UN Climate Scientist: ‘CO2 Emissions Are Making Earth Greener, More Fertile’
Carbon dioxide emissions are making the Earth greener and more fertile, a United Nations (UN) climate scientist has said.
In a paper for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Dr Indur Goklany, who has previously represented the United States on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says that the rising level of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere “is currently net beneficial for both humanity and the biosphere generally”.
The benefits are real, whereas the costs of warming are uncertain,” he adds.
“Carbon dioxide fertilises plants, and emissions from fossil fuels have already had a hugely beneficial effect on crops, increasing yields by at least 10-15 per cent,” Dr Golkany argues.
“This has not only been good for humankind but for the natural world too, because an acre of land that is not used for crops is an acre of land that is left for nature.”
Increasing crops yields has helped reduce hunger and improved human well being, as well as generating around $140 billion a year.
As well as crops, the “wild places of the Earth” have seen an improvement, becoming greener in recent decades. Dr Golkany attributes this to carbon dioxide, saying it can also increase their water-use efficiency, thus making them more resistant to drought.
“Unlike the claims of future global warming disasters,” Dr Golkany says, “These benefits are firmly established and are being felt now.
“Yet despite this the media overlook the good news and the public remain in the dark. My report should begin to restore a little balance.”
Professor Myles Allen of the University of Oxford admitted there were some benefits from increased levels of carbon dioxide, but nonetheless said Dr Golkany’s assertions had “Stalinist overtones”.
“… I worry about the Stalinist overtones of adding up the losses and benefits and deciding humanity as a whole will benefit from global warming. Drowning Bangladeshis might not be reassured by higher crop yields in Ukraine.”
However, in a foreword to the report, Professor Freeman Dyson, a world-renowned physicist, said Dr Golkany’s conclusions show how “a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts”, adding that “the thinking of politicians and scientists about controversial issues today is still tribal”.
I would also like to add the following from NASA’s website:
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25, [2016].
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions.
The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
Green leaves use energy from sunlight through photosynthesis to chemically combine carbon dioxide drawn in from the air with water and nutrients tapped from the ground to produce sugars, which are the main source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth.
Studies have shown that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth.
However, carbon dioxide fertilization isn’t the only cause of increased plant growth—nitrogen, land cover change and climate change by way of global temperature, precipitation and sunlight changes all contribute to the greening effect.
To determine the extent of carbon dioxide’s contribution, researchers ran the data for carbon dioxide and each of the other variables in isolation through several computer models that mimic the plant growth observed in the satellite data.
Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect, said co-author Ranga Myneni, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University.
“The second most important driver is nitrogen, at 9 percent. So we see what an outsized role CO2 plays in this process.”
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zeke
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thanks for sharing this at least something good is happening. we should try to be careful and heal our planet earth before its too late
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Jerry
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Planet earth is perfectly healthy and the climate changes are within historical norms.
The problem is the climate alarmists are just ignorant to the science and economics.
Reducing our foot print will not benefit the environment or the economy.
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Yves Crepeau
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I completely agree the alarmists have hijacked the green file and in the process
turned kids into cult followers shame really
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Steve Behm
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So humans have increased CO2 output enough in just the last 35-40 years to increase plant life by 35% world wide, but the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 is nothing to worry about?!?
With change happening that fast, (and evidence it could start increasing exponentialy), it is imperative we learn how to better sequester our CO2 emissions, living more sustainably lest we find out the hard way how important it is!
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richard
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The biggest increase in life, ever, on the planet was in the Cambrian period for ten million years. The CO2 levels were nearly 20x today’s levels.
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Zoe Phin
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We don’t know that for a fact.
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James
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You may not know it, but then you can’t know everything can you?.
That’s why we have the scientific-statistical method to establish the nearest we can get to a truth. The professions that work these things out have well developed formulae that can be followed by anyone who wants to put in the effort. So we don’t have to jump to conclusions with cliches and archetypes. We just feed in all the data we have and get the best approximation.
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Jerry
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It is totally unnecessary to sequester co2 because there is little or no co2 climate sensitivity.
https://principia-scientific.com/new-studies-human-climate-impact-less-than-0-02c/
What change and what evidence?
Unsubstantiated fear mongering is getting us no where.
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Andy Rowlands
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I have to agree with both Richard and Jerry, increasing CO2 is benefitting plant & crop growth. A change in CO2 is the result of a temperature change, not the cause of it. Earth has had levels of CO2 up to 7000ppm in the geologic past, and submarines maintain around 5000ppm with no ill effects.
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Daniel William Boyce
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So that was your take from all that? Are you still clinging to the delusions that the CO2 is bad or causing climate change in any way? Wow!
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richard
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This has been out for a few years now. What is significant is it is a UN climatologist saying it.
Feels like they are starting to dial back the climate change is the end of the world. The Eco greens have taken it so far that even politicians in Germany are becoming concerned where this is heading. Germany relies on heavy industry and renewables has made electricity very expensive. Germany is starting to suffer!!
Interesting times ahead.
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richard
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ah ok , the Dr Indur Goklany report was from a few years back.
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Andy Rowlands
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Might I respectfully suggest articles like this should be shared as widely as possible? I did when I first heard of the NASA graph a couple years ago. It’s a very good one to throw back at alarmists.
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Lawrence kathan
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About time the truth comes out, I read a report of Dr Don Easterbrook that really opens one eyes, his records go way back, showing the earths changes by using grafts, a must read entirely
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Michelle
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One or two papers come out ‘disproving’ decades of work by a multiplicity of subject experts:
Climate deniers: “the truth!!!”
For the record, Dr. Dyson acknowledges the veracity of anthropogenic climate change.
I’m also curious if anybody here has a theoretical explanation for CO2 emissions and increasing greenery – please note that deforestation rates remain unbelievably high.
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Andra
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One or two papers? You’re joking, right? Or else it’s a case of there’s none so blind as those who will not see.
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Bud Bromley
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It would be worthwhile to add the first paragraph in Dyson’s forward to this summary by of the Goklany article by Nick Hallett. The Dyson quote in the summary by Hallett is a bit ambiguous when take out of context. It could be taken as a Dyson critique of Goklany by those who do not read the forward and Goklany article.
Dyson’s quote in Hallett’s summary says, “Dr Golkany’s conclusions show how “a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts”, adding that “the thinking of politicians and scientists about controversial issues today is still tribal”.
But Dyson’s first paragraph in the forward is blazingly clear, “Indur Goklany has done a careful job, collecting and documenting the evidence that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does far more good than harm. To any unprejudiced person reading this account, the facts should be obvious: that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide as a sustainer of wildlife and crop plants are enormously beneficial, that the possibly harmful climatic effects of carbon dioxide have been greatly exaggerated, and that the benefits clearly outweigh the possible damage.”
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