‘No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts

The scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming is likely to have passed 99%, according to the lead author of the most authoritative study on the subject, and could rise further after separate research that clears up some of the remaining doubts.

A desert road in Death Valley national park, California. 

Three studies published in Nature and Nature Geoscience use extensive historical data to show there has never been a period in the last 2,000 years when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in recent decades.

It had previously been thought that similarly dramatic peaks and troughs might have occurred in the past, including in periods dubbed the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Anomaly. But the three studies use reconstructions based on 700 proxy records of temperature change, such as trees, ice and sediment, from all continents that indicate none of these shifts took place in more than half the globe at any one time.

Read the story from The Guardian by Jonathan Watts - “‘No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts.”

Will rising carbon dioxide levels really boost plant growth?

Plants have become an unlikely subject of political debate. Many projections suggest that burning fossil fuels and the resulting climate change will make it harder to grow enough food for everyone in the coming decades. But some groups opposed to limiting our emissions claim that higher levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) will boost plants’ photosynthesis and so increase food production.

New research published in Science suggests that predicting the effects of increasing CO₂ levels on plant growth may actually be more complicated than anyone had expected.

To understand what the researchers have found out requires a bit of background information about photosynthesis. This is the process that uses light energy to power the conversion of CO₂ into the sugars that fuel plant growth and ultimately provide the food we depend on. Unfortunately, photosynthesis is flawed.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Senior Lecturer in Plant Biochemistry from the University of Westminster, Stuart Thompson - “Will rising carbon dioxide levels really boost plant growth?”

Changing light globes is great, but changing the govenment is better

R

ather than simply changing their light globes, Australians should be simply changing their government.

Phases of abuse leap to mind when reading The Guardian story - “Climate change ignored in energy white paper that lets market rule future policy” – but fade when reason kicks in.

Abuse has never won an argument or changed minds, rather it does more harm to those doing the abusing than those subject to it.

The best place to illustrate our disenchantment with the Abbott-led Coalition Government is at the ballot box.

Of course if that doesn’t work because of the government’s mischievous machinations and their plea to populism, strengthened by this year being the 100^th anniversary of Anzac, those who truly understand our intergenerational responsibility, have little choice by civil disobedience.

The world, and by implication Australia, faces serious climate disruption and resource shortages if our behaviour continues unaltered and if the Abbott Government has its way, it will not only continue as is, but worsen as market-driven choices will take us even closer to catastrophe.