CO2 is plant food.
It is 'greening' our planet.
A greening planet means
more food for people
and animals and fish.
Global greening
is happening faster
than climate change.
SATELLITE
OBSERVATIONS
In 2016, a paper
by 32 authors,
from 24 institutions,
in eight countries,
analyzed satellite
data and concluded
that there had been
a +14% increase
in green vegetation
over 30 years.
The study attributed 70%
of this increase to extra
CO2 in the atmosphere.
Lead author Zaichun Zhu,
of Beijing University,
said this is equivalent to
adding a new continent
of green vegetation,
twice the size of the
mainland United States.
According to NASA,
a quarter to half of Earth’s
vegetated lands had
significant greening
over the past 35 years,
mainly due to rising levels
of atmospheric CO2.
Global greening has affected
arctic tundra, coral reefs,
plankton and tropical
rain forests too.
It's had the largest effect
in dry places, such as the
Sahel region of Africa,
where desertification
has reversed.
According to Nature magazine,
scientists believe increased
CO2 emissions is
“beneficial for maintaining
and potentially enhancing
the recovery of rainfall
in the Sahel region”.
The southern border
of the Sahara has also
retreated for more than
30 years.
Families who had fled
to wetter coastal areas,
have begun to return.
A study published last year
showed that the vegetation
coverage of sub-Saharan
forests has increased +8%,
in the last three decades.
Global forest cover
has also increased
noticeably over
the past four decades.
An analysis of
satellite data shows
that the area
on which trees
that are at least
five meters high
has grown by
+2.24 million
square kilometers
in the past 35 years.
THE SCIENCE:
Plants open their stomate (pores)
to absorb CO2 from the air.
While those stomata are open,
plants lose water (transpiration).
So, the higher the CO2
concentration in the air,
the less time the stomata
stay open to get needed CO2,
so less water is lost
through transpiration.
With more CO2 in the air,
farms will be less
water-stressed than today
during periods of low rainfall.
Thousands of experiments
have been conducted
over many decades,
in which higher CO2 levels
had boosted plant growth.
full report -- over 1,078 pages:
summary of 1,078 page report -- 20 pages:
The owners of many
commercial greenhouses
pump CO2 into their
greenhouses to speed up
the growth of their plants.
This greening means
more food for people,
animals and fish.
It means higher yields
for farmers, so less land
will be needed for crops,
which means more land
available for wildlife.
Activists who make a living
off the climate change scare
ignore this inconvenient truth.