Rise In CO2 Has 'Greened Planet Earth' (bbc.com)

schwit1 quotes a report from BBC: Carbon dioxide emissions from industrial society have driven a huge growth in trees and other plants. A new study says that if the extra green leaves prompted by rising CO2 levels were laid in a carpet, it would cover twice the continental USA. Climate skeptics argue the findings show that the extra CO2 is actually benefiting the planet. But the researchers say the fertilization effect diminishes over time. They warn the positives of CO2 are likely to be outweighed by the negatives. The lead author, Professor Ranga Myneni from Boston University, told BBC News the extra tree growth would not compensate for global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, the loss of Arctic sea ice, and the prediction of more severe tropical storms. The new study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change by a team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries. A new study has also shown that ever since Americans first heard the term global warming in the 1970's, the weather has actually improved for most people living in the U.S. The study published in the journal Nature found that 80% of the U.S. population lives in counties experiencing more pleasant weather than they did four decades ago.

Comments

More "pleasant" weather

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, if prefer mud and slush to nice powdery snow

Re:More "pleasant" weather

[phantomfive]

Same. California used to be nice and warm, but some parts have become unbearably hot during the summer,

What part of California is now unbearably hot that wasn't unbearably hot before?

Re:More "pleasant" weather

[adolf]

The part of California that he moved away from before it became unbearably hot. (which, thereby, means that he had no idea if it was unbearable or not, because he chose to vacate before it came to bear.)

Re:More "pleasant" weather

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, having grown up in southern California, what I think people seem to forget is that southern California is what's typically classified as a desert. The fact that they have some 10 million people living there (probably closer to 20 if you count San Diego) just shows how stupid people can be. Are people next going to start complaining about drought conditions in Las Vegas? Southern California was only ever able to support life because of the Colorado River, and there's just too damn many people living there no and the might Colorado barely even makes it to the pacific any more.

Re: More "pleasant" weather

[Karmashock]

Except it hasn't because in the case of California the cycle is entirely predictable.

We have droughts like this... they told us in the 70s we'd have another one in another forty years... and they gave us what they thought was the best solution so the next time it was no big deal.

People didn't do that so we got a shit show.

Number of people that died as a result of government incompetence in this case? Zero.

However, they did have to steal water from the agricultural sector to keep the cities going. Not cool. Not just crops failed but orchards died.

So I can't say this enough fucking times...

No. Wrong. Incorrect. The cycle has held. We have droughts like this... this is normal. Its unusual but so are tidal waves hitting little Japanese villages. However... it happens. You either prepare for it or you get surprised like a chump.

Choose.

Be prepared or be a chump.

I personally would like to be prepared. But all the people saying "oh there was nothing we could do about it"... they are chumps.

That is what you're saying. Don't be that guy.

Re:More "pleasant" weather

[rgbatduke]

To do that you have to look at the history of climates to see what the patterns are in the first place.

I fully agree.

http://www.mercurynews.com/sci...

And the last drought was due to a strong La Nina, as they often are. California has had horrendous droughts, some of which have lasted for centuries, over the last 2000 years. Climates always are changing, and California's has actually been comparatively benign (for California) for most of the last 160 years, with the exception of the Great Dust Bowl years and a few other minidroughts that are more or less identical to the one just ended, or at least paused, by the strong El Nino.

The problem with the AGW assertions -- a problem so severe that they changed the entire assertion to ACC ("climate change", not "global warming") is that it is very, very difficult to separate anecdotes from statistically meaningful evidence. Indeed, the only other human discipline that seems to incorporate a worse rate of anecdotal assertion as statistical truth is -- maybe -- health care. Maybe not! A second, closely related problem is the near impossibility of separating out causal factors for any statistically meaningful change that is observed. Is the CA drought caused by or part of -- note the separate assertions:

a) Anthropogenic (specifically, caused by anthropogenic CO2, not other anthropogenic silliness like land use change or oversubscribing the water supply ten times over)
b) Global (not local -- part of a global, statistically discernible pattern and not a local anecdote)
c) Warming and/or Climate Change?

How can one even begin to answer this question? Is the drought different in magnitude, duration, timing, from any of the ten odd droughts that have occurred over the period of scientific records? Is it exceptional on the basis of e.g. tree ring data? Even if "exceptional", is it truly a statistical outlier or just at the level of statistical noise and the imperfection of records, truly indistinguishable from many of the past droughts? Is it part of a pattern of increasing drought? And even if it is exceptional, part of a pattern, an outlier, is it caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the specific sense that if humans had done everything else that they did to California -- tap the available water to support far more people than the land should support, plant huge farms, cover vast stretches of countryside with roads and malls and houses -- but done it without burning anything so CO2 was still order of 300 ppm, there would be no La Nina associated droughts, or those droughts would not be so severe?

We have answers to some of these questions. The drought was not particularly exceptional, and its impact was greatly enhanced by non-CO2 (but anthropogenic) factors, specifically the fact that California is carrying far more people than it should given its history of being mostly desert for most of the last 2000 years. We have no possible way to answer others, specifically the attribution to anthropogenic CO2.

But that never stops the media, politicians, and even some scientists who should know better from doing it anyway. The study in the top article is remarkable in that it states something that most people have long since observed and noted even without the help of "Science". The climate today is far better than it was 60 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 150 years ago. It is much closer to a climate "optimum" that the Earth was during the Little Ice Age. It isn't just humans that have benefited, either. The entire biosphere is -- on average -- far better off. The planet was starved for CO2 in the middle of the Wisconsin glaciation -- levels dropped to the edge of mass extinction for certain classes of respiring plants.

Here's a thought for the day. Of the world's seven billion people, one billion will dine today courtesy of the additional plant growth d

Re: More "pleasant" weather

[Karmashock]

http://www.sfgate.com/science/...

I'm sorry the burden of proof is on you people. You want to say this is all global warming? Have fun substantiating that.

This is my state. I know it and I know its history. Most of the chumps commenting on this are either out of state hacks that are just bandwagoning an issue they don't understand. And the rest are mostly millennial twinks that don't know what happened yesterday much less the historic climate patterns of anywhere... even the fucking state they reside within.

http://articles.latimes.com/19...
http://news.sky.com/story/1193...
http://www.californiadrought.o...

The AGW hissy fit has gotten old. Shouldn't we be getting MORE water if your chicken little bullshit were right? After all, more heat, more humidity, more precipitation?

We brought water to the desert. Our cities do not thrive on the rain that falls on our land. It thrives on the water we bring to our land.

No part of the country has as elaborate a water transport system as California. That is what made our cities possible and is what allowed them to grow. Men that moved the water. Our population has grown and all we have to replace those old lions of the past are a bunch of head up their ass hippies that do very little besides whine and waste money.

That is why we have a problem. There is plenty of water. The old city fathers of Los Angeles would have already taken care of this bullshit. They would have gone to any of the many places in the north that have loads of fucking water and they would have made a deal. What is more, Our water system is not well designed to share water within itself. It is frequently compartmentalized. Simply by bringing water into the top of the system and then allowing reserves in the north to spill into reserves in the south... the problem solves itself.

Here someone will say "but every place needs every drop of their water". Bullshit. Oregon and Washington state are loaded with it. You talk to them and work out an arrangement. Buy it. Move it.

Here someone will say "but its hard to do things because we're so fucking incompetent!!!"... you have to imagine that with a really whiny voice to get the statement in its proper context. The Romans moved water hundreds of miles. This is the 21st century and we're talking about a major population center that is a huge economy and huge food producer... so... The fuck? Did we lose the ability to make pipes and concrete? I was unaware that level of incompetence had been reached. Because that's straight up Idiocracy levels of fuckwittery.

Re: More "pleasant" weather

[Karmashock]

Why would I speak in a manner other than what gets your attention? What is the point if it won't get your fat neckbeard layers of cognitive dissonance?

As to speaking logically, I did. As to speaking about science? I did.

What I did on top of that was slap someone around for being wrong. And while you might think that is unscientific, science actually doesn't care if your feelings get hurt. Science isn't a moral, ethical, or ideological system. Science is a tool for ferreting out truth from bullshit. And there's no reason you can't smack talk AND do that at the same time.

As to your presumption to censor someone by telling them to go somewhere else... I could very easily say the same thing. Perhaps you should go back to Tumblr or Facebook to talk about which character in the Harry Potter series you'd rather have sex with...

Eh? See how effective your sad little argument was? You're just another asshat AC angry that your pathetic feelings are yet again completely irrelevant.

People like you didn't build cities like Los Angeles. And people like you are fucking poison for the future California. We can't afford to let you whiny tools ruin it with your incompetent dithering. The solution was rather obvious to past generations that dealt with similar problems. They had these problems and they solved them in their time. Are you telling me that in all these years we've gotten worse at solving a problem like this? Get the fuck out. No really.

Re: More "pleasant" weather

[Karmashock]

Which is why its a democrat city and state.

If the republicans run a place then you blame the republicans. If the republicans don't run the place then you blame them anyway.

It doesn't matter what anyone does. You've come to a tribal affiliation and you'll just hold to it indifferent to any external reality.

Ca we trust Slashdot to remain objective

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope the recent change of ownership of slasdot.org does not mean we will now see pro fossil ideas fed to its fans.

Re:Ca we trust Slashdot to remain objective

[Crashmarik]

Ca we trust Slashdot to remain objective

I hope the recent change of ownership of slasdot.org does not mean we will now see pro fossil ideas fed to its fans.

HAHAHAHA , that's me really laughing.

The lack of self examination. Yes lets hope slashdot remains objective and doesn't promote any views you disagree with.

Re:Slashdot is being spammed with climate stories

[Ichijo]

Predictably, anyone who questions if humans are causing global warming will be modded down to -1.

As will be anyone who questions if the moon landings actually happened.

As long as the weather gets more pleasant in most

[patrick.kursawe]

.... who cares if some island nations are wiped off the map or a few thousand people drown in Bangladesh?

Interesting Spin

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Is this the new spin from conservatives and the oil industry now? They realized they can no longer refute climate change in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, so now they are trying to sell it as being good for us?

At a few mm per year, they're rather slow to run

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when was the sea level predicted to rise so fast people would drown from it?

Re:Terraforming

[AC-x]

Sincerely, Your Venusian Overlords