MarkJones8bb2ceed5bee4b24
That's why I go for long drives,
Gizmowiz
So if the CO2 is increasing and plant life is flourishing--wouldn't then the oxygen concentration in our atmosphere being to slowly rise as well since trees produce oxygen as a byproduct of their chlorophyll derived energy process?
"On average, one tree produces nearly 260 pounds of oxygen each year. Two mature trees can provide enough oxygen for a family of four." - Environment Canada, Canada's national environmental agency
So do we risk not only dying from overheating our atmosphere but also from having a too rich oxygen concentration (which can be a poison to us) at some point in the future if we never stop using gas and oil? Thus returning our atmosphere to a point not seen for billions of years before single cell organism harnished that oxgyen to support their live (algae).
JanetCarsonhopper
been saying for 35 years my trees are growing faster, walnuts growing 3 feet or more a year. used to grow about 2 feet a year.
amazed W1
The article seems to be unnecessarily pessimistic. Surely if we don't cut down the increased vegetation the beneficial effect of greening continues - more carbon is sequestrated before we reach saturation. Obviously it isn't the solution to the total problem but it should have a useful super-marginal effect on the growth of renewable fuel sources.
The fascinating thing is that it illustrates what we were taught at school as "Le Chatelier's principle", basically that there is a reaction to every action that tends to counter the said action.
Fretting Freddy the Ferret pressing the Fret
@VincentWolf No, you don't need to worry about trees. You need to worry about algae, since they are responsible for producing most of Earth's oxygen by far.
CliffG
Watch the fossil fuel apologists glom onto this piece of information. But the point is CO2 levels continue to rise along with global temperatures. Maybe a useful analogy is one tends to bail faster as the boat sinks. Not mentioned here is that plant growth in many places is not constrained by CO2 or nitrogen, but by water availability. As climates change under AGW the distribution of precipitation changes, further screwing up the system that enables life.
Robert in Vancouver
The article again tells us that sea levels are rising due to man made climate change. That's a just another pile of climate change scaremongering BS! I have lived 50 metres from the Pacific Ocean for 27 years and cannot see any change to high tide marks on piers, sea walls, or beaches. No change whatsoever. None.
kisu1492
Didn't it take algae scores of millions of years to increase atmospheric oxygen concentrations from around 0 to around 20%?
Also, the article says nitrogen is a greenhouse gas. It isn't.
Joe Maxwell
The latest research I read shows that the earth is not warming but cooling at this time. Greenhouse gases have almost no effect on climate change. Cloud cover has much greater impact. Normal cycles that we have no control over effect us in many ways including the stock market and the economies as well as climate change. Adding more people to this planet, is our biggest problem. We have only so much area to grow food and only so much space for people to live. China's experiment of limiting the number of children turned out to be a desaster. Maybe we should eat a lot more algae and insects
piperTom
From the article: "... another greenhouse gas produced as a by-product of human activities, nitrogen, is responsible for [something]". Nitrogen?!?! Surely, you meant to say nitrates or nitrites or... anything but just "nitrogen" which is already 78% of the air. It's hard to see how any human production could influence the over 4 quadrillion tons of nitrogen already in the air.