Without Plants, Earth Would Cook

[cronus]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 145646.htm

Without Plants, Earth Would Cook Under Billions of Tons of Additional Carbon

Oct. 16, 2013 — Enhanced growth of Earth's leafy greens during the 20th century has significantly slowed the planet's transition to being red-hot, according to the first study to specify the extent to which plants have prevented climate change since pre-industrial times. Researchers based at Princeton University found that land ecosystems have kept the planet cooler by absorbing billions of tons of carbon, especially during the past 60 years.

The planet's land-based carbon "sink" -- or carbon-storage capacity -- has kept 186 billion to 192 billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere since the mid-20th century, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. From the 1860s to the 1950s, land use by humans was a substantial source of the carbon entering the atmosphere because of deforestation and logging. After the 1950s, however, humans began to use land differently, such as by restoring forests and adopting agriculture that, while larger scale, is higher yield. At the same time, industries and automobiles continued to steadily emit carbon dioxide that contributed to a botanical boom. Although a greenhouse gas and pollutant, carbon dioxide also is a plant nutrient.

Had Earth's terrestrial ecosystems remained a carbon source they would have instead generated 65 billion to 82 billion tons of carbon in addition to the carbon that it would not have absorbed, the researchers found. That means a total of 251 billion to 274 billion additional tons of carbon would currently be in the atmosphere. That much carbon would have pushed the atmosphere's current carbon dioxide concentration to 485 parts-per-million (ppm), the researchers report -- well past the scientifically accepted threshold of 450 (ppm) at which Earth's climate could drastically and irreversibly change. The current concentration is 400 ppm.

(continued)

[JimC]

Go, photosynthesis, go!

[cronus]

Bad things would happen to the planet if modern agriculture stalled for any reason.

[rainbow]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 145646.htm

Without Plants, Earth Would Cook Under Billions of Tons of Additional Carbon

Oct. 16, 2013 — Enhanced growth of Earth's leafy greens during the 20th century has significantly slowed the planet's transition to being red-hot, according to the first study to specify the extent to which plants have prevented climate change since pre-industrial times. Researchers based at Princeton University found that land ecosystems have kept the planet cooler by absorbing billions of tons of carbon, especially during the past 60 years.

What utter drivel.

[mistermack]

What utter drivel.

Unbelievable. I'm used to reading bollocks from the global-warming bunch, but that piece stands out from the worst.
So Science Daily is another of the websites with an important scientific sounding name that is happy to put up any old shit.

Any old bollocks goes, so long as it's alarmist. It's not a conspiracy, it's a contagious disease.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Bad things would happen to the planet if modern agriculture stalled for any reason.

No. All those monocultures would very quickly progress through a series of seral communities until they reached the natural climax community for that region. In other words, stop ploughing, seeding, weeding and fertilising and the land will go back to whatever it looked like before you started. In the case of the UK, most agricultural land would progress via grassland and scrubland to deciduous forest - a far better absorber of CO2 than a wheatfield!

[cronus]

Bad things would happen to the planet if modern agriculture stalled for any reason.

No. All those monocultures would very quickly progress through a series of seral communities until they reached the natural climax community for that region. In other words, stop ploughing, seeding, weeding and fertilising and the land will go back to whatever it looked like before you started. In the case of the UK, most agricultural land would progress via grassland and scrubland to deciduous forest - a far better absorber of CO2 than a wheatfield!

You are dreaming. Most agricultural soil is bleached of natural plant nutrients and without fertilizers would quickly turn to dustbowl red.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Bad things would happen to the planet if modern agriculture stalled for any reason.

No. All those monocultures would very quickly progress through a series of seral communities until they reached the natural climax community for that region. In other words, stop ploughing, seeding, weeding and fertilising and the land will go back to whatever it looked like before you started. In the case of the UK, most agricultural land would progress via grassland and scrubland to deciduous forest - a far better absorber of CO2 than a wheatfield!

You are dreaming. Most agricultural soil is bleached of natural plant nutrients and without fertilizers would quickly turn to dustbowl red.

Not everywhere, the UK's soil is extremely fertile. It would only be the places where artificial irrigation/fertilisation is needed to grow crops that don't belong in that locale that would struggle. But even they would revert to their natural climax vegetation in due course. Nature is far more resilient than you give her credit for.

[cronus]

That's true in places but a lot of the global production is on mega-farms like they have stateside....and these would not recover like a small island might.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

That's true in places but a lot of the global production is on mega-farms like they have stateside....and these would not recover like a small island might.

Depends what you mean by recover. A lot of those farms are in areas that are naturally desert/chaparral. They would revert to that. Others are in the former great plains and they would revert to that in time. However extreme the ecological niche, there is something that will thrive there and other things that will follow after, taking advantage of the decaying material from those first colonisers.

[cronus]

That's true in places but a lot of the global production is on mega-farms like they have stateside....and these would not recover like a small island might.

Depends what you mean by recover. A lot of those farms are in areas that are naturally desert/chaparral. They would revert to that. Others are in the former great plains and they would revert to that in time. However extreme the ecological niche, there is something that will thrive there and other things that will follow after, taking advantage of the decaying material from those first colonisers.

Let's say agricultural production dropped because of some oil war or stock market/economic meltdown.....you'd have all these places turning to desert like the dustbowl of the thirties and the air would be clearing as air travel/industrial production declines....the Amazon would burn down for sure.

[klr]

Bad things would happen to the planet if modern agriculture stalled for any reason.

No. All those monocultures would very quickly progress through a series of seral communities until they reached the natural climax community for that region. In other words, stop ploughing, seeding, weeding and fertilising and the land will go back to whatever it looked like before you started. In the case of the UK, most agricultural land would progress via grassland and scrubland to deciduous forest - a far better absorber of CO2 than a wheatfield!

Yup. Most of these islands - indeed, most of northern Europe - used to be covered in forest until relatively recently. No global warming then ...

[mistermack]

It's simply a fallacy that forests absorb CO2. Yes they absorb it, but they also emit it in virtually equal quantities.
They only absorb it if you plant a new forest where none existed before. As soon as the forest becomes mature, it's pretty much in balance. Otherwise, after millions of years, forests would be thousands of feet deep in carbon-based stuff.

In fact, forests contribute to the greenhouse effect. Because they absorb CO2 and change a significant quantity of it into methane. This is done by soil bacteria, and creatures like termites. And methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2.

Having said that, forests are a good thing for biodiversity, and they must help a bit in keeping oxygen levels up.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

That's true in places but a lot of the global production is on mega-farms like they have stateside....and these would not recover like a small island might.

Depends what you mean by recover. A lot of those farms are in areas that are naturally desert/chaparral. They would revert to that. Others are in the former great plains and they would revert to that in time. However extreme the ecological niche, there is something that will thrive there and other things that will follow after, taking advantage of the decaying material from those first colonisers.

Let's say agricultural production dropped because of some oil war or stock market/economic meltdown.....you'd have all these places turning to desert like the dustbowl of the thirties and the air would be clearing as air travel/industrial production declines....the Amazon would burn down for sure.

Bollocks. You really don't understand (or prefer not to understand) just how adaptive nature can be.

Take a look at Iceland. Within a few years of a major eruption that deposits tons of bare lava and ash (just about as unfertile as you can get!) over many square miles, lichens are colonising. These are closely followed by mosses and within a few decades, pockets of soil form which are colonised by grasses and other vascular plants. 50 years after an eruption, small shrubs have taken hold and the whole surface of the lava is covered in soil and plantlife. A century on and there are trees.

And this happens everywhere there is disruption to the status quo. The air is filled with spores and seeds that are looking for whatever harsh, infertile, unwelcoming habitat you choose to name because that is their niche. Dustbowls be fucked. They will be thriving within a century - a very short time in the history of the planet.

Go read a book on ecology (proper ecology, not Greenpeace pseudo-science bollocks) and come back to this discussion when you know what you are talking about.

[cronus]

Faith in nature like faith in the noble savage are quaint but meaningless.