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

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

[Karmashock]

You're confusing a cyclical drought with global warming. We had a drought in California like that in the 1970s. It happens every 40 years or so. The water planners drew up a plan for how to deal with it last time. The plan presupposed that people would actually do it. They half assed the project and as a result the shortages were painful though not fatal.

Look... you can't understand climate unless you make an effort to understand climate. To do that you have to look at the history of climates to see what the patterns are in the first place.

Saying "oh california didn't have bad droughts before" is ignorant. You'd have a hard time finding anything in Cali that has remarkably changed from a climate stand point.