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Adaptation
The rate of climate change prevents adaptation
Romm 07 [Joseph, Senior Fellow at Center for American Progress, Aug 29, Hurricane Katrina and
the Myth of Global Warming Adaptation, http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/29/94352/7786]
If we won't adapt to the realities of having one city below sea level in hurricane
alley, what are the chances we are going to adapt to the realities of
having all our great Gulf and Atlantic Coast cities at risk for the same
fate as New Orleans -- since sea level from climate change will ultimately put many cities, like
Miami, below sea level? And just how do you adapt to sea levels rising 6 to 12
inches a decade for centuries, which well may be our fate by 2100 if
we don't reverse greenhouse-gas emissions trends soon. Climate
change driven by human-caused GHGs is already happening much
faster than past climate change from natural causes -- and it is
accelerating.
Anthro
Warming is happening and is human induced Berkeley
Earth Surface Temperature project studied warming data
over the past 250 years and concluded CO2 increases
have rapidly increased the rate of warming past natural
fluctuations prefer our evidence it cites the most
recent studies and comes from a former skeptic who
attempted to explain the data any other way Thats
Muller
Carbon dioxide accounts for 60% of the human induced
GHG emissions this outweighs all other causes of
warming studies of carbon composition prove this is
caused by human energy consumption thats Vertessy
and Clark
Scientific consensus is on our side
Lewandowsky and Ashley 11 [Stephan Lewandowsky, Professor of Cognitive
Studies at the University of Western Australia, and Michael Ashley, Professor of Astrophysics at the
University of New South Wales, June 24, 2011, The false, the confused and the mendacious: how the
media gets it wrong on climate change, http://goo.gl/u3nOC]
predict what is going to happen to the earths climate during our lifetimes, all based on fundamental
Some people will be understandably sceptical about that last statement. But when they read up on the
science, and have their questions answered by climate scientists, they come around. These people are
true sceptics, and a degree of scepticism is healthy. Other
scientific consensus on climate change, and will challenge the science on internet blogs and
opinion pieces in the media, but no matter how many times they are shown to
be wrong, they will never change their opinions. These people are
deniers. The recent articles in The Conversation have put the deniers under the microscope. Some
readers have asked us in the comments to address the scientific questions that the deniers bring up. This
Denier
arguments have been dealt with by scientists, again and again and again.
has been done. Not once. Not twice. Not ten times. Probably more like 100 or a 1000 times.
But like zombies, the deniers keep coming back with the same long-falsified and nonsensical arguments.
The deniers have seemingly endless enthusiasm to post on blogs, write letters to editors, write opinion
pieces for newspapers, and even publish books. What they rarely do is write coherent scientific papers on
their theories and submit them to scientific journals. The few published papers that have been sceptical
about climate change have not withstood the test of time. The phony debate on climate change So if the
evidence is this strong, why is there resistance to action on climate change in Australia? At least two
reasons can be cited. First, as The Conversation has revealed,
A tacit
presumption of many in the media and the public is that climate science is a brittle
house of cards that can be brought down by a single new finding or the
discovery of a single error. Nothing could be further from the truth. Climate science
is a cumulative enterprise built upon hundreds of years of research . The
informed to overtly malicious and mendacious. The false Lets begin with what is merely false.
heat-trapping properties of CO were discovered in the middle of the 19th century, pre-dating even
Sherlock Holmes and Queen Victoria.
four other studies (not shown) exhibit the same pattern but at higher values; e.g., the 2010 ACM values
based on their preferred estimates range from 167 to 233, compared to the 135 based on Marty and
Tolstikhins [1998] preferred estimate.
Clouds (0:16)
Clouds are actually a positive feedback, not a negative
one
Johnston 09 (Hamish Johnston is an editor at Physics World. Cloud feedback could accelerate
global warming July 23, 2009. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2009/jul/23/cloud-feedback-couldaccelerate-global-warming//wyoccd)
low-level cloud cover decreases when the sea surface gets warmer. Fewer clouds mean that more sunlight
reaches Earths surface, leading to further warming. Understanding how climate change is affected by lowlevel clouds is one of the key challenges facing climate scientists. Such clouds are known to have a net
cooling effect so if rising temperatures lead to more low-level clouds, this negative feedback mechanism
data linking low-level cloud cover and temperature are scarce and the formation and dissipation of clouds
is notoriously difficult to model and integrate into global climate simulations. Now, Amy Clement and
Robert Burgman of the University of Miami and Joel Norris of the University of California-San Diego have
done a statistical analysis of 55 years of cloud cover and temperature observations for the north-eastern
models. Only two models predicted a positive feedback and one of these HadGEM1 from the UKs
Hadley Centre was particularly good at reproducing the observed relationships between cloud cover,
atmospheric circulation and temperature. Clement believes HadGEM1 performed well because Hadley
scientists have spent a lot of time looking at the lower kilometre of the atmosphere. Clement told
increase when carbon dioxide is doubled compared to the 3.1 median of the 18 models. A perfect
'laboratory' The team focused on the north-eastern Pacific Ocean because the average temperature in the
region fluctuates significantly on a ten-year timescale and because comprehensive cloud-cover
observations have been made over the years by satellites as well as by the many ships that sail through
the region. This makes it a perfect "laboratory" for studying the relationship between clouds and
temperature. Clement says that it is possible that the observed feedback is specific to the north-eastern
Pacific and may be different in other parts of the world where there is significant low-level cloud cover. To
test this, the team is now doing a similar study of data from the south-eastern Pacific. Matthew Collins of
the Hadley Centre said that the result sheds significant light on the role of clouds and will be used to
evaluate and improve the performance of climate models. However, he cautions that cloud feedback is
only part of the picture and the type of clouds studied by Clement and colleagues are significant only in
certain parts of the globe.
Feedbacks (0:28)
Feedbacks are positive
Mandia 11 (Scott A. Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences at Suffolk College, 1/22/2011, "Global
Warming: Man or Myth?",
www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/greenhouse_gases.html#stratospheric_cooling)
spend about 10 days in the atmosphere {while elevated CO2 concentrations can remain for hundreds to
thousands of years} so water vapor cannot be a climate change forcing mechanism like CO2.) See: A
radiative feedback whereas if there is a larger decrease in temperature with height there will be a greater
are effective at absorbing and emitting LW radiation and are also affective at reflecting SW radiation. The
feedback from clouds is influenced by cloud amount, cloud height and vertical profile, optical depth, liquid
Inevitable
Nuccitelli says that we are not committed to surpassing 2
degrees yet. Every bit of CO2 reduces future warming
slowing the rate allows us to adapt.
Reforestation
Reforestation doesnt solve warming
CBC News 11 (June 20, Replacing crops with trees barely slows warming,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/06/20/science-afforestation-montenegro.html)
A key climate change reduction strategy recommended by the United Nations won't have much effect on
Afforestation involves
planting trees over croplands that aren't very productive in order to absorb more
carbon dioxide from the air. High emissions of carbon dioxide have been linked to climate
change, especially rising average global temperatures. But even if 100 per cent of the
area planted with crops now was gradually replaced with forests,
wherever possible, over the next 50 years, warming would only be
reduced 0.45 degrees Celsius between 2081 and 2100, said a study by
Vivek Arora, an Environment Canada researcher based at the Canadian Centre for
Climate Modelling and Analysis in Victoria, B.C., and Alvaro Montenegro, an
earth sciences professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S. If
50 per cent of the area was afforested, warming would be reduced by
just 0.25 degrees. "That says a lot about the smaller efforts," Montenegro
global temperatures, according to a couple of Canadian scientists.
said on Monday, a day after the research was published in Nature Geoscience. The United Nations lists
afforestation as one way developing countries can earn emission reduction credits that can be sold to
industrialized countries to meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to
Arora and
Montenegro used a mathematical model of the Earth's climate, land
surface and oceans to calculate the effect of replacing cropland with
trees where trees could naturally grow. For example, they excluded areas like the
Canadian prairies that are naturally grasslands. They found that while forests do absorb
large amounts of carbon dioxide, they are darker than crops, so they
absorb more sunlight. That results in net warming, especially in areas
further away from the equator.
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012.
The plan to use trees as a way to suck up and store the extra carbon dioxide
emitted into Earth's atmosphere to combat global warming isn't such a hot idea,
new research indicates. Scientists at Duke University bathed plots of North
Carolina pine trees in extra carbon dioxide every day for 10 years and
found that while the trees grew more tissue, only the trees that
received the most water and nutrients stored enough carbon dioxide to
offset the effects of global warming. The Department of Energy-funded project, called
the Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) experiment, compared four pine
forest plots that received daily doses of carbon dioxide 1.5 times
current levels of the greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere to four matched plots that
didn't receive any extra gas. The treated trees produced about 20 percent more biomass on
average, but since water and nutrient availability differed across the plots, averages don't tell the whole
story, the researchers noted. "In some areas, the growth is maybe five to 10 percent more, and in other
in sites that
are poor in nutrients and water we see very little response. In sites that
are rich in both, we see a large response." These differences are key since the
weather isn't always cooperative with human needsif a drought takes
hold, trees won't be able to do much in the way of carbon storage. "If
water availability decreases at the same time that carbon dioxide
increases, then we might not have a net gain in carbon sequestration,"
Oren said. Fertilizing forests to spur more carbon dioxide uptake is
impractical, Oren added, because of the ramifications to the local
environment and water supply.
areas it's 40 percent more," said FACE project director Ram Oren of Duke University. "So
Renewables (0:39)
Even if funding continues lack of innovation kills
renewables
Stepp 12 (Matthew, Senior Policy Analyst @ Information Technology and Innovation Foundation,
5/14/2012, http://energy.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/boom-and-bust-renewable-energy.php)
even if much of this funding continues, the nascent clean tech industry is on a
potential path of stagnation. In absence of long-term, significantly larger subsidies (which are
But
politically unlikely), government support for clean energy R&D are central to developing and deploying
According to ITIFs Energy Innovation Tracker, the U.S. is investing roughly $6 billion in clean energy R&D in
FY2012 on average a third what leading experts think the U.S. should be investing. In fact, the bulk of the
federal governments historic investment in clean energy nearly three quarters of the $150 billion is
going to the deployment of existing technologies that are not cost-competitive with fossil fuel sources of
energy. While these deployment incentives expand domestic supply chains and are spurring incremental
innovations, the policies are acting like blunt force tools propping up lower-risk technologies while playing
little role in incenting innovation and technologies to put clean energy on a path to subsidy independence.
By not orienting the significant federal investment in clean tech towards spurring innovation while grossly
underfunding R&D, the U.S. is failing to jump start and accelerate the clean tech innovations needed to
administration's ceaseless promotion of the industry and the unseemly White House ties that run
throughout. While the legacy media often shills for Democrats, sometimes an outlet surprises us, as the
Washington Post did with this week's story outlining the shady Obama links to the clean-energy industry
and implying the administration has engaged in first-class corruption. Post reporters, for instance, "found
that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies
backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers." Named in the story
is Sanjay Wagle, "venture capitalist" and "Obama fundraiser" who joined the Energy Department, which
"provided $2.4 billion in public funding to clean-energy companies in which Wagle's former firm, Vantage
Point Venture Partners, had invested." And there's Steven Spinner, a "bundler of Obama campaign
contributions who," we noted last fall, became an adviser at the Energy Department where he "pushed
hard" for the Solyndra loan. Spinner is also married to a partner in the law firm that represented Solyndra.
Going deeper, we find Steve Westly, identified by the Post as "an Obama fundraising bundler" who "served
part time" on an Energy Department advisory board and "communicated with senior White House
officials." The Post reported that Westly's firm "fared well in the agency's distribution of loans and grants.
Its portfolio companies received $600 million in funding." mp3Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast
Also appearing in emails examined by the Post was David Prend, another venture capital investor with
"White House access." Prend's company, Rockport Capital Partners, has been an investor in "several firms"
that raked $550 million in federal money. Prend is linked, as well, to Ener1, the bankrupt electric-car
goes nowhere, but Obama thinks he can ride it back to the White House.
Sea Level
Sea level rise is real and accelerating multiple methods
of measurement
Bostrom 10 (Doug Bostrom, How much is sea level rising? 8/30/10)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise.htm
A variety of different measurements find steadily rising sea levels over the
past century. Sea level rises as ice on land melts and as warming ocean
waters expand. Sea level rise mutually corroborates other evidence of
global warming as well as being a threat to coastal habitation and environments. The blue line in
the graph below clearly shows sea level as rising, while the upward curve suggests sea level is rising faster
as time goes on. The upward curve agrees with global temperature trends and with the accelerating
arguments about sea level concern the validity of observations, obtained via tide gauges and more
the same time it appears the mass balance of continental ice envisioned by the IPCC is overly optimistic
( Rahmstorf 2010 ).
The NSSO study is remarkably sensible and even-handed and states that we are nowhere near
developing practical SSP and that it is not a viable solution for even the militarys limited requirements. It
states that the technology to implement space solar power does not
currently exist and is unlikely to exist for the next forty years.
Substantial technology development must occur before it is even
feasible. Furthermore, the report makes clear that the key technology
requirement is cheap access to space, which no longer seems as
achievable as it did three decades ago (perhaps why SSP advocates tend to skip this part of the
discussion and hope others solve it for them). The activists have ignored the message and fallen in love
with the messenger.
Impacts (0:16)
Lynas says global warming leads to extinction there will
be droughts, the destruction of the entire rainforest
ecosystem, wipes out agriculture endangering food
supplies - makes conflict inevitable outweighs nuclear
war.
Even a small rise in global temperature would lead to
mass starvation despite CO2 fertilization resulting in
extinction
Strom 07 Robert, Professor Emeritus of planetary sciences in the Department of Planetary Sciences
at the University of Arizona, 2007 (studied climate change for 15 years, the former Director of the Space
Imagery Center, a NASA Regional Planetary Image Facility, Hot House, SpringerLink, p. 211-216)
THE future consequences of global warming are the least known aspect of the problem. They are based on
highly complex computer models that rely on inputs that are sometimes not well known or factors that
may be completely unforeseen. Most models assume certain scenarios concerning the rise in greenhouse
gases. Some assume that we continue to release them at the current rate of increase while others assume
that we curtail greenhouse gas release to one degree or another. Furthermore, we are in completely
good, and it could be catastrophic. We know that relatively minor climatic events have had strong adverse
effects on humanity, and some of these were mentioned in previous chapters. A recent example is the
strong El Nin~o event of 1997-1998 that caused weather damage around the world totaling $100 billion:
major flooding events in China, massive fires in Borneo and the Amazon jungle, and extreme drought in
Mexico and Central America. That event was nothing compared to what lies in store for us in the future if
we do nothing to curb global warming. We currently face the greatest threat to humanity since civilization
began. This is the crucial, central question, but it is very difficult to answer (Mastrandea and Schneider,
2004). An even more important question is: "At what temperature and environmental conditions is a
threshold crossed that leads to an abrupt and catastrophic climate change?'' It is not possible to answer
that question now, but we must be aware that in our ignorance it could happen in the not too distant
future. At least the question of a critical temperature is possible to estimate from studies in the current
science literature. This has been done by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany's
leading climate change research institute (Hare, 2005). According to this study, global warming impacts
multiply and accelerate rapidly as the average global temperature rises. We are certainly beginning to see
that now. According to the study, as the average global temperature anomaly rises to 1 C within the next
25 years (it is already 0.6'C in the Northern Hemisphere), some specialized ecosystems become very
domestic product (GDP). At least one study finds that because of the time lags between changes in
radiative forcing we are in for a 1 C increase before equilibrating even if the radiative forcing is fixed at
today's level (Wetherald et al., 2001). It is apparently when the temperature anomaly reaches 2 C that
serious effects will start to come rapidly and with brute force (International Climate Change Taskforce,
2005). At the current rate of increase this is expected to happen sometime in the middle of this century. At
that point there is nothing to do but try to adapt to the changes. Besides the loss of animal and plant
species and the rapid exacerbation of our present problems, there are likely to be large numbers of
hungry, diseased and starving people, and at least 1.5 billion people facing severe water shortages. GDP
losses will be significant and the spread of diseases will be widespread (see below). We are only about 30
years away from the 440 ppm CO2 level where the eventual 2'C global average temperature is probable.
When the temperature reaches 3 'C above today's level, the effects appear to become absolutely critical.
At the current rate of greenhouse gas emission, that point is expected to be reached in the second half of
the century. For example, it is expected that the Amazon rainforest will become irreversibly damaged
leading to its collapse, and that the complete destruction of coral reefs will be widespread. As these things
uptake of CO2 from the soil and vegetation of about 270 billion tons, resulting in an enormous increase in
the atmospheric level of CO2. This, of course, would lead to even hotter temperatures with catastrophic
results for civilization. A Regional Climate Change Index has been established that estimates the impact of
global warming on various regions of the world (Giorgi, 2006). The index is based on four variables that
include changes in surface temperature and precipitation in 2080-2099 compared to the period 19601979. All regions of the world are affected significantly, but some regions are much more vulnerable than
others. The biggest impacts occur in the Mediterranean and northeastern European regions, followed by
high-latitude Northern Hemisphere regions and Central America. Central America is the most affected
tropical region followed by southern equatorial Africa and southeast Asia. Other prominent mid-latitude
regions very vulnerable to global warming are eastern North America and central Asia. It is entirely obvious
that we must start curtailing greenhouse gas emissions now, not 5 or 10 or 20 years from now. Keeping the
global average temperature anomaly under 2'C will not be easy according to a recent report (Scientific
Expert Group Report on Climate Change, 2007). It will require a rapid worldwide reduction in methane, and
global CO2 emissions must level off to a concentration not much greater than the present amount by
about 2020. Emissions would then have to decline to about a third of that level by 2100. Delaying action
will only insure a grim future for our children and grandchildren. If the current generation does not
drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emission, then, unfortunately, our grandchildren will get what we
deserve. There are three consequences that have not been discussed in previous chapters but could have
devastating impacts on humans: food production, health, and the economy. In a sense, all of these topics
found that the amount of world food reduction ranged from 1 to 27%. However, the optimistic value of 1%
is almost certainly much too low, because it assumed that the amount of degradation would be offset by
more growth from "CO2 fertilization." We now know that this is not the case, as explained below and in
scale experiments called Free-Air Concentration Enrichment have shown that the effects of higher CO2
levels on crop growth is about 50% less than experiments in enclosure studies (Long et al., 2006). This
shows that the projections that conclude that rising CO2 will fully offset the losses due to higher
temperatures are wrong. The downside of climate change will far outweigh the benefits of increased CO2
and longer growing seasons. One researcher (Prof. Long) from the University of Illinois put it this way:
Growing crops much closer to real conditions has shown that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere will have roughly half the beneficial effects previously hoped for in the event of climate
change. In addition, ground-level ozone, which is also predicted to rise but has not been extensively
studied before, has been shown to result in a loss of photosynthesis and 20 per cent reduction in crop
yield. Both these results show that we need to seriously re-examine our predictions for future global food
production, as they are likely to be far lower than previously estimated. Also, studies in Britain and
that there are certain thresholds above which crops become very vulnerable to climate change. The
European heat wave in the summer of 2003 provided a large-scale experiment on the behavior of crops to
increased temperatures. Scientists from several European research institutes and universities found that
the growth of plants during the heat wave was reduced by nearly a third (Ciais et al., 2005). In Italy, the
growth of corn dropped by about 36% while oak and pine had a growth reduction of 30%. In the affected
areas of the mid- west and California the summer heat wave of 2006 resulted in a 35% loss of crops, and in
California a 15% decline in dairy production due to the heat-caused death of dairy cattle. It has been
projected that a 2 C rise in local temperature will result in a $92 million loss to agriculture in the Yakima
Valley of Washington due to the reduction of the snow pack. A 4'C increase will result in a loss of about
$163 million. For the first time, the world's grain harvests have fallen below the consumption level for the
past four years according to the Earth Policy Institute (Brown, 2003). Furthermore, the shortfall in grain
production increased each year, from 16 million tons in 2000 to 93 million tons in 2003. These studies
In
developing nations the impact will be much more severe. It is here that the impact of
global warming on crops and domestic animals will be most felt. In
general, the world's most crucial staple food crops could fall by as
much as one-third because of resistance to flowering and setting of
seeds due to rising temperatures. Crop ecologists believe that many
crops grown in the tropics are near, or at, their thermal limits. Already
research in the Philippines has linked higher night-time temperatures to a
reduction in rice yield. It is estimated that for rice, wheat, and corn, the
grain yields are likely to decline by 10% for every local 1 C increase in
temperature. With a decreasing availability of food, malnutrition will
become more frequent accompanied by damage to the immune
system. This will result in a greater susceptibility to spreading diseases.
For an extreme rise in global temperature (> 6 'C), it is likely that worldwide crop failures will
lead to mass starvation, and political and economic chaos with all their
ramifications for civilization.
were done in industrialized nations where agricultural practices are the best in the world.
Impact Turns
this is not what we expected, said Elizabeth A. Ainsworth, a Department of Agriculture researcher who
geologic time and the relatively recent rise in [CO2] over the past 20 000 yr, selection pressure must have
been strongly exerted by low [CO2]. For example, Wardet al. (2000) found that biomass production in
Arabidopsis was increased 35% after only five generations of selection in low [CO 2], but not at high [CO2],
suggesting rapid and strong selective effects in low [CO2]. It is therefore, reasonable to assume that
plants are still adapted to low [CO2], which may constrain responses to
rising [CO2] predicted to occur over the nEXT century (Sage & Coleman, 2001).
In a future warmer, high [CO2] world, the primary resource limiting
plant function will continue to transition from [CO2] to other resources,
such as temperature, nutrients and water availability. In controlled environment
studies to date, there is little evidence that adaptive evolutionary responses
to elevated [CO2] have occurred, even over many generations, despite changes in plant
phenotypes (Leakey & Lau, 2012). Longer term exposure (thousands of years) to elevated [CO 2] at natural
CO2 springs also generally find minimal adaptive change despite some alterations in photosynthetic
performance and biochemistry (e.g. Cook et al., 1998). Interestingly, even the evolution of Rubisco appears
constrained, with Rubisco specificity optimal for light-saturated photosynthesis at c. 200 ppm [CO2] (Zhu et
al., 2004), which is the mean [CO2] over the last 400 000 yr (Luthi et al., 2008). A potential explanation for
the general lack of evidence for adaptive responses to elevated [CO 2] is that (e.g. nutrient, water,
temperature) over multiple generations (Leakey & Lau, 2012). Given that these environmental conditions
co-vary, and that selection is strongest under stressful conditions, this research direction should be
pursued in the near future. Reduced terrestrial carbon storage, net primary production and forest cover
during glacial periods, which are characterized by very low atmospheric [CO 2], may be more accurately
predicted when the impact of low [CO2] on physiological processes is included in palaeoclimate models
(Prentice & Harrison, 2009). Utilizing findings from studies that address the impact of low [CO 2] on
physiological performance in C3 and C4 plants, it has been demonstrated that physiological effects may
changes in the woody component in savannas, relative forest cover, and most recently treegrass
competition during the transition from LGM to pre-industrial Holocene (Prentice et al., 2011). Overall, we
should utilize our improved understanding of plant adaptation and response to low and variable [CO 2] over
historic time periods to better predict ecosystem response to rising [CO 2] and future climate change.
B. Photosynthesis
Cook 11 [April 18, 2011.
John is the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute
at the University of Queensland. He studied physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. After
graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honors year.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-is-not-good-for-plants.html]
The results of these gas flux and growth experiments support the
hypothesis that atmospheric CO2 enrichment interferes with the ability
of C3 species to assimilate NO3 into organic N compounds in their shoots
and that this impedes their growth. In a diverse collection of C3 species
and C3-C4 intermediates, CO2 enrichment severely decreased
photosynthetic O2 evolution associated with NO3 assimilation (Fig. 1a, c). There are
obviously alternative mechanisms for NO3 assimilation because plants under CO2
enrichment and NO3 nutrition continued to grow, albeit often at a slower
pace (Figs. 2 and 3). One such mechanism is root NO3 assimilation, which may be enhanced under CO2
enrichment (Kruse et al. 2003). Unfortunately, relatively little is known about the EXTent to which the
balance between root and shoot NO3 assimilation varies within and among species (Epstein and Bloom
2005, NunesNesi et al. 2010). In several species measured at ambient CO2 concentration, shoots account
for the majority of whole-plant NO3 assimilation over the entire day (Bloom et al. 1992, Cen and Layzell
negative impacts of climate change. It will simply increase the size of deserts and decrease the amount of
arable land. It will also increase the requirements for water and soil fertility as well as plant damage from
insects. Increasing CO2 levels would only be beneficial inside of highly controlled, enclosed spaces like
greenhouses.
E. Ozone
Monbiot 07
[George, Professor @ Oxford Brookes University, Heat: How to Stop the Planet from
Burning, pg. 7]
But now, I am sorry to say, it seems that I might have been right, though for the wrong reasons. In late
yield
predictions for temperate countries were 'over optimistic'. The authors
had blown carbon dioxide and ozone, in concentrations roughly
equivalent to those expected later this century, over crops in the open
air. They discovered that the plants didn't respond as they were supposed to: the extra carbon
dioxide did not fertilize them as much as the researchers predicted,
and the ozone reduced their yields by 20 per cent." Ozone levels are
rising in the rich nations by between 1 and 2 per cent a year, as a
result of sunlight interacting with pollution from cars, planes and power stations.
The levels happen to be highest in the places where crop yields were
expected to rise: western Europe, the midwest and eastern US and eastern China. The
expected ozone increase in China will cause maize, rice and soybean
production to fall by over 30 per cent by 2020, These reductions in yield, if
real, arc enough to cancel out the effects of both higher temperatures
and higher carbon dioxide concentrations.
2005, a study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society alleged that the
F. Weeds
Ziska 07 [Lewis Ziska, PhD, Principal investigator at United States Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service Alternate Crop and Systems Lab. Climate change impact on weeds
http://www.climateandfarming.org/pdfs/FactSheets/III.1Weeds.pdf]
argued that many weed species have the C4 photosynthetic pathway and therefore will show a smaller
response to atmospheric CO2 relative to C3 crops. However, this argument does not consider the range of
2004). How rising CO2 would contribute to the success of these weeds in situ however, is still unclear.
Overall, the data that are available on the response of weeds and changes in weed ecology are limited.
Additional details, particularly with respect to interactions with other environmental variables (e.g. nutrient
availability, precipitation and temperature) are also needed.
It might be tempting to argue that, since the world is now undergoing a gradual decline in
temperature based on the Milankovitch theory of ice ages, the man-made warming may
prevent us from descending into another ice age. But there are several problems with
this reasoning. First, the time scales involved are very different : the next ice
age is coming, but it is thousands of years away, whereas the global warming
due to fossil fuel burning is arriving very quickly, within a few decades. Human
activity might then cause an enormous upswing in global temperature followed by a more drastic downturn
than would otherwise have occurred. Moreover,
over the last 400,000 years, there have been four ice ages. Right
now, global temperatures are as warm as they have ever been during
any previous interglacial period. If Michael Mann is right, even warmer. Second, global
First,
temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide are pretty precisely correlated: it is hot when the air has
more carbon dioxide in it.
shifts in the earth's orbit should plunge the planet into a deep freeze
thousands of years from now, but current changes to our atmosphere
may stop it from occurring, say scientists. Professor Thomas Crowley of the University of
Edinburgh, and Dr William Hyde of the University of Toronto report in the journal Nature that the
current level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere could negate
the onset of the next Ice Age, which could occur 10,000 years from now. But they caution
that their finding is not an argument in favour of global warming, which
is driving imminent and potentially far-reaching damage to the climate
system. Earth has experienced long periods of extreme cold over the billions of years of its history. The
Scheduled
big freezes are interspersed with "interglacial" periods of relative warmth, of the kind we have experienced
since the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,000 years ago. These climate swings have natural causes,
believed to be due to changes in the earth's orbit and axis that, while minute, have a powerful effect on
how much solar heat falls on the planet. Abrupt changes The researchers built a computer model to take a
closer look at these phases of cooling and warmth. In addition to the planetary shifts, they also factored in
levels of CO2, found in tiny bubbles in ice cores, which provide an indicator of temperature spanning
hundreds of thousands of years. They found dramatic swings in climate, including changes when the earth
flipped from one state to the other, which occur in a relatively short time, says Crowley. These shifts, called
"bifurcations," appear to happen in abrupt series, which is counter-intuitive to the idea that the planet
cools or warms gradually. "You had a big change about a million years ago, then a second change around
650,000 years ago, when you had bigger glaciations, then 450,000 years ago, when you started to get
more repeated glaciations," says Thomas. "What's also interesting is that the inter-glaciations also became
Present concentrations are "the highest during the last 650,000 years and probably during the last 20
million years," the report says. No green light Crowley cautions those who would seize on the new study to
say "carbon dioxide is now good, it prevents us from walking the plank into this deep glaciation." " We
don't want to give people that impression," he says. "You can't use this
argument to justify [human-induced] global warming." Last year, the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that greenhouse-gas emissions
were already inflicting visible changes to the climate system, especially
on ice and snow. Left unchecked, climate change could inflict
widespread drought and flooding by the end of the century, translating
into hunger, homelessness and other stresses for millions of people.
SO2 (1:15)
1. The Earth is Warming the global average temperature
has increased over the past 50 years the only
explanation is CO2 emissions prefer our evidence it
cites the most recent studies and is unbiased
2. Aerosol effect doesnt solve warming
-traps heat
-decreases cloud cover
-decreases rain fall
Rosenfeld et al 12 [Daniel, Professor, Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University, Robert
Wood, University of Washington, Leo Donner, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA Princeton
University Forrestal Campus, Steven Sherwood, Professor Physical Meteorology and Atmospheric Climate
Dynamics University of New South Wales, Aerosol cloud-mediated radiative forcing: highly uncertain and
opposite effects from shallow and deep clouds, 1/5/2012, http://www.wcrpclimate.org/conference2011/documents/Rosenfeld_cloud_aerosol_V9.pdf]
lifetimes in subsaturated air and the rate at which cloud is depleted by precipitation) so called lifetime
these adjustments where most of the uncertainty lies in quantifying the net climate forcing due to
anthropogenic aerosols. Understanding of these has been sufficiently poor that the IPCC has not attempted
to assess them up until now, but will do so to a limited degree in the upcoming AR5 report.
on earth such as changes in the number of cows, peat bogs or rice paddies. The increase in methane can
emissions. I am primarily concerned with the atmospheres ability to remove these emissions through
oxidation. Both affect atmospheric concentrations, but I argue that oxidation is far more important. Sulfur
dioxide opens and closes two types of venetian blinds. Sulfur dioxide and water emitted during a large
longwave radiation and thereby warming the earth. What closes these blinds is the rapid buildup of
greenhouse gases, including sulfur dioxide, in the troposphere. How much sulfur dioxide is too much?
These are details that will need to be worked out by atmospheric chemists, but my observations
demonstrate that warming becomes a problem when there is at least one large, Pinatubo-sized volcanic
eruption every two years.
When fossil fuels are burned, sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen are
released into the air. As these gases react with moisture and oxygen in
the atmosphere in the presence of sunlight, the sulfur dioxide becomes
sulfuric acid (the same substance used in car batteries) and the oxides
of nitrogen become nitric acid. These acids then return to earth in rain,
snow, hail, or fog. When they do, they can kill fish in lakes and streams,
dissolve limestone statues and gravestones, corrde metal, weaken
trees, making them more susceptible to insects and drought, and
reduce the growth of some crops. The effects of acid rain on human health are not yet known.
Some scientists fear that acid rain could help dissolve toxic metals in water pipes
and in the soil, releasing these metals into peoples water supplies. In the
United States, acid rain comes mainly from sulfur dioxide produced by coal-burning electricity-generating
Acid rain
has caused lakes in the northeastern part of the country to become so
acidic that fish and other organisms are unable to live in them.
power plants in the Midwest and from the nitrogen oxides from auto and truck exhausts.
Indicts
Carter (0:20)
Carter makes blatantly false claims and uses no scientific
data to support his conclusions
Karoly 11 [recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, member of the faculty of the School of Earth
Sciences at the University of Melbourne, former Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Southern
Hemisphere Meteorology at Monash University, former Professor of Meteorology in the School of
Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma (David, Bob Carters climate counter-consensus is an
alternate reality, The Conversation, 6/24/11, http://theconversation.edu.au/bob-carters-climate-counterconsensus-is-an-alternate-reality-1553)
Lets fall through a rabbit hole and enter a different world: the Carter
reality. In that world, it is OK to select any evidence that supports
your ideas and ignore all other evidence. In that world, geologists like Carter hold the
key to delineating climate history and many (though not all) geological scientists see no cause for alarm
The
Geological Society of Australia, the Geological Society of America, the
Geological Society of London and the American Geophysical Union
have all recognised the reality of human-caused climate change and
called for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In the Carter reality,
there has been no net warming between 1958 and 2005. Of course, in the real
world, there is no basis for this statement from scientific analysis of
observational data. The decade of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s, which was warmer
when modern climate change is compared with the climate history." In the real world, this is not true.
than the 1980s, which was warmer than the 1970s, which was warmer than the 1960s. So where does
amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the ocean and the observed increases in carbon dioxide
concentrations in the atmosphere are higher than the concentrations in the upper layers of the ocean, so
amplifying the warming response for a doubling of carbon dioxide. This geological evidence, together with
evidence from the observed warming over the last century, show that the climate response to a doubling
of carbon dioxide will be about three degrees. But in the Carter reality, there has been noble cause
corruption to promote alarm about global warming and hide the contrary evidence, by individual
Carter reality
ignores the multiple independent inquiries of climate scientists and of
the IPCC that have found no evidence of corruption, and only evidence
of normal scientific practices. In the Carter reality, there are many other strange
conclusions based on selecting some evidence and ignoring most. The rules of science have
been replaced by non-science. In that world, there are large benefits from more carbon
scientists, by the CSIRO, by the scientific academies, and by the IPCC. Of course, this
dioxide and no adverse impacts, no sea level rise nor increasing acidification of the ocean. In the Carter
reality, it is better to adapt to climate change as it occurs, rather than to act on the best scientific
reality.
Idsos (0:11)
Idso is a hack denier paid off by the Heartland institute
Gibson 12 [C. Gibson, March 30, 2012, Heartland Institute and ALEC Partner to Pollute Classroom
Science, Polluterwatch, http://www.polluterwatch.com/category/freetagging/denialgate]
the absurd idea that more CO2 in our atmosphere, such as from
is unconditionally good for our planet. This fallacy is promoted
by other notable non-experts, such as oil billionaire David Koch and junk scientist Craig Idso,
who produced propaganda films for the Greening Earth Society (a coal
industry front group). Idso presented "The Many Atmospheric Benefits of CO2" to ALEC's Energy
established to promote
and Environment task force at their August, 2011 meeting in New Orleans, where he told ALEC insiders
that we should let CO2 rise unrestricted, without government intervention since CO2 is definitely not a
pollutant. The coal industry clearly wishes this were true, Mr. Idso. In addition to accepting fossil fuel
university faculty members. These payments US Interior Department (DOI) contractor Indur Goklany, who
is under investigation by the Interior Department's Inspector General's office at the request of US
Representative Raul Grijalva of New Mexico. While the Heartland Institute is doing its best to make this
unraveling scandal disappear, mainly by vilifying scientist Peter Gleick for embarrassing the Institute,
Greenpeace is pushing for more. We continue to seek answers from federal bodies and universities whose
employees are taking money from the Heartland Institute to attack science and disrupt the democratic
process on behalf of tobacco companies, industrial giants and billionaire ideologues like the Koch brothers.
Visit PolluterWatch for ongoing results of Greenpeace's investigation of the Heartland Institute leaked
documents.
Spencer (0:15)
Spencers bought off
Plait 11 [Phil, astronomer, lecturer, and author, No, new data does not blow a gaping hole in
global warming alarmism, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/29/no-new-datadoes-not-blow-a-gaping-hole-in-global-warming-alarmism/]
Spencers
is an author for the ber-
And in this case, those outside opinions are very important. Why? Because of Dr.
background: you may find this discussion of him interesting. He
conservative Heartland Institute (as is James Taylor, the author of the Forbes article),
which receives substantial funding from can you guess? ExxonMobil. He is
also affiliated with two other think tanks funded by ExxonMobil. Seriously,
read that link to get quite a bit of background on Dr. Spencer. I was also surprised to find Spencer is
a big supporter of Intelligent Design. I was initially reticent to mention that, since it
seems like an ad hominem. But I think its relevant: Intelligent Design has
been shown repeatedly to be wrong, and is really just warmed-over creationism. Heck,
even a conservative judge ruled it to be so in the now-famous Dover lawsuit . Anyone who
dumps all of biological science in favor of provably wrong antiscience
should raise alarm bells in your head, and their claims should be
examined with an even more skeptical eye.