Cement, Energy and Environment

• The aerial fertilization effect of the ongoing rise in the air's C0 2 concentration (which greatly enhances vegetative productivity) and its anti-transpiration effect (which enhances plant water-use efficiency and enables plants to grow in areas that were once too dry for them) are stimulating plant growth across the globe in places that previously were too dry or otherwise unfavourable for plant growth, leading to a significant greening on the Earth. • Elevated C0 2 reduces and nearly always overrides, the negative effects of ozone pollution on plant photosynthesis , growth and yield. It also reduces atmospheric concentrations of isoprene , a highly reactive non-methane hydrocarbon that is emitted in copious quantities by vegetation and is responsible for the production of vast amounts of tropospheric ozone. Chapter 8. Species extinction • The IPCC claims "new evidence suggests that climate-driven extinctions and range retractions are already widespread" and the "projected impacts on biodiversity are significant and of key relevance, since global losses in biodiversity are irreversible (very high confidence)." These claims are not supported by scientific research. • The world's species have proven to be remarkably resilient to climate change. Most wild species are at least one million years old which means they have all been through hundreds of climate cycles involving temperature changes on par with or greater than those experienced in the twentieth century. • The four known causes of extinctions are huge asteroids striking the planet, human hunting, human agriculture, and the introduction of alien species (e.g., lamprey eels in the Great Lakes and pigs in Hawaii). None of these causes are connected with either global temperatures or atmospheric C02 concentrations. • Real-world data collected by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) show the rate of extinctions at the end of the twentieth century was the lowest since the sixteenth century - despite 150 years of rising world temperatures, growing populations , and industrialization. Many, and probably most, of the world's species benefited from rising temperatures in the twentieth century. • As long as the atmosphere's C0 2 concentration rises in tandem with its temperature, most plants will not need to migrate toward cooler conditions, as their physiology will change in ways that make them better adapted to warmer conditions. Plants will likely spread poleward in latitude and upward in elevation at the cold-limited boundaries of their ranges, thanks to longer growing seasons and less frost, while their heat– limited boundaries will probably remain pretty much as they are now or shift only slightly. • Land animals also tend to migrate poleward and upward, to areas where cold • • • temperatures prevented them from going in the past. They follow earth's plants, while the heat-limited boundaries of their ranges are often little affected, allowing them to also expand their ranges. The persistence of coral reefs through geologic time - when temperatures were as much as 10° -15°C warmer than at present, and atmospheric C0 2 concentrations were two to seven times higher than they are currently provides substantive evidence that these marine entities can successfully adapt to a dramatically changing global environment. The 18- to 59-cm warming– induced sea-level rise that is predicted for the coming century by the IPCC falls well within the range (2 to 6 mm per year) of typical coral vertical extensions rates, which exhibited a modal value of 7 to 8 mm per year during the Holocene and can be more than double that value in certain branching corals. Rising sea levels should therefore present no difficulties for coral reefs. The rising C02 content of the atmosphere may induce very small changes in the well-buffered ocean chemistry (pH) that could slightly reduce coral calcification rates ; but potential positive effects of hydrospheric C02 enrichment may more than compensate for this modest negative phenomenon. Real-world observation indicate that elevated C0 2 and elevated temperatures 32