Essay by Eric Worrall
The Nutrient Dilution claim is back…
Climate change is making plants less nutritious − that could already be hurting animals that are grazers
Published: December 21, 2024 12.17am AEDT
Ellen Welti
Research Ecologist, Great Plains Science Program, Smithsonian InstitutionMore than one-third of all animals on Earth, from beetles to cows to elephants, depend on plant-based diets. Plants are a low-calorie food source, so it can be challenging for animals to consume enough energy to meet their needs. Now climate change is reducing the nutritional value of some foods that plant eaters rely on.
Human activities are increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and raising global temperatures. As a result, many plants are growing faster across ecosystems worldwide.
Some studies suggest that this “greening of the Earth” could partially offset rising greenhouse gas emissions by storing more carbon in plants. However, there’s a trade-off: These fast-tracked plants can contain fewer nutrients per bite.
…
We believe long-term changes in the nutritional value of plants may be an underappreciated cause of shrinking animal populations. These changes in plants aren’t visually evident, like rising seas. Nor are they sudden and imminent, like hurricanes or heat waves. But they can have important impacts over time.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-making-plants-less-nutritious-that-could-already-be-hurting-animals-that-are-grazers-240068
…
In my opinion this has to be one of the most absurd of all the climate claims.
There is zero paleo evidence that past periods which experienced high CO2 levels suffered any negative effect due to nutrient dilution.
Most of the age of the dinosaurs occurred when CO2 levels were much higher than today. During the Cretaceous period, which ended 66 million years ago when that giant asteroid killed all the dinosaurs, CO2 levels were mostly above 1000ppm – over double today’s CO2 level. Did all those T-Rex dinosaurs and all the other monstrous creatures which shook the Earth when they moved look nutrient starved?
Consider the PETM. CO2 levels during the PETM may have been as high as 2520ppm – 6x higher than today. There is no evidence life suffered during the PETM, quite the opposite. The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 5-8C hotter than today, was the age of monkeys. Our mostly fruit eating monkey ancestors thrived on the abundance of the hothouse PETM, and colonised much of the world, only retreating when the cold returned.
Fish also did well during the PETM – there was a massive boom in fish life. Since the bottom of the fish food chain is plant life, this boom in fish stocks does not support the assertion higher CO2 levels lead to a drop in quality or quantity of food.
In my opinion it is become increasingly difficult for scientists to maintain claims that higher CO2 levels are bad for the ecosystem.
I’m sure it is possible to create lab experiments which show pretty much whatever you want in this domain, but the paleo evidence is that past periods of high CO2 were also periods of abundant life.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
One thing I’ve wondered about is given that CO2 is especially beneficial to plants in arid areas because they can reduce the time their chloroplasts are open and hence reduce water loss, what does that mean for brush fires?
While there is a plethora of confounding factors, it seems to me that the wet season growth leads to a robust understory, and hence more fuel to burn at ground level and perhaps a taller brush that increases the risk of crowning.
California would be a good place to study that.
Probably not a lot. Higher growth rates create more fuel, but more fires would reduce available fuel. I suspect it is a dynamic equilibrium, and the new balance would not be very different to today.
Having lived in CA for about 40 years, I recall the forest service (or whomever was the fire fear monger) announcements every year, well before the climate change religion appeared
“increased fire danger:”
“because a wet winter has increased grass and brush growth”
“because a dry winter has increased tinder dry plants”
Yup, you can count on it. The worst fire season ever due to opposite causes.
The fact of the matter is California will burn somewhere every year due to both low humidity and increased fuel load. But it will never burn everywhere all at once.
Yes, Ric. If there was no CO2, no plants would grow, and there would be no fires. Earth would look like Mars. Big, dead planet. And yes, California would be a good place to study that.
Sigh, why are there so many comments related to net zero or carbon sequestration where people point out the evil of 0 ppm CO2? Neither of those goals, even if they were practical will reduce Earth’s CO2 levels to 0. Besides, plants will give up well before 0 ppm.
If you must live in such an area, do not have a shake roof, and maintain a firebreak. Grass, bush, or wildfires were so common in the plains, and still are, that they are frequently parts of plot lines. Same thing for the Outback in Australia. One purposely set brush fire saved the life of the runner in ‘Naked Prey’, set in Africa – the Serengeti, I believe.
One confounding factor is the incendiary who sets fires to prove that climate change is causing more fires. There is evidence that the recent Canadian fires were due in part to such firebugs, a particularly insidious species.
Ric, in theory maybe yes. But as you note there are too many other confounding factors to sort out. More CO2 fertilization also means more taller crowns so less understory (light limited). Invasive tinder like cheat grass. Invasive incendiaries like humans.
“a robust understory, and hence more fuel to burn at ground level and perhaps a taller brush that increases the risk of crowning.”
Too true. Below is a grab from Australian ABC showing how thick, spindly and cramped understory alight in the current Grampians fire. If native or other forests are left to develop “naturally”, then this is the inevitable outcome, and crowning with total destruction of old growth trees inevitable.
This is another shot of the understory conditions that the firefighters in the Grampions have to deal with – an absolute tragedy that a National Park is let go to the extent where any fire will leave nothing but wasteland. Shame on them.
Where I am, I have 120 ha of bushland opposite and a national park beyond that
Last week we had a heat wave (never happened before 😉 )…
.. and the grass and underbrush is now tinder dry.
I smell smoke, I immediately go to “Fires Near me” run by the NSW Rural Fire Service, to see where the darn thing is. !
Its Australia.. cross your fingers, take what precautions you can …
.. and hope there isn’t a spark on a hot windy day !
Seems it could be the other way around. Lower CO² levels may create plants with lower nutritional value.
Or plants of no value whatsoever.
Oh dear, some red thumber doesn’t know that if CO2 drops low enough, plants don’t grow.
Obviously a very uneducated person.
They’re trying to claim that each plant takes up only so many nutrients from the ground, and that therefore more mass in each plant has fewer nutrients per gram.
Why this would be so, they never explain.
Because except in completely micronutrient nutrient depleted soils like the washed out Amazon, it isn’t almost ever so. On my Wisconsin dairy farm, CO2 induced ‘acid rain’ releases micronutrient minerals from the underlying limestone faster than we could ever deplete them. The best producing field sections are always a little ‘Stoney’—observational fact.
Acid rain is due to SOX from using high sulfur coal and high sulfur crude, such as Venezuela crude. It washed lots of nutrients from soils, especially those on hilly terrain.
CO2 causing causing acidic rain is a new one for me
All rain is slightly acidic, due to CO2, “carbonic acid”.
Aren’t most plants able to absorb and utilize dilute carbonic acid directly into their leaves and convert it to water and CO2?
I haven’t seen any evidence that plants can do that.
The chemistry of photosynthesis doesn’t work that way.
I believe you will find that carbonic acid is a necessary step in the absorption of CO2, right before being metabolized to bicarbonate by carbonic anhydrase enzymes. Have a Merry Christmas!
A long time since I did plant biology, so I’ll defer. ! 🙂
MCHNY !
That would be seaweed.
Slightly acidic likely is not enough to leach nutrients.
SOx is a much stronger acid, which caused the pH of acid rain in the New York City area to be as low as 3 in the 1960s
NOx from combustion leads to nitric acid in rain, which leads to increased bio-available nitrogen in the soil. I.e. it’s nitrogen fertilizer.
Low levels of nitrates are often the limiting factor in plant growth, hence my reference to arid zones where water is the limiting factor.
BTW, we have SO2 emissions under control enough that some farmers need to apply sulfate fertilizer now.
Sand (i.e. “little stones”) mixed with soil can promote water absorption into the ground and limit runoff. Leading to better plant growth. At least in my garden.
I have read many of the “nutrient dilution” studies and they all seem to work very hard to hide the absolute truth about their experimental results.
Personally, I believe the trace element dilution results (fewer nutrients per gram) might actually be true under certain conditions.
For example; iron, copper, zinc, and selenium have relatively low solubility in groundwater. Each plant can only take up the limited amount of these trace elements that have been mobilized into the water that is taken up by the plant’s root system.
If the plant with CO2 fertilization produces significantly more biomass of the edible parts, then the nutrients per gram will almost certainly be lower.
I have seen papers reports these results.
However, I then exhaustively search their data to find the bulk TOTAL of trace element nutrients in their plants. I have never yet seen that data reported in any of the papers that I have read. IMO, they are deliberately lying by omission to push their narrative that nutrient dilution is a significant negative factor.
My science background says that starving, low income people getting 60 kernels of wheat from each head (due to CO2 fertilization) with 5.2 calories of energy and .042 mg of iron (at 12 mg of iron per pound) is clearly MUCH better than getting 40 kernels of wheat with 3.3 calories of energy and .035 mg of iron (at 15 mg of iron per pound).
The CO2 fertilized wheat has far more calories in total – which is the most important thing to starving people. However, it still has more TOTAL iron, despite suffering from some degree of “nutrient dilution”.
That is the type of data they should show in their studies, but they literally hide the full truth.
*** I have just pulled typical numbers for my hypothetical example. Hard red winter wheat does contain about 1483 calories and 15 mg of iron per pound. A pound typically contains about 17,000 grains of wheat. (Of course there is significant variability based on a lot of other factors during the growth phase of the wheat.)
Great post 🙂
That is precisely the point I have made. Even if nutrient depletion were significant, it would be cheaper to provide mineral supplements and soil enrichment than to perpetuate the Net Zero nonsense.
if a plant is vigorous- its roots will go deeper and spread wider to reach more nutrients
A bigger plant has a bigger, more spread-out root system to get all the nutrients it needs to grow.
With higher CO2 ppm, plants become more efficient regarding the use of nutrients, based on experience gained from greenhouses with enhanced CO2, as in Canada, which get very low-cost natural gas to create CO2 and to heat the greenhouses.
Their design is based on similar greenhouses in the Netherlands, which get their CO2 from nearby refineries and chemicals plants
Certain type plants thrive in areas which have the minerals they need
Greater, faster growth on less water because stomata are reduced in number and size. Since the plants take in less water they take in few nutrients from the soil. This has been known, and often compensated for, by increasing nutrient density, in greenhouse vegetable production for 60 years or so.
No, they are trying to say that plants that photosynthesize with more atmospheric CO2 produce less nutrients per volume than plants that photosynthesize with less.
Greenhouse tomatoes that are grown with increased CO2 dispell this inaccurate nonsense. Not only are unit volumes of indoor and outdoor crops equal in nutritive content, the indoor crops produce more weight of it to sell.
But since climate alarmists are also anti-business oriented, its no surprise they don’t mention this.
“In my opinion this has to be one of the most absurd of all the climate claims.”
Exactly! They just hate the idea that the Earth is greening- so there must be something bad about it.
Environmentalism has two fundamental tenets that drive absurd projections:
1.Any disruption, however slight, of the environmental status quo must be presumed to be bad.
2.No response by the natural world or humans will mitigate the adverse outcomes.
Official Church of Climastrology view toward non-believers: the only good climate skeptic(realist) is a dead climate skeptic (realist!)
Just look at how they view the murder of the health insurance CEO, when the real blame for our broken health care system should be placed on the ObamaCare boondoggle!
This flies in the face of all the studies reporting globally decreasing mortality rates and decreasing rates of hunger and poverty over the last two centuries, as well as increasing agricultural production and standard of living. I wonder how they explain that? The only places that don’t see improvements are plagued with lousy government, war, and other kinds of instability (places in Africa, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, etc.) that have nothing to do with CO2 or the supposedly decreasing nutritional value of plants.
These kinds of myopic studies designed to support a predetermined Malthusian narrative always—always!—ignore human technological innovation. It’s as if humans have no ability to innovate solutions without the benevolent guidance of these self-appointed experts who have never built or innovated anything in their lives as they sit behind their desks in academic institutions or Leftist-funded “think” tanks (an oxymoron), pushing papers and philosophizing about how the world should work while innovators, inventors, risk-takers, and entrepreneurs actually get things done.
From what I know about agronomy, the limiting factor on plant growth is the lowest available needed factor. That is an issue with “treemometer” studies, where tree growth might be limited by other things than temperature, like water or nutrients.
If plant growth is limited by CO2 availability, then increasing CO2 should increase plant growth, until some other factor is a limit.
Tom, this is a very relevant observation that aligns with many concerns about the abysmally lacking acceptable probity of all the climate metrics.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a paper out soon that highlights a close correlation between increasing hemorrhoids pain being experienced by many climate scientists and ‘global’ temperatures.
(a clue – this has to do with where many climate scientists pull their temperature readings from)
I wouldn’t think there would be space available; at least not until they remove their heads!
The earlier reports I’ve seen claim that the protein percentage is lower.
There may be some other reduced nutrient percentages as well.
Plants are NOT simple entities. The result depends on the cultivar, the conditions of growth, moisture and nutrient availability, the level of CO2 enhancement, etc.
MOST studies find a nutrition improvement in most species. FACE studies are the most variable since stable enhancements are difficult to maintain under FACE conditions. The researchers themselves, typically, suggest cultivar selection would solve any deficiencies. Most are pleased with the added growth in every case since nutrition alteration is a second order effect under most studied conditions.
Proteins are comprised of at most 20 amino acids. Protein/carbohydrate % depends a bit on growing condition synthesis, but mostly not on other mineral micronutrients. The early studies you saw were on wheat, and not cultivar or soil controlled. I scrapped a whole draft ND essay partly on those grounds.
So if there is more volume with less nutrient per volume THEN EAT MORE VOLUME! Has anyone ever seen a cow limit its volume of consumed food because the grass isn’t as green?
What Tom says above, is literally the gospel truth for Agronomy 101.
However, CAGW alarmists only ever propose a grossly oversimplified version of that gospel.
My wheat (southern Kansas) goes into the ground typically around the middle of October and then is cut around the middle of June.
The limiting factor over that eight month period is not a constant!
The most significant factor controlling our yields is absolutely the amount of precipitation. However, this is not even dependent on the absolute amount of rain. The wheat performs best with the right amount of water at the right time.
Further, our soil is too sandy, so the wheat crop requires a significant amount of NPK fertilizer for the wheat to achieve higher yields.
At certain times in the spring, the soil moisture is unequivocally the limiting growth factor. However, we might then get a light rain. At that time, water is NOT the limiting factor. I suspect that CO2 is the limiting factor at that point. Under higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the wheat will then gain a little more daily growth based upon the CO2 fertilization, but more importantly, it will use less of the precious soil moisture as the plant stomata will be open slightly less.
This may stretch a light rain from NOT being the limiting factor from 3 days to 4 days. That is a very significant 33% increase in the maximal growth of the plant under the ambient CO2. This cycle repeats many times throughout the growth cycle.
At some point late in the growing season, I suspect that the available nitrogen from the applied fertilizer may be the limiting growth factor. But the CO2 fertilization can also help in the more efficient utilization of available nitrogen. Lesser transpiration and water losses due to higher CO2 levels will draw less fertilizer from the soil, and will tend to move back the date when the lack of fertilizer is more likely to become a limiting growth factor.
I am still presenting a very simplified scenario. However, it is certainly more realistic than the usual tripe I see presented by the alarmists regarding the growth of cereal grains, tree rings, etc.
The claim is not about how much growth the plants manage, which is usually more growth with more CO2, the claim, true or not, is about the nutrient density in the plants which have grown more due to more CO2,
Where is that nutrient density going down? In the wheat stalk or in the wheat kernels? Less nutrient in the stalk might be a good thing if it limits the amount of nutrients taken from the soil. If it’s in the kernels, EAT MORE KERNELS.
A farmer’s life, when growing crops, is precarious, to say the least
No CO2, no plant growth at all, no matter how much nutrients are in the soil
Experience has shown, if you increase CO2, you get a bigger plant, and the roots will expand to get to the nutrients.
Rejoice, CO2 IS THE MAGIC KEY, PLUS SUNLIGHT
Well gees, If something is growing more quickly in a greenhouse, it needs more nutrients..
Who knew.. (except every greenhouse grower on the planet)
and outdoors…
CO2 actually enhances the natural nitrogen fixing bacteria that provide nutrients to the soil
Extra growth enhances the amount of humus, warmth allows extra worms etc to inhabit the soil.
If there is more food available for consumption, you get the same amount of proteins with the added benefit of more food.
The whole issues is a total furphy !
The CONversation is a great source of junk science.
If one consumes more calories than one uses, we see the results around us every day we are around people.
“If one consumes more calories than one uses”
It is that time of year !!
Summer down here, and walking the dog seems to use up more water than calories 😉
This article does not address the subject of nutrient dilution. The claim is real but the differences are so small they are meaningless.
I have read at least 200 CO2 plant growth studies since 1997. More CO2 is good news until it exceeds 1500 ppm. Nutrient dilution is tiny and varies from plant to plant. The differences are so small that few studies bother measuring nutrients with the typical +300 ppm CO2 enrichment
Here is a hypothetical description of how the nutrient comparisons are done:
An equal weight of an ambiant CO2 food plant is compared with a +300ppm CO2 plant. The +300 ppm plant will be larger with more fiber and water content. The comparison could be 6 smaller broccoli florets versus 5 larger broccoli florets that have the same weight. The larger florets will have slightly more fiber and slightly less of some other nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals.
The difference is tiny even with +300 ppm CO2 enrichment. At the current CO2 rise rate of +2.5 ppm a year, +300 ppm more CO2 in the atmosphere would take 120 years.
The link below has a huge number of one page summaries of plant growth CO2 enrichment studies that are easy to read and free.
CO2 Science
Here is a study that include nutrients from the archive at the link above:
CO2 Science
Great to see you getting something about CO2 correct and backed by actual evidence.. Well done. ! 🙂
BeNasty failed to insult my comment
Are you feeling okay?
Hey, it really is unusual for you not to say some scientifically unsupportable garbage.
You need the encouragement when you get something correct. !
The author understates; 100% of animals on Earth rely on plant-based carbon. All the carbon in diets comes from atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis. All “nutrients” such as carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins are carbon-based. Trace minerals in diets are also necessary, but no animal eats rocks.
Plant roots ‘eat’ rock minerals. Good thing that CO2 causes rainwater to be about pH 5.8. That way rain eats rock for plants to eat.
Actually, there are many critters that will lick rocks to get mineral salts. 🙂
Lots of scavenger animals and fish will often consume grit accidentally
And many will swallow small rocks to aid with digestion etc
What Eats Rocks? (16 Animals and Pictures) – Fauna Facts
How many bottom of ocean trench animals have you tested?
100% of animals on Earth rely on plant-based carbon … sometimes indirectly, says my cat
Again, a thumbs up for not saying something stupid !! 🙂
Every carbon atom in your body was once CO2 in the atmosphere.
Note, “may”. And … increased yield should make grain more available at a lower price helping populations of humans that don’t get their nutrients from a bowl of Cheerios.
Trace element depletion within the soil (if true) can be reversed simply and cheaply by adding trace elements to the fertilizers already used.
https://trugreenmidsouth.com/blog/minerals-your-lawn-needs/
Much ado about almost nothing.
Whoda thunk ‘vitamin supplements’ might be a ‘solution’ to a non-problem.
Never seen that in a grocery store before!
If a specific plant grows its edible portions with a few % lower protein content, but grows 50% more of them and faster, the gain is obvious. Cultivars need to be and are already are being selected which maintain nutrient quality while growing faster. This already happens in plants grown in CO2 enhanced greenhouses.
Of course, IF you have a built-in bias, you will mention only the downside of the equation.
There is still an equals sign there, even if these ‘researchers’ ignore it.
I studied this nonsense some years ago. Chose not to include it as a chapter in my last ebook, as there were so many simpler targets to ridicule. Just refreshed that research in a quick ~2 hour research scan.
The ‘faster growing because of CO2’ plant nutritional deficit theory is basically false. There are two distinct biological reasons. First, it carries an assumption that micronutrients are somehow plant growth uptake limited. False for most soils, most plants, most of the time. Like the crops on my dairy farm. Second, that thereby deficient micronutrients become growth limited to non-plant grazers—wrong for three reasons.
Now for human adults with potentially poor diet and/or absorption deficiencies, mineral supplements are often recommended. Think calcium for post menopausal women to prevent osteoporosis. See Centrum Senior (over 50) for a representative senior ND supplement list compared to clinically established MDR.
How about improving the diet, rather than adding even more additives to it?
How do you define diet?
Food intake.
Great to see you supporting RFK ! 🙂
And not understanding the subtle difference between additives and supplements .. OK. !
If you really want to improve diet, you would decrease the amount of plants you eat! There are essential fatty and amino acids, yet no one has ever identified an essential carbohydrate except for fifteen year old single malt!
ND & MDR ?
Rud,
From all the plant studies I have read, there are two things that stand out to me.
1) Let’s say at 200 ppm CO2, I get three stalks of grass that are 4 inches tall when a cow consumes them. With 400 ppm CO2, I get 4 stalks of greass that are 6 inches tall when a cow consumes them. The missing part of studies is how much do the herbivores consume. It the same trace elements are scattered among 4 stalks versus 6 stalks, the % per volume will decrease while the total consumed will stay the same. Figures can lie, liars can figure.
2) More CO2 allows for more sugar to be made while losing less water. Glucose doesn’t have trace elements. The sugar is used in respiration to create cellulose, that is, larger plants. That is where trace elements end up, plus they are used in the manufacture of energy to power respiration. If the trace elements aren’t available for this, growth is limited. However, the percent in volume shouldn’t change much.
Plants are a system. The total system needs to be analyzed, not just a piece of it. The herbivores and omnivores that consume plants are part of the system. You have to include them in any analysis.
What the F is a dairydeer? Are you referring to a milkmaid?
An old Wisconsin dairy farm joke. The whitetails come out into the fields at dawn and dusk and basically eat what we grow to feed the dairy cows. As a result they are distinctly less gamy than otherwise, as their diet is basically alfalfa, corn, and soy.
You are lucky stay in the fields and that they don’t come right up to the feed bunkers. They do that around here!
Right, but the creatures back then were adapted by evolution, over millions of years, to that diet.
The change now is faster, allowing little time for evolutionary adaptation; therefore it is more likely to be disadvantageous to species that rely on that diet.
It’s a perfectly reasonably observation.
“The change now is faster,”
No evidence for that., no way it can show in any proxy data.
The response time of plants to CO2 is very quick. Greenhouse growers know that.
They are absolutely luving the small increase in CO2 we have had since the LIA.
—
“It’s a perfectly reasonably observation.”
Nope, it is total nonsense… aimed at people like you.
A very merry Christmas to you, my wee hate-fuelled delusional, obsessional mate!
“Don’t confuse me with facts!”?
I just prefer to keep it light with wee b-nasty, Tom; I’m not a psychiatrist.
I was psych major, and I was referring to you. True Believers are immune to facts.
As you so effortlessly prove.
You seem to be ignoring history enough to accept His Holiness, Michael Mann ( Pope of your church?) with his “hockey stick” temperature fantasy.
And ignoring paleo reconstructions of temperature and CO2 levels, which violate the tenets of your church. CAGW is about as defensible as Young Earth Creationism.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming
or The Climate Crisis is a fraud.
“I’m not a psychiatrist.”
But desperately in need of one. !!
C’mon, man! We can’t say for certain that TheFungalNail is delusional or otherwise mentally challenged. He just might be ignorant or an idiot!
A simple mix or all four. 🙂
A, B, or C? Yes!
A, B, AND C!
You have no evidence to counter what I said .. OK
Not unexpected.
How could I hate such a mindless little muppet !
You do come here as a comedy act, don’t you ?!
‘change is now faster’. Really? Prove it. Last LIA Thames ice fair was 1818.
One example. The Eemian highstand was about 6.5 meters above today, about 123,000 years ago. It took 3 millennia to get there, and three millennia to recede. Same rate of SLR change as today.
Second example. The North American megafauna all disappeared in less than 10 millennia—likely due to human intrusion/hunting (Clovis culture example). You got any fauna at all disappearing the last 40 ‘climate change years’? My book named 15 US freshwater river mussel species all extinct in less than a decade thanks to TVA dams.
What am I supposed to be proving here, Rud? How does the Thames freezing over in 1818 have any bearing on paleo temperatures?
You keep going on about your ‘book’: what book?
Did a publisher take it on or is it a self-published job?
Can you link to it?
Thanks.
Had you bothered to look, it was the third published by SEPRA. They publish on iBooks, Kindle, Kobo, and others. I get a regular royalty.
The three ebooks (I won’t link, since the publisher websites do so) are Gaia’s Limits (2011), The Arts of Truth (2012), and Blowing Smoke (2014).
And to you, no thanks. You have proven yourself intellectually lazy.
So it’s self-published then.
Do you have to pay to get your books published?
And still no link to your great book???
Keep on writing your books Rud.
I find them clear, interesting and informative.
I lack your scope and depth of experience and knowledge to debate any of your observations, and I don’t have enough years left to catch up 🙂
“You have proven yourself intellectually lazy”
Its not so much “lazy”…. but not even possible.
Intellect is something he/she/it just does not have.
And a second comment. Your dismissive Thames Ice Fair observation proves you understand neither the naturally warm MWP nor the ensuing cold LIA. This is a level of undeniable natural climate variance ignorance that I choose not to associate with.
Bye.
Bye, and happy Christmas!
And the empty sock leaves the scene.. .. no doubt to return. !
Don’t be too hard on him, Rud! He’s been trained from birth to blindly swallow anything an authority figure tries to feed him; which can be rather problematic with a certain subset of teachers and priests!
Oh look , fungal runs away from producing any evidence or any science whatsoever to back up it nonsense claim… .
How unusual !! 😉
Since Rud appears to be too bashful, and I’m a shameless promoter whom has never written a book… from GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6677127.Rud_Istvan
Made-up bullshit speculation. In fact it only takes one or 2 generations for plants to adapt. Not millions of years. It probably would take millions of years for you to wake up from your climate nightmare however….
Got a link for that ‘fact’, Mike?
Or can we all just make stuff up?
Well TFN, you tell us.
After all, you have a PhD in making stuff up.
Plants taken into a greenhouse with enhanced CO2 adjust very quickly.
Which greenhouse growers know from firsthand experience!
Many years ago, a good friend of mine owned many greenhouses on the Central Coast, producing flowers and some fruit and vege.
I used to help out occasionally on weekends, and we spent many hours over a beverage in the evening discussing things, including his work.
Which contained higher CO2 concentrations; the greenhouse or the beverages? Enquiring minds want to know!
You would need to find some home brewing charts,
Here’s one that might help
Beer-Style-and-Carbonation-Level-Chart-3.pdf
A link? No need. Each generation of seedlings contain amongst them individuals which are more tolerant to heat or cold or drought etc. They are the ones which go one to produce the next generation. Natural selection is much more rapid than you have been lead to believe.
It doesn’t take millions of years for a species to adapt to a changing diet.
10,000 years of agriculture has left most humans with little ability to live healthily on a high carb diet, despite desires for increased medical fees and corporate profits
Spot on. The idea that animals are suffering now is ridiculous. There are no animals. They all died in the Younger Dryas.
Thus, no evidence they suffered under high CO2 levels.
LOL.
Do you reckon there were different trace elements, proteins, glucose, etc. back then as compared to now? Do you think glucose was different? Just exactly what has changed that evolution must deal with because of plants making more sugar?
Do you think a few more bites of lettuce will kill you?
Trees grow out of the sky…
Ouch!
2 down votes (at time of writing} for a direct link to a Richard Feynman video.
Thought you guys liked RF?
Replying to yourself is a kooksign.
Feynman gets the photosynthesis chemistry wrong as far as the source of oxygen is concerned.
What a totally irrelevant link. !!
Yes, trees need massive amounts of CO2 to grow….. Let’s not starve them !!
The energy for photosynthesis comes from the Sun.
We are all well aware of that fact. Seem this might be a new discovery to you. !
The micronutrients and water, however, are mostly taken in through the roots.
Is the 4-frame photo an “AI” construction or did a human screw it up?
Screwed up in what way?… It is a picture that has been around for quite a while.
Listen Welti.
During the cretaceous, there was an explosion in bio diversity when the the co2 concentration was more than double what it is now. How can you use the co2 nutrient dilution drivel as any kind of valid concept.
Please stop making an unmitigated fool of yourself. Idiot!
”an explosion of biodiversity was underway during the Cretaceous period. Ants and termites made their first appearance. Flowering plants were arriving for the first time and bringing with them pollinators, fungi and herbivores, including the first marsupials”.
Behind a lot of this nonsense seems to be the teleological belief that the global temperature, global precipitation, global atmospheric CO2 concentration as well as many other ecological conditions were absolutely optimal around the mid-twentieth century rather than purely arbitrary.
Very neatly written.
No spelling mistakes.
Very dubious, therefore.
AI, anyone?
You are artificial.. but with zero intelligence.
Yes some people are able to write ‘real good’… and make coherent, rational comments.
You are not one of them.
Take – me – to – your – leader.
Was a really bizarre comment from fungal, wasn’t it !!
I would like to have seen the Sahara when it was a wooded savannah.
So if nutrition decreases by 5% but growth increases by 18%, how is that bad?
You end up with more to eat and end up with more overall nutrition.
Both are very important in many third world countries.
And because of junk like this, we are supposed to switch to battery cars.
Seriously. Do these people expect everything to remain static at some arbitrarily determined “goldilocks” climate zone? Are they all just delusional?
I sometimes wonder if it is a hangover from medieval academic traditions, when mankind was seen as something separate to nature.
Intellectually it seems more akin to an earlier period; the Dark Ages! You’ve got self-mortification, flagellation and indulgences; and bad weather from heretical witches!
It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable
— Spock
So you follow the links to the paper and its the
Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels this century will alter the protein, micronutrients, and vitamin content of rice grains with potential health consequences for the poorest rice-dependent countries
Where the discussion states
With the claim
So the obvious question is the impact of fertilisation.
But it doesn’t look like they’re interested because the say fertilisation may help mitigate the impact with the shortest statement eva
And as far as their method goes, fertilisation was described as
And that doesn’t help us know whether additional fertiliser was added the the CO2 rich environments. In fact it implies it wasn’t as the implication (to me) seems to be they used fertiliser as per their prior understanding of what worked best under “known” conditions.
There’s a lot to be skeptical about with the whole “more food with less nutritional value is bad” line of reasoning.
Not only absurd but obviously wrong. A third rater claiming ‘more than one third of all animals depend on plant life’ when all higher life forms depend on photosynthesis, hence on CO2.
I am increasingly convinced that it is true what someone once said, that the reason for the poor state of the environmental sciences is that the really clever cookies do something else.
“However, there’s a trade-off: These fast-tracked plants can contain fewer nutrients per bite…..”
Even if that were true it wouldn’t be a problem. Due to extra CO2-induced growth, there would be more bites available, so the intake of nutrients would probably be the same. If the extra growth increases a plant’s root system, then the amount of available nutrients could actually increase.
An analogy might be a warehouse filled with cans of beans. The warehouse is extended for future expansion. Yes, the number of cans per square meter has fallen – but the number of cans is exactly the same.
Chris
Seriously, has not even one other plant biologist called out this nonsense? This is part of why science has become unbelievable, no “experts” will defend their expertise.
Photosynthesis: Plants/Plankton turning Sunlight/CO2/H2O into Food/O2; neither animal nor blade of grass would exist, absent CO2. CO2 helps plants resist drought/damage/disease, extends growing seasons, lets plants move higher in altitude & Latitudes, shrinks deserts & reduces the spread of fire, plants using & retaining H2O more efficiently. As CO2 rises, photosynthesis flourishes & plants take in more CO2, sparking more growth, photosynthesis & CO2 uptake (recent studies indicate +20% absorption by 2100). Rising temperatures also extend growing seasons, help babies survive, increase net rainfall & save lives. We are in the short period (glacial interstitial) between long Ice Ages, the norm (where I sit) being a half mile of ice. Warm is good, cold is bad. This Cradle of Life is greener, more fertile & life sustaining than it was 200 years ago, because adding food to the base of the food-chain supports all of Nature, including humans. “It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” R Lindzen
Unless consumers are currently getting only just enough of these nutrients from the plants that’ll allegedly be affected by this ‘nutrient dilution’, and aren’t getting any of these nutrients from other sources in their diets, then all this will mean is that they’ll consume a smaller excess.