’s ignore the insensitivity of this statement — how hurtful it must be to those fighting cancer themselves, or with relatives fighting cancer, around the world, who would be thrilled to hear that the growth their tumors had been slowed. The comparison of CO2 emissions to cancer is itself is a vicious bit of insensitive propaganda hype. ]
The reduction of CO2 emissions by an entire “China’s worth” is “not a cause for celebration”? Apparently, for Zimmer and Campbell, all of the Paris Agreement targets, even if actually being met by any country, would also not be “cause to celebrate”. After all, they only slow the growth of atmospheric CO2 , they do not eliminate it altogether.
It is difficult to follow this line of reasoning….it doesn’t actually seem to be a line of reasoning, but rather a line of unreasoning. The majority of the scientific world concerned with atmospheric CO2 is struggling, fighting, to reduce emissions and, if possible, remove CO2 from the atmosphere in order to reduce CO2 concentrations, which the IPCC has claimed to be dangerous. Yet Zimmer vainly tries to convince us that a no-cost, no-effort method that annually removes an amount of CO2 equivalent to the entire annual emissions of the world’s worst emitter, China, is “not a cause to celebrate.”
His position is simply paraphrased as: “There is no good in removing CO2 from the atmosphere unless you can entirely stop its concentration from growing.” With this he has thrown the entire Paris Agreement effort under the bus.
What effect does Global Greening have on atmospheric CO2 concentrations? Zimmer and Campbell have stipulated [agreed without the necessity of argument] that Global Greening removes from the atmosphere some about 10 billion tons of CO2 annually. Not only that, but it keeps removing more each year as the globe greens.
Really? Yes, here’s the graph:
This graph, from UCSD/Scripps, represents the Earth’s “breathing” — in the Northern spring and summer, growing plants remove CO2 faster than we emit it and the monthly data points go down. As growth slows in the mid-summer and through winter, plants don’t take up as much CO2 and emissions get ahead. The Southern hemisphere does not have as much an effect on the graph as does the Northern hemisphere. We see though that as Global Greening takes hold, it takes up more parts-per-million year to year — in the 1960s, the seasonal difference was 6.2 ppm, by 2018 it has risen to 9 ppm.
Then this:
The other thing that is obvious is that CO2 concentrations (in ppm) continue to rise as modern societies (and Nature) continue to emit more CO2 than increased plant photosynthesis takes up. Since 2000, from the first chart above, the annual increase in ppm of seasonal uptake of CO2 has been about 0.125ppm/year — or 1/8th of a ppm per year. In eight years, that increase is 1 ppm. But CO2 is increasing at an average rate (2010-2017) of 2.54 ppm/year. Global Greening will not catch up at these rates, will not stop and will not reverse the increase of CO2 atmospheric concentrations by itself.
Zimmer and Campbell are right on this score:
Global Greening, by itself, will not stop the rise in atmospheric CO2.
Now that we’ve got a good handle on the facts, let’s revisit what claim Zimmer was attempting to refute with his odd claim that “Global Greening is terrible because “More Plants Won’t Prevent Climate Change””.
Did anyone ever claim that Global Greening would prevent climate change?
In Zimmer’s “Global Greening….it’s Terrible” article in the NY Times, Zimmer says:
“Climate change denialists were quick to jump on Dr. Campbell’s research as proof that increased carbon dioxide is making the world a better place.
“So-called carbon pollution has done much more to expand and invigorate the planet’s greenery than all the climate policies of all the world’s governments combined,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute declared shortly after the study came out.
“The best messages are positive: CO2 increases crop yields, the earth is greening,” wrote Joseph Bast, the chief executive officer of the Heartland Institute, in an October 2017 email obtained by EE News.
In June, Mr. Bast co-authored an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal in which he cited Dr. Campbell’s work as evidence of the benefits of fossil fuels. Our unleashing of carbon dioxide contributes “to the greening of the Earth,” he said. “
Zimmer engages in a journalistic trick — he jumps in with both boots to refute something that was never claimed in the first place — no one ever claimed that Global Greening would stop climate change.
How many things can you list that are good that will not stop climate change? World Peace, an AIDS vaccine, ending poverty, an unbiased press. The list is pretty long. None of these would be terrible just because they don’t stop climate change, and neither is Global Greening.
It is not that Zimmer and Campbell don’t have a valid point — they do, but they don’t state it and they don’t use it — they do something illogical and try to establish a falsehood as true instead.
It would have been simple enough to say that, from their viewpoint, while Global Greening may be a positive side effect of rising atmospheric CO2, their concerns about the potential negative effects of global warming/climate change lead them to continue to believe that rising atmospheric CO2 is, on balance, a negative thing, a bad thing, and in their odd choice of words, “terrible”. We could accept that — they are allowed to have a point of view and to state it along with their reasoning for holding that viewpoint. But Zimmer seems to have allowed himself to be swept up by emotion-fueled advocacy — his need to fight “climate change” at any cost — and lost his thread of rationality, abandoned his journalistic ethics and destroyed my respect for him as a science journalist. Had he been writing on the Opinion pages of the NY Times, as Andy Revkin did, he could bang away with his climate change advocacy to his heart’s content — but personal opinion disguised as facts doesn’t belong in the Science news section of any newspaper.
What he never should have tried to do is to convince his readers that “Global Greening is terrible” — it is not — GLOBAL GREENING IS WONDERFUL
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Author’s Comment Policy:
I was saddened by Carl Zimmer’s descent into irrational advocacy. He is a sharp guy and usually writes good science journalism. We often see the same thing here with our readers and their comments — someone who normally writes good comments, makes good observations, raises interesting questions suddenly flips and becomes an irrational advocate blathering illogic about some specialized topic — be it GMOs or Feral Cats. It takes a very strong mind to keep on the rather narrow path of good science, rational thought, critical thinking and logical argument when dealing with a subject about which one is passionate. The ability to do so is a trait we ascribe to scientists — who, because they are human like the rest of us, often let us down in this regard.
I hope readers will confine their comments to the subject of this essay. Hint: it is about science journalism, Global Greening good-or-bad, and how advocacy and science reporting must not be mixed.
Recently, I have noticed that many readers treat every comment thread as an Open Thread — in which they are free to discuss — and endless argue — whatever is on their minds. This is not true. The Policy of WUWT states: “Some off topic comments may get deleted, don’t take it personally, it happens. Commenters that routinely lead threads astray in areas that are not relevant or are of personal interest only to them may find these posts deleted.” Moderation here is done with a light hand, but the principle of commenting on topic remains.
Address your comments to “Kip…” if you are speaking specifically to me and I’ll try to respond.
Thanks for reading.
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Quick Links:
The Fight Against Global Greening – Part 1
The Fight Against Global Greening – Part 2
Zimmer’s NY Times article “Global Greening….it’s Terrible”
The Competitive Enterprise Institute declared shortly after the study came out
EE News: Skeptics suspicious of Pruitt plan to press him on red team
October 2017 Heartland email [illegally?] obtained by EE News [pdf]
Our unleashing of carbon dioxide contributes “to the greening of the Earth,”
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Zimmer starts with the presumption global warming is a bad thing, which he has made no attempt to establish. Given that the Medieval Warm Period was rather nice, let alone the interestingly named Holocene Climatic Optimum, were warmer than the present, how, pray tell, is warming bad?
Historically, cold periods are associated with barbarian invasions, drought, famine, and societal collapse. S
Global Greening means more food can be grown locally.
More food grown locally lessens food distribution fuel consumption.
Less food distribution fuel consumption lessens fuel distribution fuel consumption.
Phytoplankton consume CO2 through photosynthesis just as vegetation does. A more robust marine food chain should be included under the Global-Greening umbrella.
Blue whales consume krill
Krill consume phytoplankton
Phytoplankton consume Carbon dioxide
Increasing whales’ food source is not ‘terrible’, right?
“abandoned his journalistic ethics”
Is there any evidence that he had such ethics in the first place?
It takes no “ethics” to report correctly on things that you either agree with, or at worst don’t care about.
Ethics only show up when reporting on things that you disagree with.
I immediately thought of the other great sink: phytoplankton. What are they up to of late? A search produced this:
“Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton consume carbon dioxide on a scale equivalent to forests and other land plants. Some of this carbon is carried to the deep ocean when phytoplankton die, and some is transferred to different layers of the ocean as phytoplankton are eaten by other creatures, which themselves reproduce, generate waste, and die.”
Source:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Phytoplankton
I particularly love the term ‘waste’. It is of course calcareous sediment which produces one of the most important resources on earth: limestone. I wonder if the office building, or the city from which the piece was written is defined as waste?
There is no waste in the rock cycle.
Regards
M
Reminds me of the country song which goes: “If global Greening is wrong, I don’t want to be right”.
One of the reasons “greening” does not automatically equate with restraining changes in rising ambient CO2 levels is because since the early 1980s there has been an increase in the rate of “browning” biomass that do not partake of CO2. And from mid 1990s the rate of “browning” sped up while “greening” continued it’s trend progression. See Pan, et al (2018) data to 2013 study “Increasing global vegetation browning hidden in overall vegetation greening: insights from time-varying trends” free full text is available on-lline.
Maybe they could put some error bars on that statement. Given the imprecision with which we know any of the intakes and outputs of CO2, it is truly amazing that they do the arithmetic in such a manner that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is explained to within one percent by human emissions. Now that’s remarkable. /sarc
2. “Extra Carbon Dioxide Can Make Plants Less Nutritious”
well…of course…and so does extra water…..it’s called dilution
But they never qualify how much less…..I would bet it’s so little no one would notice
““That’s on par with what China emits,” said Dr. Campbell. “And China is the biggest global polluter.””
Well good for them….it would have killed them to say…..that’s on par with twice what the USA emits
I’m reminded of Kip’s earlier piece “Editorial Narratives in Science Journalism” in which he linked to a former NYT reporter who described the editorial process at the ‘Times [link at end of comment]. He wrote, “It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse [of the LA Times]. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.” Reading Kip’s systematic refutation of the Zimmer piece got me to wondering if he was ordered to produce that piece, regardless of any logic, to attempt to reduce any blowback from the earlier piece. If so, I wonder how he feels being asked to besmirch his own reputation in this manner. link: https://deadline.com/2016/11/shocked-by-trump-new-york-times-finds-time-for-soul-searching-1201852490/
…
Few weeks ago I mentioned man made greening of the Sahara desert, they must have found a large underground water reservoir, fascinating images.
paste into google earth search box (top of the page, left)
N22 47 42, E28 31 30
then zoom out and travel south.
Google Earth measures circle’s diameter at half a mile.
As a layman it never ceases to amaze me the numbers that are involved here, and the people.
And at the risk of boring everyone to tears with me banging on about it, John Tyndall himself told us “water vapour is the strongest absorber of radiant heat in the atmosphere and is the principal gas controlling air temperature. Absorption by the other gases is not negligible but relatively small.”
So the great man himself tells us that water vapour is the control knob of global temperature, strange, I know, but the numbers tell us why.
Greenhouse gas concentrations are as follows (roughly):
Water Vapour – 95%
CO2 – 4%
Nitrous Oxide – 1%
Methane – 0.4%
Aerosols – 0.1%
(The numbers are rounded so, no, they won’t add up)
Of the total figure, mankind’s CO2 contribution is around 0.12%. That is a staggeringly small number to overpoweringly influence all other greenhouse gases. Even Tyndall said CO2 “is not negligible but relatively small.” consigning it to a bit part player, whilst not even considering man’s minuscule contribution.
So where did this idea that CO2 has turned into the mother of all greenhouse gases? It simply doesn’t make sense.
But it makes even less sense when it’s put into the context of total atmospheric gases where, as we all know, CO2 is around 0.04%, in which case man made CO2 is around 0.0012%, and if Kit’s numbers are correct, and I have no reason to doubt them, then 25% of man’s CO2 emissions taken up by plant life brings the excess CO2 down to around 0.0009%.
Seriously? Are we even capable of measuring atmospheric CO2 down to that tiny percentage in a climate system that doesn’t even mix the stuff very well?
Furthermore, my understanding is that CO2 is unevenly distributed across the planet, so where does this magic figure of 410ppm come from? One consistent location seems to be Mauna Loa, “the world’s largest and one of its most active volcanoes – a giant shield volcano on the Big Island of Hawai’i.” https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/maunaloa.html but CO2 can be measured there, to an accuracy of 0.0009%? OK, that’s not fair, to an accuracy of 0.0012%.
Hmmmmm……I’m certain there’s a rational explanation for siting a CO2 monitoring station on a volcano but as a layman, for the life of me, I can’t image what it is. It seems a bit like Anthony’s objections to temperature measurement stations being sited next to air conditioning vents.
However, it’s accepted by the scientific community so it’s not for me to question it.
So, I’ll refer back to my earlier paragraph describing CO2 as the mother of all greenhouse gases. I had an exchange with Kristi on another thread about the mixing of atmospheric gases and the subject of scientific averages.
Kristi quite rightly maintained that energy is passed between atmospheric gas molecules by simply bumping together, and my apologies if that is too simplistic a description of her point, however, assuming I interpreted it correctly, CO2 is such a powerful greenhouse gas that at a saturation of 0.12% of all greenhouse gases, and 0.0012% of all atmospheric gases, it dominates everything, despite what John Tyndall maintains, and as an unevenly mixed atmospheric gas, it somehow transfers all it’s negative qualities to every other molecule no matter how distant they are.
And yes, I get there are unique infrared qualities CO2 retains but really, it seems to me it’s something like the effect a single firefly would have in a jungle.
As for the average surface temperature of the planet, it’s a theoretical starting point, it’s almost meaningless. As with all averages on this scale, one could traverse the planet and never once, other than by sheer coincidence, stumble upon a single place, in a moment in time, that conforms to the scientific average whole number, never mind to a fraction of a degree.
So back to Kip’s point. Isn’t it simply miraculous that, as far as I’m aware, the only empirical manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2 on the planet is that it has greened by 14% in the last ~30 years, and ~70% of that has been attributed to increased atmospheric CO2 by NASA themselves.
One of the researchers, “co-author Zaichun Zhu, of Beijing University, puts it, it’s equivalent to adding a green continent twice the size of mainland USA.” http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/global-greening-versus-global-warming/
Think about that for more than a millisecond, that’s utterly staggering. If mankind’s CO2 emissions of 0.12% of all greenhouse gases can have this enormously beneficial effect, with no empirically demonstrated downside, what on earth (literally) are we doing wrong?
I could go on but it would get terribly boring (assuming it isn’t already), however, I’ll finish on one point. The number of scientist’s on this planet is probably in low single digit percentages. There are, in fact more Indians that there are Chiefs.
I have this bizarre notion that good working practices begin with a manager of any description (the Chief) being an advocate for his subordinate (the Indian), no matter how humble both stations are. ‘Intelligence’ comes from the ground up, a concept the armed forces are well aware of, so listening to, and representing subordinates in the chain of command is vital in any successful organisation. Equally, instruction from the top down must also be clear enough for an uneducated soldier to understand.
In the same way, scientists bear the awesome responsibility of undertaking their incredibly complicated work, exploring concepts from the ground up, but with the added responsibility of communicating with the layman i.e. me. in terms we understand to convey the lessons he/she learned.
Other than on very rare occasions, I don’t see that happening in science, I feel like science is dictating to their subordinates, and that’s not right unless science and its community operates for its own benefit, and then that gets scary.
I’m a layman. If what I have tapped out on my little PC is what I understand, and I’m wrong, then scientists aren’t doing their job properly.
If you got this far, thanks. 🙂
The figure shows the linear increase along with seasonal change and second figure shows the linear increase in CO2. Well, WMO presented the network of CO2 measurements and the rate of change with years and seasons [in my book “climate change: Myths and realities”, 2008, pages 127 to132]. The CO2 presents a non-linearincrease from around 1740 to 1980 [Figure 8b] and seasonal variation with non-linear yearly increase [1973 to 1986].
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Talk about grasping at straws (plastic ones) to support an untenable hypothesis. The desperation is palpable.
Well, what this garbage really is, is proof that it was never about the well-being of living organisms in the first place.
We could probably accelerate this trend. Since this makes growth in more marginal areas easier, we could plant trees and other plants across wide swaths of land in the western United States for example that would accelerate the take up of carbon, and make for more land for wildlife…
Just a thought.
KIp – you may find this of interest. Repeating from below:
Despite the huge quantities of manmade CO2 emissions, atmospheric CO2 did decrease year-over-year in some of the global cooling years from 1959-1974*.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/#comment-742481
Doug Cotton says:
January 8, 2012 at 1:57 pm
“Ferd. You do indeed seem very certain of your claims that “every time the planet warms CO2 levels increase” – so do they decrease as a result of it cooling – such as just after 1945? (LOL).”
Answer – Actually, Yes they did Doug
Despite the huge quantities of manmade CO2 emissions, atmospheric CO2 did decrease year-over-year in some of the global cooling years from 1959-1974*.
My question:
Has this not happened recently because of increased humanmade CO2 emissions, or because the world has, until recently, been getting warmer?
Regards (and LOL), Allan
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Annualized Mauna Loa dCO2/dt has “gone negative” a few times in the past (calculating dCO2/dt from monthly data, by taking CO2MonthX (year n+1) minus CO2MonthX (year n) to minimize the seasonal CO2 “sawtooth”.)
These 12-month periods when CO2 decreased are (Year and Month ending in):
1959-8
1963-9
1964-5
1965-1
1965-5
1965-6
1971-4
1974-6
1974-8
1974-9
Modern CO2 data collection at Mauna Loa started in ~1958.
One of the many things wrong with this objection to global greening is the delusion that CO2 is the only thing controlling the climate.
Competent scientists know that plans have a cooling effect, so global greening has an effect on temperature in addition to CO2 reduction.
Excellent post Kip. I appreciate the cogent discussion of CO2 uptake and the insights into Zimmer’s faulty logic. Strawman arguments and other red herring fallacies are so common these days we sometimes don’t see them for what they are. Pointing them out as well as you do is a great service. Thanks.
So, in other words…”It’s no good reducing CO2″ by the amount that China (the worst emitter) produces unless we can somehow control the lives of our less enlightened citizens and maintain the illegitimate power we scientists have accumulated by this obvious (to anyone familiar with the truth) leftist conspiracy…involving: the MSM, the Universities, and the Deep State, and sadly most scientists in every field of science.
My old aluminum hat (tin is so out of style and its effectiveness is still unproven) is almost completely worn out. But who out there is going to protect me and mine from this evil. It is big and it is real.
How his obsession has robbed him of his humanity and rational thinking…
Kip, I’ve been commenting on the greening frequently here through a long period when advocacy scientists have been silent about this obvious positive benefit of increased CO2. I’ve hammered on the exponential nature of the greening (from a thought experiment on the advance of green fringes into arid areas adding to the area of new plants plus fattening of the existing stock).
Moreover, the greening is an endothermic process, using up part of the energy budget. I calculated this as the energy content of 10Btpa of anthracite coal plus 10%. They definitely dont want to mention this cooling effect. Nor do they want to credit the reduced demand for water by global plants. The greening is the first unequivocal palpable evidence of manmade climate change and the climate alarm folk didn’t want to talk about it.
With world population growth attenuating to peak at ~9B, harvests burgeoning, global poverty reducing, abundant resources I’ve been touting a Garden of Eden Earth^TM by mid century or thereabouts. I have a feeling that my flailing on this may have attracted some notice and that they had to do something- it is the elephant in the climate change changeroom. Their response shows that they weren’t well prepared to do proper battle..
RE: Mauna Loa
The negative comments about measuring CO2 on Mauna Loa are misplaced.
Folks need to read what is done there, and how it is done.
It will only take about 1/2 hour.
After that, make your suggestions on how to do it better, and where.