Food production in China is soaring, helped by slightly warmer temperatures and higher levels of carbon dioxide, while cows grazing on wetland pasture actually reduce emissions of the ‘greenhouse’ gas methane, partly by gobbling up decomposing, methane-emitting plants. Just a couple of stories, based on recent scientific research, that readers would have missed in the Net Zero-promoting mainstream media. Alas, environmental correspondents do not cover such uplifting scientific material.
In a recently published paper led by UCLA postdoctoral science researcher Di Chen, it was discovered that the “main factor” affecting China’s crop yields was local air temperature change. “When the air temperature in China is high, the yield will show an increasing trend, and vice versa,” it said. Elsewhere, two agroecology researchers in the United States found that on ground that is regularly water laden, the majority of methane was released from decomposing plants and animals. As a result, removing feeding cows resulted in higher methane emissions. Of course, such a finding has enormous implications for water-laden countries like Ireland, whose cow belching-obsessed policy berks are planning to spend £600 million removing 200,000 cows from some the world’s greenest and lushest pastures.
The above graph shows the enormous rises in Chinese yields for staples such as rice, maize and wheat measured by hectogram per hectare. The researchers note that improved agricultural management has had a part to play, although yields started to rise even during the instabilities of the immediate post-Mao period. The scientists also note that there is no obvious increasing trend in precipitation, while China’s air temperature and the global CO2 rise “have the same trend as crop yield”. Recent lower levels of Arctic sea ice are considered an ”indirect process”, but the conclusions of the paper are clear. Warming extends the growing season and reduces damage from the cold. Increasing CO2 improves the photosynthetic rate of crops, improves growth rates and dry matter content, and thus improves food production.
This ‘denial’ of counter-narrative climate science takes many forms in mainstream media, activism and politics. Mostly, it’s achieved by omission, a fate that can befall anything that isn’t useful for Net Zero promotion. Any suggestion that the climate is relatively benign compared to recent periods, with a little extra warming and a top up of CO2 from levels so low they’re approaching danger point, is countered with hysterical claims of boiling and collapse. One bizarre omission, covered in detail in the Daily Sceptic, is the rapid, and accelerating, greening of the planet.
The evidence for the greening of the Earth from atmospheric CO2 “is now too obvious to deny”, said a group of scientists from the CO2 Coalition in a recently published paper. The graph above that accompanied their words, compiled from satellite data from 1982-2012, is a stunning demonstration of the wonders of CO2 plant nourishment. In fact, another recent paper Chen et al (2024) found greening had actually accelerated over the last two decades.
All this greening might be a wonder of nature, but it is just how biology works, although it remains largely unpublicised because of Net Zero hysteria. In the detailed CO2 Coalition paper, the scientists sought to explain why the nutritional value of the world’s most abundant crops “can and will remain high as atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase towards values more representative of those existing throughout most of Earth’s history”. The existing level of atmospheric CO2 is noted to be “much less than optimum for most plants”.
Meanwhile, interest in the carbon cycle on cattle farms has been growing following scientific experiments on the Buck Island ranch, 150 miles northwest of Miami. Comparing gases emitted by pastures grazed to those un-grazed, suggests that livestock is a net carbon sink. The Heartland Daily News reported that when cattle graze on land, the plants prioritise root growth over the plant matter above the surface. “The deeper the roots, the more plants sequester carbon in the soil through the photosynthesis process,” it said.
Cattle are part of a carbon cycle. If you just model the emissions coming from the animal “you’re missing the rest of the ecosystem” commented Dr. Vaughn Holder, Global Beef Research Director at Alltech. Aside from reducing emissions from wetlands, livestock animals increase global food security by eating inedible plants and turning them into edible proteins for humans, i.e., their bodies. In addition, farmed animals eat a lot of food by-products that humans can’t or prefer not to eat, such as the pulp left after extracting the juice from oranges. Holder observes that composting such materials increases emissions five times more than feeding it to dairy cows, while disposal in landfill creates 50 times more emissions than giving it to the animals.
The increasingly picky diets that urban greens want to foist on the rest of us have little place for meat. Greenhouse gas emissions are a convenient scare to remove an ingredient that has been an essential and healthy part of the diet since homo sapiens emerged as a distinct omnivorous species. But if you can’t remove meat just yet, take it out on the cows and force them to wear special King Charles-endorsed masks to capture some of those evil extrusions.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Nope! I’m stumped. I really can’t see what the map above with percentages from -20 to +30 (of what?) is purporting to tell us, or am I missing something and being dim?
How can some moron down-vote a query? (Doubtless there’ll be another one coming to this rhetorical question).
I know incredible.
I think it’s the change in ndvi from 1982 to 2012. The ndvi essentially measures the amount of plant vegetation, a desert with nothing growing will have an ndvi of near 0 and a rain forest an ndvi of close to 1. The positive increase in it shows a large increase in vegetation over the period observed. Please someone correct me if I’m wrong. The greening of northern Africa is pretty remarkable!
ndvi?
Thanks for that. (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). And the grey on the map that’s not included in the key?
That’s just saying no change at alI believe, IE the Sahara is still mostly unchanged. Hardly a worrying picture is it, quite the opposite! Get out and drive yr car to green earth!
I thinks that’s where there’s 100% more plant growth than the nothing that was there before.
It’s in the text:
“The graph above that accompanied their words, compiled from satellite data from 1982-2012”
The colours are in the legend, essentially most of the world has an increase in vegetation. Look at South America, see the yellow bits? That is where the ancient forests are being chopped down to provide the EU with meat that undercuts their own farmers and does not comply with EU standards.
The UK is green which indicates a 10% increase between 1982 and 2012. The grey area is, presumably, no available data.
Yes yr right grey is no data.
It’s percentage change in “greening” between 1982 and 2012. How we’re measuring “greening” precisely I’m not yet sure (perhaps volume of biomass or something like that), but I think the paper linked to will be well worth a read. Here it is again in case you missed it:
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Nutritive-Value-of-Plants-Growing-in-Enhanced-CO2-Concentrations-2024-04-22.pdf
Yes, dim.
How much increase in vegetation would you expect in those parts of the planet where nothing grows, being either desert or areas covered permanently in ice?
Zero. Absolutely obviously.
Interesting that areas like the Sahel, semi-desert just below the Sahara are greening. If they were allowed some affordable and reliable energy which also fractionally increased CO2 levels and thus photosynthesis and somewhat reduced the need for rain for plant growth, the increase in growth would be even greater.
The inhabitants would then be able to cook and keep warm at night without having to burn much of the wood and plants that do appear.
This would disappoint our own Beloved Leaders, as those existing there might be less inclined to invade the UK and Europe.
Well my take on this is that my lawn and hedges are growing like topsy each year .
So much so that I am on the guy at the dumps xmas card list again !
I know time passes faster and faster as one ages, but it certainly seems to me that trees, especially, are putting on a lot of growth. Usually, the process is so slow you don’t really observe it, but I notice it especially near our house, where saplings a few years ago have now grown so rapidly they have obscured certain vistas.
Thats so true.As an example when I moved here 7 years ago I could see most of a water tower about half a mile away . Now its hidden by trees .
And thats not a Father Ted cow thing either !!
The Doctrine was established first and then along came the vast amounts of taxpayers money chucked at scientists to look for everything that seemed to confirm it while ignoring everything that didn’t. Scientists who had no interest whatsoever in anything to do with climate all of a sudden around 1990 saw the opportunity to grab government money and if you could claim that some snail, hedgehog or shark was being adversely affected by the alleged global warming they found government would be happy to chuck money at them. If they found that these creatures were not really affected much by global warming then bang goes their easy money because government would no longer be interested.
The Doctrine has created its own truth. It is a truth not based on any empirical science, but on faith and emotion and cherry picking of facts. Firstly we are told the greenhouse effect will cause dangerous warming, but the physics indicate that won’t be the case and that positive feedbacks to amplify the small amount of warming would create their emergency. But that is also not the case as most feedbacks in nature are negative. So then they turn to scary models full of assumptions and guesses and declare that to be the “science” that points to their crisis. But after decades of no apparent climate apocalypse the next tactic is to highlight every storm flood and drought and claim that is evidence of their global scorching. But in the real world there is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event. But it does not matter. The only thing that matters is getting people to believe things. And that is the essence of all religions. The will to believe. So it turns out the Doctrine is a secular religion and anyone not worshipping it is a HERETIC.
These then are not scientists.
Agree with every word except they are shills not scientists.
Accept my apologies guys I should have had scientists in inverted commas—“scientists”. ———But remember that scientists are also human beings with family’s to feed and mortgages to pay and if government want to pay you good money to search for a purple horse you might not be in a hurry to say you cannot find any.
What is the best CO2 ppm for plants?
The level of 1000 PPM CO2 is very close to the optimum level of CO2 required, given no other limiting factor, 1200 PPM, to allow a plant to photosynthesis at the maximum rate.
This is a widely excepted fact for optimum plant growth, please check for yourself on any well respected botanical websites and you’ll find the same numbers give or take.
Let’s not forget all plants will begin to die at around 0.02% (200ppm) they need co2 like we need oxygen, this is a fact
currently at 0.042% co2 levels are way below the optimum for plant growth at 420ppm, but try and tell that to the likes of Git Packham!
Genuine questions: I know modern massive greenhouses and hydroponics farms boost the CO2 levels to encourage crop growth.
1) Do they boost it to around 1000ppm?
2) Where do they get the CO2 from?
3) Do they flush it to the external atmosphere from time to time?
4) Do their workers need breathing apparatus inside the greenhouses?
Does anyone here know or have a good source of info they can share?
You will easily find the answers to those question online. It is true that famers like their greenhouse to have about 1000ppm of CO2 , as this makes the plant stronger and it requires less water. But on your fourth question, people would not notice levels of CO2 at 1000ppm, and in fact in Nuclear submarines sailors often experience levels of 5000ppm and suffer no ill effects. Even in a crowded room levels of CO2 will be higher than in a room with one person in it.
Your skills with Google search are clearly better than mine.
Thanks for confirming that they use 1000 ppm, and good info about submarine CO2 levels. I recall the Apollo 13 crisis and reading later about the worry about dangerous CO2 levels but I was sure it was at much higher levels than greenhouses or any routine levels. According to the book Apollo 13 hit CO2 at nearly 15mm Hg partial pressure which would be nearly 20,000 ppm at normal atmospheric pressure – but of course they were using ‘air’ at less than normal atmospheric pressure so actually a far higher ppm.
I still can’t find where they get the CO2 from or what they do with it and if it leaks away into atmosphere. My guess is burning fossil fuels and to hell with it if it leaks – but it would be a shame to claim that and have an argument shot down by a green loon.
My question 4 was badly worded: Perhaps not ‘do they need breathing’ apparatus. Do idiots insist on using breathing apparatus?
I think you are basically right. Many greenhouses use gas fired air heating, and using the exhaust gas from the burners to raise the CO2 (hopefully not CO) can be a useful side effect of avoiding chucking out heat, and might reduce the water demand a bit as well. After all, burning methane with adequate oxygen results in a mix of CO2 and water.
They probably get it from the same places Pub suppliers get it. Bottled co2. Remember there was a shortage a few years ago.
The “leaking” you are talking about is clearly something that will happen given greenhouses are not airtight, but remember that in the general scheme of things, the amount of CO2 escaping from greenhouses in the world will be so insignificant that you can really discount it completely. Remember that 8 billion people in the world are breathing out CC2 every 10 seconds or so.
Rick Stein had an interview with James Dyson on his Cornwall series and Mr Dyson is now into hydroponic farming. The greenhouses have CO2 pumped in to them which is a by-product of some other process. It doesn’t affect breathing.
Apparently the tomatoes were delicious.
Many thanks. Always a good idea to use a by-product. Helps to reduce costs.
Sorry, a bit ot, but, interestingly enough, James Dyson, several years ago, was developing an electric vehicle at Hullavington, Wiltshire – an old air force base. He quit suddenly, and without warning, stopped the whole thing and moved on to other projects. I know someone who was an engineer on the project and he and his colleagues were very surprised, to say the least. Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall.
As others have said, around 4% atmospheric co2 becomes very dangerous to humans (the atmosphere is nowhere near that) usually in a confined space like a garage etc.
1% is the average indoor co2 measurement with no Ill effects.
https://www.co2meter.com/blogs/news/carbon-dioxide-indoor-levels-chart#:~:text=While%20most%20people%20will%20never,CO2%20levels%20can%20be%20fatal.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/27/humanity-survival-emissions-resilience-ecosystems-greenhouse-gases
Too late, we’ve had it. We are now definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely in the last chance saloon.
According to the Groan.
Ah. Latter day Millerites.
Same time next week then?
I think the Guardian should try comedy for a living as they are really quite funny. Or they would be if they were not so pathetic.
Do you think many people are aware that to produce a lot of the greenhouse grown early/all year round fruit and veg and plants and cut flowers, that CO2 is pumped in to the covered areas?
Makes me laugh anyway
I would imagine that 90% of the population won’t know that and won’t really care. I even remember speaking a to a person at work who thought carbon dioxide would kill you in your garage. When I explained to him he was thinking of carbon monoxide, he started to get a bit irritated and insisted that it was carbon dioxide. These type of people deserve all the impoverishment coming their way with Net Zero.
When I first started in IT watching magnetic tapes go around in the evenings, the fire suppression in the computer ‘suite’ was a few massive CO2 cylinders connected to pipework and nozzles. I was told that if the alarm went off to run away immediately as the the CO2 levels could incapacitate me quickly.
Later we replaced the CO2 with a much safer Halon system which was later still banned because it apparently blows holes through the ozone layer.
Latest iterations of fire suppression were very fine water mist. I think the attitude by that stage was that the computers didn’t cost much so it was just more important to put any fire out safely.
Only problem is they will take the rest of us with them.
Correct and that is why the likes of you and I come to sites like this to try and inject a bit of common sense and perspective into what has become a brainwashing exercise by government and its bought and paid for media.
Hear, hear.
Have you tried mentioning these things to ‘true believers’? You will either be looked at pityingly, abused or outright told you are a liar. If you try and show them proof you are only using info that is sympathetic to your beliefs. It’s a waste of time.
And it is the ” true believers” who have the money to buy all year round salads, soft fruit, exotic vegetables etc. for their healthy diets.
Don’t see them picking up the swedes, carrots, cabbage etc. Which are seasonal and can be grown in the fields in the UK.
Is it just me that thinks this people are not only intensely stupid but unbelievably evil? The RSPB, they protect birds don’t they? Oh no they don’t, they promote monstrosities that kill birds in their tens of thousands. They know they are condoning murder but still support it.
What are these nutcases intending to do with all the cows? Murder them. Pure and simple murder.
The same nutters don terrorist, culturally appropriated, garb on Saturday to protest about Genocide. Then on Sunday they are back to the day of Animal Genocide.
A general plea on language.
Language really matters – control the language, control the thinking. We should not cede the linguistic battlefield to the enemies of humanity.
Use “Project Stone Age” instead of “Net Zero”.
Use “hydrocarbons” instead of “fossil fuels”
I will try that out.
Also ‘Countermeasures’ for Lockdown or Plandemic. Just heard some Tory MP gaslighting the public saying how we protected people’s wages by paying them to stay home. Was in the middle of Kettlebells so didn’t have much breath but managed to utter ‘wank@r’.
Net Zero – The Elephant in the Election Room
Having looked and listened to some of the election stuff on MSM it does strike me that much of the discussion is ignoring this huge Net-Zero issue, which is actually the issue that is going to have a huge impact on people in coming years. The whole Election news-propaganda seems aimed to avoid talking about the Net-Zero Elephant that is lurking in the room ready to nobble us all in coming years.
It is as if they are only too well aware that climate-change and net-zero does not stand up to logical rational argument and therefore they need to avoid discussing the issue at all and just accept it as a done deal. It is stunning that we are going into a general election with apparently most of the parties agreed on net-zero and not prepared to talk about net-zero, when the effect of net-zero on all our lives will be so severe and so profound.
The only party to strongly contest net-zero appears to be Reform, on that basis is seems to me I have to hold my nose, suspend my feelings and vote for Reform
“just accept it as a done deal”———–It is a done deal. There was hardly any debate and no vote. It was simply waved through. No discussion of cost or benefit. Who in the right mind approves something with no concern for cost? ——Our political class UN lackeys. Net Zero is a stich up by the political class who pander to Sustainable Development rather than to the people who vote for them.
I have a ‘I
CO2’ bumper sticker on my car, occasionally people ask me about it. My standard reply is ‘ Carbon dioxide is the critical rate limiting factor in photosynthesis’ Most people don’t understand this. Even after decades of universal education, most people are scientifically illiterate
All the oil and coal beneath the ground and all that used to be beneath the ground was in the atmosphere as CO2.
Plants were growing fine in that CO2 rich atmosphere – they were not burnt up by Global Boiling but were growing nicely.
So how is it that if we put some of it back we are supposed to be destroying the planet?
Doesn’t make any sense to me.
Well done to DS for bringing this story to us. And for all the other Climate Cringe articles.
How come the legacy media cannot get their heads out of their arses – or out of the arses of the people they are brown nosing?
Spot on Chris, as always, but is why this article is prefaced by a photo from Atom Heart Mother?