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Trump's climate expert is wrong: The world's plants don't need more CO2
Mashable ^ | 2/22/19 | MARK KAUFMAN

Posted on 02/26/2019 2:23:21 AM PST by Libloather

Plants on Earth have flourished for hundreds of millions of years, yet President Donald Trump's pick to lead his new climate team insists that they need more carbon dioxide to thrive.

Princeton physicist and carbon dioxide-advocate William Happer has been selected to head the brand new Presidential Committee on Climate Security, reports The Washington Post. The atomic scientist -- who achieved recognition for his work on atomic collisions and telescope optics, not climate science -- maintains that the planet's atmosphere needs significantly more CO2, the potent greenhouse gas that U.S. government scientists -- and a bevy of independent scientists -- have repeatedly underscored is stoking accelerating climate change.

Because plants use carbon dioxide to live, Happer has said "more CO2 is actually a benefit to the Earth," asserted that Earth is experiencing a "CO2 famine," and concluded that "If plants could vote, they would vote for coal."

(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climatechange; co2; globalwarming; hoax
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To: Libloather

Of course plants don’t need more CO2 to thrive - everyone knows that the current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is ideal, just as the current average temperature on the planet is ideal, as is the current average relative humidity and the current average wind speed, since any change in any parameter that is associated with the climate is very, very bad because it’s due to evil things that human beings are doing that they need to stop doing right this minute because . . . climate change. /s


21 posted on 02/26/2019 4:21:35 AM PST by Stosh
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To: Libloather

The warmists are flat out lying.


22 posted on 02/26/2019 4:36:01 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: proud American in Canada

Looks like PLANTS ‘evolved’ first; then, when they had produced enough oxygen, we mobile life forms came around.

https://globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/Perry_Samson_lectures/evolution_atm/

(Do NOT ask me just HOW this was supposed to have happened.)


23 posted on 02/26/2019 4:37:12 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Libloather

Why do big commercial greenhouses have CO2 generators to boost the CO2 level?


24 posted on 02/26/2019 4:37:33 AM PST by ptsal
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To: Libloather
"Plants . . . need more carbon dioxide to thrive."

Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants, prove that they will thrive on less!

25 posted on 02/26/2019 4:38:32 AM PST by Jess Kitting
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To: Libloather

When these “climate change scientists” can 100% explain why we have had MUCH HOTTER temperatures/climates and we have had MUCH COLDER temperatures/climates BEFORE we ever burned a single fossil fuel, then and ONLY THEN will I even consider listening to their drivel!

They cannot explain these FACTS and therefore, they cannot CONCLUSIVELY prove that fossil fuels are the cause of any changes! Our climate has been more extreme, in both directions, WELL BEFORE we hit the industrial age; therefore, they do NOT KNOW that this is what is causing the changes! PERIOD! THEY CAN NOT KNOW!


26 posted on 02/26/2019 4:43:34 AM PST by ExTxMarine (Diversity is tolerance; diverse points of views will not be tolerated!)
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To: proud American in Canada
No, you silly fool! Plants crave Brawndo, it has electrolytes. Don't you know anything?


27 posted on 02/26/2019 4:47:14 AM PST by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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To: exDemMom
Yep, the author has no idea what he's talking about. The C4 plants evolved to more efficiently suck CO2 out of the air and the rest of plant life would have died off. With more CO2 we have a buffer against a sudden ice age.

The use of fossil will peak by itself. We need motors for mobility but electric are more efficient. We need fossil for heat in winter so there will always be some demand.

28 posted on 02/26/2019 4:47:56 AM PST by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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To: Libloather

The author should look into how much CO2 is in the atmosphere of the more serious green houses. They pump it in. It’s a LOT.

Fact is, to thrive MORE, yes, plants DO need more CO2, and they will then thrive more.

BTW, as the oceans warm, they release CO2. As they cool, they absorb it. So, it may be ocean warming that is giving us all this CO2. but I’m talking about a hundreds of years long warming trend. CO2 increases are a lagging factor to temperature increases. i.e. CO2 is to global warming what ashes are to a fire. It is not the cause. It is the effect.


29 posted on 02/26/2019 4:50:54 AM PST by cuban leaf
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To: Libloather
Deserts 'greening' from rising carbon dioxide: Green foliage boosted across the world's arid regions

Satellite data shows the per cent amount that foliage cover has changed around the world from 1982 to 2010.

Credit: Image courtesy of CSIRO Australia

30 posted on 02/26/2019 4:55:24 AM PST by RoosterRedux
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To: Telepathic Intruder

They don’t thrive on CO2. They are MADE of CO2 as are we. Every living organism is made of CO2. If you want to see what it is like without go to the Sahara where the CO2 is supplanted by SiO2 (silica sand).


31 posted on 02/26/2019 5:03:29 AM PST by BillM (.)
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To: Libloather

At 400 ppm, we are at the low end of the Earth’s normal CO2 range. The increase in CO2 accoints for 14% of the increase in yield since 1950 and the overall increase in yield has been massive.
With our entry into a Maunder Minimum (colder for about 300 years) we could certainly use more CO2.


32 posted on 02/26/2019 5:20:58 AM PST by buffaloguy (MSM: Wind up dolls of the DNC.)
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To: Libloather

Higher levels of CO2 can result in de-desertification.

Plants uptake CO2 through their skin pores. When there is little CO2, they must open their pores wider, but this causes a loss of moisture. Conversely, when there is more CO2, plants lose less moisture, so absorb less of it from the soil.

Moister soil supports more plant life. In desert areas, this means more living plants, and when they die, they enrich the soil for other plants.


33 posted on 02/26/2019 5:21:11 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Old people ought to be bumped off when their usefulness is done." -- Eleanor Roosevelt)
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To: Redmen4ever


" Desert-like lands will be converted to pasture lands and support trees.”

True that

It is ice ages, I believe, that cause deserts to grow. The ice becomes locked up at the poles and drawn away from savannahs.

At least the science I was taught back in high school(1970s)
34 posted on 02/26/2019 5:37:54 AM PST by RedMonqey ("Those who turn their arms in for plowshares will be doing the plowing for those who didn't.")
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To: Libloather

Some stand to make untold fortunes from climate change snake oil. Spend $billions on smoke and mirrors, and all you have to do is say: “See? My technology works, as there is no climate change happening now. You should happily pay the license fee for everyone to take part in my technological revolution.”


35 posted on 02/26/2019 5:39:04 AM PST by bk1000 (I stand with Trump)
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To: Libloather

If anyone is interested, go to google map and look at the state of Florida full scale. Look at the coasts then look at the continental shelf.
This was once dry land, much like Florida has as of this date.
If not for the receding glaciers, Columbus would have encountered these lands.(we can debate Columbus even needing a ship as land masses elsewhere would allow travel by foot)

My point is, the world changes whether or not man has an influence. As the meme goes, “Sh%t happens.”


36 posted on 02/26/2019 5:44:23 AM PST by RedMonqey ("Those who turn their arms in for plowshares will be doing the plowing for those who didn't.")
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To: Libloather

Weren’t volcanoes much more active in the past?


37 posted on 02/26/2019 5:47:01 AM PST by Starstruck (I'm usually sarcastic. Deal with it.)
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To: RoosterRedux

True in some places, but it also looks like a lot of plant cover is being lost in others.


38 posted on 02/26/2019 5:48:41 AM PST by x
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To: Libloather

GOOD GRIEF!

Must we STILL go on about this crap??

Has ANYBODY ever hear of a GREENHOUSE?? A COMMERCIAL greenhouse??

Where they ADD IN EXTRA CO2 so as to make the plants GROW FASTER??
OF COURSE we need more CO2 in the air—like it was tens of thousands of years ago.


39 posted on 02/26/2019 5:50:23 AM PST by Flintlock
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To: Libloather
Do the plants really need more CO₂?

If there are fewer trees, what happens to the excess CO₂?

Happer may not be the best advocate for his position.

40 posted on 02/26/2019 5:51:52 AM PST by x
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