Global greening due to CO2 has hit a new record high, according to the latest research published in Nature. But activists refuse to accept that the ‘climate emergency’ has failed to materialise, says Chris Morrison.
Global mean vegetation greening reached a record high last year, extending an already significant multi-decade upward trend, according to recent findings published in Nature. In fact, 2025 set a record for global vegetation greening with a steepening of the average trend. Top of the list with 77.6% showing extra greening was croplands, meaning more food is becoming available to boost global diets.
This greening story – a tale that gets more impressive every year – is largely absent from the mainstream media. It was certainly missing from a recent climate contribution from Sandwich-board Stanley (a.k.a. Tim Stanley of the Telegraph) who made an unsourced claim that one third of the agricultural production of Bangladesh “is feared to vanish by 2050”. Happily, there is no sign of that invented fear coming true since agricultural production has more than doubled in the country since the turn of the century. Notes Stanley: “The evidence is stacking up – we only have to look out of our windows,” a comment that suggests journalists hired to broadcast opinions and beliefs should steer well clear of science where data and facts are given a higher priority.
Back in the real increasingly verdant world, the Nature-published scientists note that herbaceous ecosystems such as grasslands and crop fields dominate the greening signal. 72.1% of grasslands showed greening while the overall satellite data reveal 68.% of the total vegetation area showed improvement, up from the previous record set last year of 67.7%. Greening ‘hotspots’ were observed in southern Africa, southern South America, northern Australia, Europe, central North America and northern China. Some ‘browning’ was observed in eastern Siberia, and this was attributed to anomalously cold growing-season temperatures.
Two different satellite measurements are commonly used to track global greening. The recently published study used Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which measures how green the land surface appears. Other studies use the Leaf Area Index (LAI), which estimates the total leaf area covering the ground, and therefore provides a measure of the amount of vegetation. Although they measure different aspects of plant growth, both datasets help point to a significant increase of more than 15% in global greening over the past 40 years, with around 70% of the increase attributed to carbon dioxide fertilisation.
Current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are very low compared with amounts seen in the past going back 600 million years. In fact, the recent increases in plant growth are unsurprising as the planet moves away from the dangerous and near denuded CO2 levels of the recent past. Plants have evolved to thrive at levels of atmospheric CO2 about three times higher than the current 420 parts per million, and scientific evidence is clearly showing rising levels are leading to faster growth in flora that is both healthier and more resistant to nature’s hazards such as droughts.
Support the Daily Sceptic
We are funded by our readers. If you value independent journalism, please consider supporting us.
Plants of course include trees, and these have been piling on the pounds, aided by more plentiful helpings of plant food. When self-identifying environmentalists are not cutting a highway through the Amazon rainforest to ease transport to a COP conference, or looting the place of balsa to build wind turbines, the remaining trees are getting measurably larger and fatter. Recent research published in Nature Plants shows that higher CO2 levels have led to substantial growth in the remaining Amazon trees with mature specimens growing by over 6% a decade. ‘Forward with Carbon Dioxide, not Chainsaws’, will not, alas, be a new United Nations slogan.
As noted, mainstream media is largely absent from covering the sensational greening of the Earth – for obvious reasons, of course, since it detracts from the hard Left political message hammered home daily to promote the Net Zero fantasy. Sandwich-board Stanley is just one of countless useful idiots who comment on complex atmospheric science by suggesting that people look out of a window when any extreme weather event occurs. So far as one can see, the BBC has written nothing about the Earth greening in the last few years. The Guardian meanwhile takes a different tack and has written about growing vegetation in Greenland and Antarctica as what it describes as global ‘heating’ takes hold. But this Comic Cuts reporting is a world away from the reality of famine being pushed aside by thriving crops, or from fatter trees making up for the plundering of saintly green loggers. It is instead a story of extra moss growth along with other simple vegetation along exposed shorelines. The wider issue of global greening was covered in a February 2025 article with the gloomy title: ‘Plants losing appetite for carbon dioxide amid effects of warming climate.’
At this point, the last words should go to Jordan Peterson who followed up Stanley’s comments by writing the following in the Telegraph a few days later:
Widespread catastrophic desertification and system wide crop failure have largely failed to materialise. Instead, the broader trend has been of increasing agricultural yields and vegetation density. What actually happened did not follow the predictions and should force a drastic re-evaluation of the entire climate narrative, not least among those committed to honesty and scientific integrity.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
World is getting greener, environistas are accelerating their efforts to collapse agricultural output.
Which only proves…
It is still possible to “Double Down” on Stupid
When they’re digging in a hole they just cannot stop.
The Lowest possible denominator is what they reach up for!
The big problem is if you dig to deep the sides can collapse in on you and no one will here from you again.
That is a feature, not a bug. 😉
The wildfires have dropped off the news cycle (ah, never mind) but the BBC has found another angle to exploit for alarmism’s sake.
Heatwaves leave London’s trees under extreme stress
London has one of the largest urban forests in the world with over 8 million trees on private and public land. But this summer they are under extreme stress due to three heatwaves and a lack of rain.
…
…conditions are getting harder for certain native species to thrive.– British Bolshevik Corporation
Now as a resident of said city I can tell you that observation includes grasslands that have browned as you would expect and they will not regreen until some rain is forthcoming, but the trees are doing well. My fig tree has had its most productive year, and all of the trees around show no signs of stress. There is a water table beneath us….
The BBC is committed to making any news into bad news.
When the LIA, during its coldest period (1650-1715), saw the CO2-level drop to 180 ppm in Sweden, agriculture suffered, both because the growing season shortened and CO2-levels was approaching its absolute limit of 150 ppm. That is the limit when all plants die, followed by all animals and humans!
Now, agriculture is thriving because of increasing CO2-levels. Burning of various fuels contribute but the lion share comes from outgassing from the sea! And the warming, as well as the expected, is limited to less than how the daily temperature “shifts between breakfast and lunch”, to quote MIT-Professor Richard Lindzen.
In the media we hear how crops are toast and there are shortages of this and that, and then in the supermarket there are no shortages at all.
I suppose that’s a measure of how stupid they think we are – or should be. Enter post modern education/indoctrination…
It’s what one can expect.
CO2 is the key component besides water in terms of plant growth.
If it increases by 40% you can expect a significant increase in growth – especially as less water is needed the more co2 there is.
A significant increase in growth can be expected.
On the other hand CO2 is a weak-ass greenhouse trace gas – therefore a 40% increase won’t do much(it did so little that during the co2 increase the ice age was promoted)
“When the LIA, during its coldest period (1650-1715), saw the CO2-level drop to 180 ppm in Sweden, agriculture suffered, both because the growing season shortened and CO2-levels was approaching its absolute limit of 150 ppm. That is the limit when all plants die, followed by all animals and humans!”
If you are an AGW skeptic, it’s important to get your scientific facts correct. All plants do not die when CO2 levels reach 150 ppm.
The are two basic types of plants, C3 and C4, which use different methods of absorbing CO2. The C4 type of plant is much more efficient.
Following is the Google AI review of this issue.
“The major food crops of the C4 type are maize (corn), sugarcane, sorghum, and various types of millet.
C4 vegetation covers approximately 17% of the global ice-free land surface, dominating biomes like tropical savannas, subtropical grasslands, and warm deserts.
While they represent a tiny portion of all plants, they make up about 50% of the world’s 10,000 grass species.
The essential minimum CO2 level required for C4 plant survival and growth is between 10 and 50 ppm, meaning they can photosynthesize effectively in environments where C3 plants would completely starve.
C4 Plant Response Levels: 10–50 ppm (Survival Baseline): This is the CO2 compensation point for C4 plants. Photosynthesis balances respiration, allowing survival.
400–420 ppm (Current Ambient Level): At today’s atmospheric levels, C4 plants operate at or near their maximum photosynthetic capacity. 400+ ppm (Saturated Level): Unlike C3 plants, C4 plants derive almost no growth benefit from elevated CO2 levels because their internal enzymes are already fully saturated with carbon.”
Let us focus on what is important to 8 billion people
There is a big difference between surviving and thriving, no matter what type of plant.
Some people in concentration camps survived. Any plant “growing up” under concentration camp conditions is not thriving.
It has been established all over the world, plants consumed by humans are thriving at 1000 ppm with sufficient heat, water, nutrients and sunlight and artificial light, as in Canada and Siberian Russia.
All these other numbers are just gobbledegook, or may be useful for space travelers.
“All these other numbers are just gobbledegook, or may be useful for space travelers.”
Gobbledegook!! I was addressing the following false statement from Tusten02:
“C02 levels was approaching its absolute limit of 150 ppm. That is the limit when all plants die, followed by all animals and humans!”
This is a type of alarmism which we normally attribute to those who believe in the catastrophic consequences of AGW.
I don’t dispute the fact that the C3 type of plants, which are the majority, will struggle to survive at 150 ppm, and will thrive much better at 1200 ppm. But let’s not provide false information to promote our cause. C4 plants do not die at 150 ppm, and some major food crops, such as maize (corn), sugarcane, sorghum, and various types of millet are C4 type, and also many types of grass which would be food for cattle.
You got this from Google AI! And we’re supposed to take this as gospel? Are you serious?
“72.1% of grasslands showed greening”
Which should help reduce costs for raising cattle, sheep, goats, etc. Heartier pasture and increasing supplies of hay.
Meat getting cheaper! Hurray!
An environmentalist’s dilemma–will increased CO2 reduce the quantity of fertilizer required for an economic crop yield?
My personal theory is that the atmospheric CO2 concentration at which plants do best reflects the conditions at their evolution. It does appear from greenhouse experience that 1200 to 2000 ppm is ideal–I don’t see how we can escape the implication that it is at present uncomfortably low. That has to be because ‘life sequesters CO2’–until there’s none left for life and it dies out….unless some creature evolves that returns a sufficient amount to the atmosphere.
I never thought that was a difficult concept to grasp, but I seem to have been wrong.
“My personal theory is that the atmospheric CO2 concentration at which plants do best reflects the conditions at their evolution.”
Do the optimum conditions for growth represent the default? I can think of examples that don’t fit – like a human with access to twice as many pancakes at breakfast. If they had not had double-pancakes during their early years then they will still increase in size.
Accept that for a long period, plant life was on the equivalent of survival rations only.
Currently still on short rations.
Related to your question is a claim by some environmentalists, for about 50 years, that as plants get more water, fertilizer, and CO2 they simply grow larger and juicier, but the nutritional value doesn’t increase in each piece of fruit, root, or kernel. I haven’t seen compelling evidence for the claim. The claim also seems counter intuitive. Why would a plant produce a seed that is larger unless it gave the future plant a greater chance of survival. It could, alternatively, produce more seeds, tubers, kernels. That would be a better use of the supply-limited essentials for the future plants.
The nutrition studies were usually done in labs making sure that micro-nutrients were kept minimal. So of course they become less concentrated.
Any farmer with a brain knows that if plants are growing faster, they need extra micro-nutrients and will adjust their fertiliser as required.
I had a friend who used to operate a large number of CO2 boosted greenhouses on the Central Coast of NSW. The fruit and vege he produced was very high in nutrient value… because he knew what he was doing . !
“The density of carbon dioxide at standard temperature and pressure (STP) is about 1.96 g/L to 1.98 g/L.”
“The density of pine wood is not a fixed physical constant like an ideal gas at Standard Temperature and Pressure (STP); instead, it ranges from 350 to 650 kg/m³”
650,000/1.98 = about 300,000
Tree wood = 300k times more dense than CO2 gas. Thus explaining the energy available in gasoline.
Lots of things have failed to materialize. The most obvious is that communism produces a worker paradise. But of course, all “activists” ignore that too and are convinced that centralized government edicts are essential to “Sustain” the earth.
Most people want to go home and relax. Activists want to shove their opinions down your throat.
The socialist moto: This time, it’s going to work.
52 sec. NASA Goddard: “Rising CO2 Levels Greening Earth”
https://youtu.be/zOwHT8yS1XI
White stuff coming out of the seen smokestacks is ostensibly the Big Dog greenhouse gas – water vapor, not CO2 (why do media do this?!); there may be CO2 in that exhaust.
No, water vapor is not visible in the output of the smokestacks, what is visible is the water droplets that form when water vapor condenses, like a cloud.
Promotion of their dogma is given a greater value than support of truth.
As usual, information like this is either downplayed , suppressed or ignored entirely by the mainstream media. It would rather make dire predictions about looming food shortages because yields from some crops aren’t as high as average in one isolated year. Except when bumper crops are recorded, the information is buried on the last pages or omitted entirely—as its contributors like leftist governments and enviro-organizations demand.
Assuming the media are compelled to acknowledge the greening data, there has to be some way they could spin in it a leftward direction.
Conversely, it is important for those who favor free enterprise or are warming skeptics not to view this seeming positive data as a necessary consequence of our point of view. Rather, consider it lagniappe (as the Acadian French would say). We can’t pretend to understand climate any better than the lefties. What we can do is be optimistic that human innovation, rationally unleashed, can handle whatever comes,
I know, let’s pay large corporations tax credits and hand out large grants and loans for CO2 sequestration while claiming crop declines. That will fix it (for big donors and big nonprofits).
Actually, that is not exactly correct. The NDVI is a unit-less ratio commonly used in conjunction with multispectral imagery, such as provided by the Landsat series of satellites.
There may be a measurable change in the calculated index that is not perceptible to an observer as a change in color. The numerator of the ratio, the Digital Number of a pixel from the Near-Infrared band minus the Digital Number of a pixel at the same location from the Red band, is divided by the sum of the Digital Numbers from the same two pixels. Or, symbolically, (DNnir-DNred)/(DNnir+DNred). Because it uses the Near-IR band, which humans can’t see, it is highly related to the abundance of chlorophyll in a leaf because chlorophyll is highly reflective in the Near-IR. It has been found to be a robust measure of the abundance of chlorophyll, which is related to the health of the plant, which in turn is related to the common essential nutrients that are often limits to growth and commonly supply-limited. NDVI can detect small changes in the vigor or health of a plant, usually before it becomes visible to an observer.
Story Tip.
Guys, I don’t know why you haven’t drawn attention to this.
Vast swathes of the Australian desert have turned bright green with vegetation.
Climate change promised us expanding deserts, and as per usual, the exact opposite has happened. It is truly stunning. Get the word out.
https://youtu.be/Ce34-q-s5_4
This is not so much “climate change”, but something that happens “occasionally”.
A land of “droughts” and “flooding rains”. 🙂
Green growth cannot happen if the seeds were not already there… just waiting for some rain.
I lived out near Parkes for a few years, dry for 3 year, then the rains turn everything magically green.
The wonders of the Australian outback. 🙂
Just like a Death Valley super bloom. Happens about once a decade.
Yes, I took that about 10 years ago.
And it isn’t just flowers. When I observed that once in the 1970s, there were big, fat, caterpillars in abundance. I’m not a biologist but they looked to me like tomato hornworms. There was about one per square meter!
The funny thing is, that Lake Eyre actually has a “yacht club”, just for these occasion. 🙂
lakeeyreyc.com
Yes, I know, but the point is when they keep claiming that the deserts will expand due to climate change and then the mother of all greening takes place, I think it’s important to point it out. I think a lot of Australians wouldn’t have a clue about this.
As far as I can see, basically nothing about the climate of Australia has changed much in my whole score+ten years. !
Lake Eyre has done this before.. and will go back to being a salt dry-pan, then get wet again in a few to several years and go all green again.
Avian and surface life knows this too. 🙂
Anybody with any knowledge of botany and/or agronomy knew the CO2 was a proven scam, rather than just being suspicious of it, was when they started pushing the fact that increased CO2 would lead to desertification.
There are two different issues known to authentic science about plants.
1) Different groups of plants differ in the way they introduce CO2 into photosynthesis . We can group these into C3, C4 and CAM plants.
C3, C4 and CAM plants all undertake photosynthesis, but have adapted characteristics to undergo photosynthesis that suit different environments.
2) Long ago, during the Carboniferous, some of the stuff wood is made of was not subject to easy breakdown. Lignin cellulose and hemicellulose persisted and became the enormous widespread coal deposits and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was driven down from the thousands ppm to the hundreds.
Then micro-organisms which digested them became widespread and prominent and the carbon dioxide drought turned around and rose again, but never to as high as originally.
During the low level period, new ways of photosynthesis were adopted by plants.
Phillip, would you happen to know if the three different groups of plants have different preferences 13C/12C (isotopic fractionation)?