Word: carbons
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Climate of Indifference Re "Beyond Copenhagen" [Dec. 14]: Americans should be proud of their President. For those who doubt that climate change is man-made, look at it this way: global temperatures are increasing, man-made or not; fossil fuels will run out; carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere; carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It doesn't matter if global warming is man-made or not. We must aim to change to sustainable energy sources, increase research and development into alternative energy sources and cut down on carbon emissions. We'll have to do it anyway - fossil fuels...
...overcome a Republican filibuster. Already, conservative Democrats - especially from the coal-dependent states of the Midwest and South - have made noises about opposing a cap-and-trade bill or perhaps replacing it with a law that would include wider support for clean energy but without the price on carbon. That, however, might not be enough to kick-start scaled-up clean-energy investments. "Without a cap, you don't put a limit on the stuff that is doing us in," says Lubber. "This is only going to ramp up when there's a cap on carbon...
...mildly. It's hard to put a positive spin on rising seas, increased drought and wildfires, shrinking water supplies and more acidic oceans. For the plants that form the very foundation of the food chain, though, an argument can be made that both global warming itself and the rising carbon dioxide levels that cause it are actually a good thing. CO2, after all, is essential for the photosynthesis that most plants depend on for nourishment. And as winters get milder and shorter, plants will have longer growing seasons. More food plus more time to eat it seems like a recipe...
...When you double the CO2 in greenhouses where wheat or soybeans are growing, for example, the plants grow bigger by an average of 20-40%. But things get messier when scientists add CO2 to plants growing in real-world conditions. In a set of experiments called the Free-Air Carbon-dioxide Enrichment project, or FACE, investigators have been introducing CO2 into the air in experimental fields and forests around the world. The result is that some plants do grow bigger, says Field, "but an increase in growth doesn't necessarily mean an increase in the plants you want." At Duke...
...Stanford colleague of Field's and his co-author on a major 2007 review of how plants and climate interact, "while there's pretty clear evidence that CO2 helps plants, there's plenty of debate about how much it helps." One reason is that plants depend not only on carbon dioxide for healthy growth, but also on water and other nutrients. Increase CO2 without increasing the other factors, and you can get plants that are bigger, but relatively deficient in, say, nitrogen - meaning insects may have to eat more of each plant to stay healthy themselves. Some FACE experiments look...