Germany has been trying to shut down all coal-fired power plants. Large sections of the German populace and government had come to believe the idiocy of carbon dioxide being called a “pollutant.” (Never mind that it’s absolutely necessary for plant growth, as we all know.)
Well, their plan has run into the brick wall called “reality.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-environment-idUSKCN0ZF1MM
Do you think there’s not enough CO2 in the world already? I hear plants are not exactly in short supply.
This is a mind-bogglingly stupid statement. Try breathing large concentrations of carbon dioxide and you’ll find out what kind of a pollutant it is.
This is rather like crowing about someone deciding to discontinue treatment for cancer because they can’t afford it.
Hey, Flyer, let me introduce you to some actual reality. In 2006, when Ontario demolished the Lakeview Power Plant, a gigantic 8-boiler 4-stack coal-fired plant, its destruction in a controlled demolition was the spectacular beginning of a concerted program to completely phase out coal power. In 2014, the last coal plant burned the last of its coal, making Ontario completely free of coal power generation. In 2015, legislation was passed making it illegal to ever again burn coal to generate electricity.
Ontario’s 14 million residents now get reliable electric power from nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar. I guess those plants that need CO2 so badly are going to have do without, huh? Turns out, CO2 is the single largest contributor to anthropogenic climate change, and constant denials on Fox News don’t actually change the incontrovertible science and the serious dangers we face.
The OP seems to be implying that if humans stop burnibg fossil fuels, all the plants will die.
Perhaps they should have built some nuclear power plants to replace the coal-fired ones?
Too bad Germany is also getting rid of nuclear power in the wake of Fukushima.
Actually, they are. Deserts are huge and expanding. Even in the USA, only about a quarter of originally forested land remains, and in Europe less than that.
Of course, CO2 deficiency is not the reason for that. It’s lack of water combined with poor human management. But generally, it would be a great advantage to humanity if most of the world could be revegetated, and that would require sufficient CO2 to support the grenerey. But I don’t know enough about this cycle to have a valid opinion on whether man-made CO2 would be a helpful or necessary contributor to the re-greening of the planet.
jtur88 writes:
> . . . Even in the USA, only about a quarter of originally forested land remains . . .
The amount of forested land in the U.S. hasn’t changed very much since about 1907, but if it’s changed at all, it’s grown slightly:
Also, note that the amount of forested land in the U.S. is now about three-quarters of what it was in 1492 and there is no more crop land in the U.S. now than in the 1920’s.
EVERYTHING is harmful in large enough quantities. By your logic, we should declare purified water to be a pollutant.
And we’ve reached the level of “large enough quantities” with CO2
Think! When the world was heavily forested, was humanity generating CO2? I suppose some plants might do better with a slightly higher concentration, but that’s about it. There’s plenty of it around.
We’ve already unequivocally reached the point where higher levels of CO2 will be detrimental to human interests.
Increased levels of CO2 can stimulate plant growth, but that is offset because CO2 isn’t the only thing they need. Higher temperatures produce higher levels of plant respiration, which increases CO2, and ultimately can decrease photosynthesis, which takes up CO2. So higher temperatures may produce a positive feedback to increase atmospheric CO2 even further. Higher temperatures also cause increased evapotranspiration, which increase plants’ need for water. At the same time, it changes weather patterns so that many regions are expected to receive reduced rainfall, further limiting plant growth.
As you can see on any satellite view, replacement forest is very patchy, covering nowhere near the area of the original forest.
That only says that there are less old-growth forests. Why is that important? A tree is a tree. How many trees have there been over the history of the U.S.?:
There are more trees in the U.S. now than a hundred years ago. There are over 3 trillion trees in the world. Trees are disappearing in the tropics, but they are increasing in number in the temperate zone, which includes the U.S.
I see that kind of quote all the time. I guess people are unaware that 100 years ago we had a very low number of trees.
That’s true. I was replying to the notion that you could get from jtur88’s posts that currently the number of trees in the U.S. are decreasing. That’s not true. If anything, the U.S. is being very slowly reforested. There are real problems of deforestation, but it’s going on in the tropics and not in the temperate regions of the world.
I think it’s an ill-advised decision that’s going to make it harder to achieve their emissions targets – some might say impossible. But one needs to keep in mind that the setback that the OP is crowing about is relative to Germany being one of the most aggressively committed nations to emissions reductions – their 2020 target was twice as aggressive as that of the EU overall, which in turn was a far greater reduction than that proposed by the US:
Germany is pioneering an epochal transformation it calls the energiewende—an energy revolution that scientists say all nations must one day complete if a climate disaster is to be averted. Among large industrial nations, Germany is a leader. Last year about 27 percent of its electricity came from renewable sources such as wind and solar power, three times what it got a decade ago and more than twice what the United States gets today. The change accelerated after the 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which led Chancellor Angela Merkel to declare that Germany would shut all 17 of its own reactors by 2022. Nine have been switched off so far, and renewables have more than picked up the slack.
… Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy, has promised some of the most aggressive emission cuts—by 2020, a 40 percent cut from 1990 levels, and by 2050, at least 80 percent.
There are many things wrong with those statements, beginning with the fact that I think you misinterpreted friedo’s comment. Given the context of the conversation, I think what he meant was “plants are not exactly in short supply of CO2”. Which is, in any event, a true statement. The first clue is that the world had a lot more vegetation hundreds of years ago when CO2 levels had been stable for thousands of years at less than three quarters of what they are now. Deforestation in itself is a causative factor in climate change, contributing around 10-12% to atmospheric CO2 accumulation. And in addition to what’s already been said, studies on how plants respond to CO2 enrichment show that the effect is limited by the fact that increased growth quickly runs up against other constraints like soil nutrients.
And studies that show potential increased crop yields due to CO2 enrichment and warmer weather and longer growing seasons also conclude that these will be limited to a narrow band of temperature increase in higher latitudes, beyond which they become negative, that they will only benefit certain crops and could be disastrous for others, and will not occur at all in most of the world. Among the challenges are sufficiently rapid adaptation to changes in local climate, the migration of non-indigenous pests and plant diseases, and weather extremes. In tropical regions like Africa, where populations are the most vulnerable, crop yields and water supplies are already under stress.
So the answer to the question is no, CO2 is not helpful to regreening the planet. In fact its effects are distinctly negative just about everywhere you look. The lack of water you mention is one of them; droughts in some areas and flooding in others are all part of a systemic pattern of weather extremes and permanent changes to regional weather that characterize climate change.