Word: co2
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...environmentalist vogue for vilifying meat eating. "The idea that giving up meat is the solution for the world's ills is ridiculous," he says at his Maine farm. "A vegetarian eating tofu made in a factory from soybeans grown in Brazil is responsible for a lot more CO2 than I am." A lifetime raising vegetables year-round has taught him to value the elegance of natural systems. Once he and Damrosch have brought in their livestock, they'll "be able to use the manure to feed the plants, and the plant waste to feed the animals," he says. "And even...
...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 for very happy vegetables...
...this is only the latest in a long line of modeling studies and experiments that show how complicated the climate-vegetation connection can be. 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...
Beyond that, says David Lobell, a 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...
...filters and buffers against coastal floods. "I just don't see any way to control methane emissions from wetlands," says Palmer. Instead, we'll need to focus on methane emissions from man-made sources - like landfills or natural gas drilling - and cut what is still greenhouse gas No. 1: CO2...