The world is ‘greening’ at an astonishing and rapidly growing rate and deserts are shrinking almost everywhere you look. All due, it seems, to a natural rise in carbon ‘plant food’ dioxide, not forgetting the small annual 4% portion contributed by humans burning hydrocarbons. Inconvenient to the political Net Zero narrative of course – along with high numbers of polar bears, cyclical recovery in Arctic sea ice and recent record growth of coral on the Great Barrier Reef – so there is naturally little mention in mainstream media and politics. “Desertification is turning the Earth barren,” reports the Guardian, and the expansion of drylands is leaving entire countries “facing famine”. Great story, shame about the facts. A recent article in Yale Environment 360 states that rather than shrivelling and dying, vegetation is growing faster and deserts are retreating.
In fact many scientists now think that this process will continue to accelerate into the future. According to the Yale article, CO2 is “fast-tracking” photosynthesis in plants. By allowing them to use scarce water more efficiently, the CO2-rich air fertilises vegetation growth in even some of the driest places, observes Yale. For some time there has been “growing evidence” of global greening in all biomes, not just drylands, evidence that we can note has been ignored by the promoters of Net Zero. A Carbon Brief ‘explainer’ claimed that desertification has been described as the greatest environmental challenge of our time “and climate change is making it worse”.
Carbon Brief is funded by green activist billionaires including Sir Christopher Hohn, a past provider for recently jailed Roger Hallam and Extinction Rebellion. Its desert climate hysteria, like that of the Guardian, is therefore to be expected. Interestingly, Yale Environment 360, which is part of the Yale University School of the Environment, also receives heavy direct and indirect financial support from activist groups including ClimateWorks along with the Hewlett and Ford Foundations. The article is significant since it represents a ‘mainstream’ breakthrough in discussing global greening which has been obvious for some time in specialist scientific circles.
Perhaps it is not surprising that the Yale article tries to rain a little on the greening parade with a dose of climate gloom. Greening created by agricultural irrigation of fields can “obliterate arid-land ecosystems”. But this surely is human-caused and nothing to do with a changing climate. “Save the deserts” may not be a popular environmental message, “but arid eco-systems matter”, continues Yale. Of course there will be many who point out that if a few scorpions have to up sticks to make way for the better nutrition of millions of African children, this is a small price to pay.
The article highlights much of the recent scientific work on global greening that has received coverage in publications like the Daily Sceptic but has been downplayed and more often than not ignored by messengers of the Net Zero narrative.
Ground-breaking work in 2016 saw a team of 33 scientists from eight countries study NASA satellite images, and they found that since 1980 between a quarter and a half of the planet’s vegetated areas had shown an increase in their leaf area index (LAI), a standard measure of the abundance of plant life. Work at this time suggested a 14% increase in vegetation. A 2021 study at the University of California concluded that there had been a 12% increase in photosynthesis, with CO2 fertilisation again the primary cause. A 2020 assessment from scientists at the Woodwell Climate Research Centre found that greening was “much more extensive than previously acknowledged”, and more than three times greater than desertification. Yale noted findings that the greening encompassed 41% of the world’s drylands, from India to the African Sahel and northern China to south-eastern Australia.
Chinese scientists have also been on the case. Last year, researchers at Lanzhou University found a “global divergence” between aridity and leaf area in drylands during the past three decades. This “decoupling” was said to be due to the effect of CO2.
In February, the Daily Sceptic reported on another group of Chinese scientists who found that over the last two decades about 55% of global land mass revealed an “accelerated rate” of vegetation growth. “Global greening is an indisputable fact,” they state.
They produced the above map based on four datasets that showed greening accelerating since 2000 in 55.8% of the globe. Faster growth in India and the European plains (dark blue colouring) was said to be the most obvious. Healthy growth can also be observed in the Amazon region, equatorial East Africa, southern coastal Australia and Ireland.
None of these findings should be a great surprise. CO2 levels have been much higher in the past going back 600 million years. Plants thrive at levels three times higher than current atmospheric CO2 and the near denudation amounts of the last few million years. During the last glacial period up to around 12,000 years ago, levels of atmospheric CO2 dropped to such dangerously low levels that plant – and human – life was severely threated. Even with the small recovery we have seen in the recent past, plants grow larger and utilise existing water resources much more efficiently. This recovery of CO2 levels in the atmosphere holds out hope for higher food resources in many parts of the world that suffer from periodic famines.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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God bless you Chris. Now the green lobby claim desert good, rain forest bad! Deserts are a sign of co2 stress, IE concentrations are too low to allow plants to grow in non optimum conditions.
Somewhat akin to the Royal Society for Protection of Birds being fervently behind windmills which are murdering tens of thousands of birds every year in our own waters and land alone.
Amazing isn’t it, socialists hate that the main bi product of capitalism is plant food, so they had to invent pseudo science to dismantle it.
The Climate zealots are anti human, they want less of us around, and so anything that causes depopulation in their crazed minds is good, anything that encourages human population growth is bad. When its viewed from that very simple angle it makes everything else we have been witness to in the past 4 plus years fall into place.
Succinct.
The real agenda is Depopulation.
What do the WWF have to say about that considering they’re are a clone of the WEF!
They say that polar bears are having to learn to live in trees!
WWF are right behind it even though it is killing all sorts of wildlife, whales, dolphins, birds
Nature in net zero transition plans | WWF
It seems obvious to me that milder winters at the end of the Mini Ice Age, allied with perfectly normal climate change, is causing CO2 to increase. After all, what is the primary purpose of plants other than to survive? Absorb CO2 and produce Oxygen.
Now, given that CO2 levels are, apparently, rising, despite the fact that temperatures have not risen for nearly 30 years, proves that CO2 does not have a definitive relationship with temperature. Indeed, the evidence that CO2 follows temperature is copiously detailed and reviewed. There is not one document in the entire world that proves the opposite without modelling. Modelling is about as accurate as Labour’s “1.5 million homes by 2029”.
In my layman view the Science is pretty obvious: the end of the Mini Ice Age and the Moon being on a ten year tilt cycle is causing ideal conditions for plants. Increased numbers of plants are, indirectly, producing more CO2, feeding more vegetation. It is exactly the same effect that was seen in humans since the invention of modern energy and better nourishment. There is also, of course, the increase in Oxygen levels, which plants absorb via synthesis causing healthier plants.
Quite agree. Do not forget the Vostok ice cores which lag temperature as pretty by Henry’s law.
Law?
It’s only his opinion!
Who is he, anyway?
Another candidate for decolonisation.
Although all organic life uses oxygen, green plants through photosynthesis give out oxygen whilst metabolising CO2. Quite a useful byproduct for the rest of us who use up oxygen and emit CO2.
Actually, in the UK, a lot of rarer species of plants like poorer less green habitats (not necessarily arid, as plenty of rain the UK, and when we had very dry springs in 2020 and 2021, then seeds did not geminate). But it is no good if there is dense vegetation such as Hogweed, cocksfoot and nettles- the rare plants get outcompeted and are lost. How much an increase of Co2 effects this I don’t know.
“…it is no good if there is dense vegetation such as Hogweed, cocksfoot and nettles- the rare plants get outcompeted and are lost.”
This I believe is now referred to as “re-wilding.” Or leaving the land to return to scrub when it becomes useless to man and beast. Land, all land requires management.
Not always. many nature reserves or wild places need some sort of management, hence conservation volunteers. Even in the mountains, they have to cull the deer as often there or too many, and some times fence areas off.
People often forget that nature reserves are semi-natural in many many cases. The scrub clearance and grazing has been done for thousands of years, so it is hardly surprising.
Scrub that is probably not indigenous to that “re-wilded area”.
They’ve tried shutting off large area in Mid-Wales and the Molinia grass, which is natural, has completely out competed everything else to form a sort of desert that not even the voles like and birds cannot nest in. Birds of prey cannot prey etc, etc. Idiocy.
As you said, rewilding results in scrubland, not pristine forests as they imply.
Plants are often rare and in marginal habitats because they are poor at competing. I was a botanist and remember studying rare plants, like Trinia glauca, a small umbellifer growing in the Avon Gorge. It was interesting to see a relic population, perhaps having migrated in after the last glaciation, but I wouldn’t obsess about its retention at all costs.
Thank you Chris for your continued contributions. They are a ray of light in these dark times.
How is the 4% human CO2 contribution figure calculated?
Professors Will Happer and his collaborator William van Wijngaarden(Tom Nelson Podcasts 56 and 158) attribute the recent modern CO2 rise to fossil fuel burning.I know that Professor Ian Pilmer and others quote 4%. Can anyone help?
Despite the Alarmist Club of Liberal Progressive Governments and Media telling us droughts are getting worse because of climate change, the opposite is true. Even the infamous CRU at East Anglia’s data reveals decline in drought since 1950.
——Incredibly reports that are the opposite of what is really happening are the norm on mainstream media. This means that the public are being thoroughly brainwashed, but why would that be? My friend recently said to me “Why would people say there is global warning if it isn’t true”? To an ordinary person like my friend that is busy with work and family life, who does not have the time to investigate every issue, and who may think mainstream news are doing that on his behalf, it is something he finds difficult to comprehend. So he just assumes what he is hearing will be mostly true. This is the power of propaganda.
—- We will all on this website have been in the company of friends and family and perhaps made statements that are contrary to current orthodoxy, and that the friends and family will not have heard before. The result is often a stare at you as if you are from Mars, and this suspicion that you are one of those conspiracy theorist people like those who think America did not land on the Moon or who think UFO’s are being hidden by the Military etc etc.
——-I have had a friend say to me “What makes you think you know more about this than the scientists”? They cannot see how silly that question is even when I ask them what scientists they are referring to. It is enough for people to just accept that this is all about science and that all the scientists agree and know what they are talking about. I have even had a person say to me with a look of exasperation on his face “David Attenborough says there is a climate crisis and that is good enough for me”. ———-Oh dear.
There are some people, far too many who are not worth talking to they have been so seriously brainwashed. Walk away or ridicule is the only answer.
I could walk away but I would probably be left with no friends. I give the example of my friend as typical of the general population. Apparently politicians today are less trusted than ever before, but somehow when it comes to climate change people seem to believe it all. They think it is all about science. —–No, it is bought and paid for science. Almost all science regarding climate change is funded by government. The same government that no one trusts anymore. —-Getting that message across however is not easy.
I’m experimenting with meeting such people half way by saying “yes you are half right but have you considered ….” I am hoping that they will be more open to further new facts. A work in progress and it is very tricky with close family and friends.
It is interesting isn’t it that the best of such conversations happen with total strangers at the bank or market or garden centre and a throw away remark gets the nod.
And bringing up the Hunga Tonga underwater volcanic eruption and 13% more water vapour in the atmosphere is normally a good move.
Spot on. It takes patience. Don’t try overloading their propaganda-soaked brains too quickly!
Always, first, follow the money.
‘……he just assumes what he is hearing will be mostly true…’
And that’s a big mistake; one should assume that the reverse is the case until proven otherwise. The MSM is a prime propagator of propaganda.
Start with Miliband, and once you realise he is a total charlatan, then you can move on to the rest of the eco socialist parasites.
The Great Climate Hoax – Ideology, Not Science!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ZcPuVpg5s
My recent climate related chat with exceptional researcher and talent Ben Pile
Godfrey Bloom Official
Godfrey Bloom for PM.
% of CO2 in the atmosphere 0.04
% man made 4
% generated in the UK 1
I’ve asked many people who expressed concern over ‘climate change’ if they knew any of these numbers.
% who did? Zero.
Try it.
Indeed. I’ve had people answer 50% (in a hesitant voice) when asked what proportion of the atmosphere is CO2. The figures you show are never reproduced in any msm promoting AGW, I wonder why?!
And that tells us the state of our edukashun system. As a young child I knew atmosphere was 79% Nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 1% trace gases.
I blame the schools.
That’s 1% of the 4% in the UK, not 25% of total as some might construe from your list.
And 96% of CO2 resides in the oceans and there is a constant exchange between ocean and atmosphere determined by water temperatures, which are dependent on incident solar radiation, but also upwelling, downwelling of warmer/colder waters. This and the CO2 cycle with plants changes air carbon dioxide concentration.
None of this is controlled by Man.
I love doing this. The blank looks are sheer joy
Yes I have tried it many many times. But climate alarmists will say this—–“How is that you think a small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot cause global warming while at the same time you claim it is causing global greening”. ——–I try not to fall into that trap. My way of saying it is this —-“There is no evidence that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate”. This stumps them every time because it puts the ball right back in their court and they are now required to provide evidence, which they cannot do because there is NONE
Tell them a further 2-3 % is made saving data around the world( cat videos!) or bit coin mining
And then the electrical energy requirement of AI…
Wales and Ireland look nice and blue. Speaking of Ireland, seen the protests on GBN with those Police fascists who are the useful idiots of the state spraying pepper spray even at Councillors now. Those pigs make my blood boil, if they piled on me I’d at least want to severely damage one of them. When were the Irish people asked to be dumped on like this.
“When were the Irish people asked to be dumped on like this”
And when the English?
..or the Welsh??
The assumption behind the warmists case is that the world was an ideal place around 1930. All change in the climat and all weather events since then have been the fault of mankind and before that we had millenia of calm, routine (yawn) boring sameness in the climate and weather.
Daft, of course, but that seems to be their starting point.
Perhaps they read “End of History” and believed it. Thought it also applied to science.
Thanks Chris – excellent article as usual.
Environmentalism became the new home for Socialists as their idol the USSR imploded. Socialism is all about planning and control using pseudo-scientism to predict and manage social and economic outcomes.
Spontaneous, emergent order terrifies the Socialist as they lose control particularly when outcomes are more successful than their plans. For them it’s all about process, best outcome is not the priority.
Commercial greenhouse maintain an air concentration of carbon dioxide between 1 000ppm to 1 200ppm which is optimum for plant growth, to speed up growth to produce strong, healthy plants requiring less water and fertiliser. (And, strange to report, none of these greenhouses ‘boil’ or catch fire.)
All that new plant growth around the World is also new habitat for myriad fauna. And food-crop yields have also increased.
Why do people obsessed with ‘rewilding’, ecosystems, biodiversity, etc want to kill off natural ‘rewilding’ and all those plants and animals on a massive scale by reducing CO2 (an absurdity anyway) to meet their ideological fantasies? Why do they want people to go hungry?
“Greening created by agricultural irrigation of fields can “obliterate arid-land ecosystems”.
But clearing vast tracts of natural vegetation – and keeping them clear of regrowth – to accommodate planting of non-native trees as ‘carbon-offset’ for royalty and celebs private-jetting around the World is OK?
You are right about greenhouse management. I think a fair bit of it is done by using the exhaust from gas fired heating; no need to waste it by exporting it into the outside air.
Correct, which is why Eart Day is on Lenin’s birthday
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/dr-green-will-see-you-now/
Roger Watson at thenewconservative with a cracking taking apart of ‘Dr Green’ aka The Royal College of Physicians and their “Green physician tool kit.’
“I leave you with this gem (not made up) which is given as an example of what a physician could say to a patient: ‘When cars burn petrol, they emit toxic air pollutants that can be bad for your health. Remember to carry an inhaler, avoid busy roads where possible and consider wearing a mask outside.’ As I may have mentioned already, who said Covid-19 lockdowns were not softening us up for something?”
I saw an old 1963 film where Sir John Betjeman travelled the long lost Dorset and Somerset railway from Shelton Mallet to Burnham on Sea.
Most notable the landscape was barren and lacked vegetation. I know that area well and today it is like a forest, rich in trees and hedges.
The Net Zero bandwagon is simply a gang of fanatics and business people with vested interests in scaring people to death, it’s Covid Mk2.
No——-The climate scare was there 30 years before covid.
It goes to prove that the planet can quite happily look after itself despite (not because of) our interference. .
‘This recovery of CO2 levels in the atmosphere holds out hope for higher food resources in many parts of the world that suffer from periodic famines.’
Excellent as always from Chris. But I’ve seen the point made that extra bulk greenery doesn’t mean proportional extra nutritional value. A parallel increase in nitrogen is needed for that.
Opinions, please.