Blame the Government for Your Allergies | 3/14/24

Blame the Government for Your Allergies | 3/14/24

New peer-reviewed study points out the obvious: Carbon emissions are feeding plants and greening the planet



Climate alarmists have long suggested that human industry, farming, and the consumption of affordable energy would amount to environmental ruin and possibly extinction. It turns out that humanity's much-lamented carbon dioxide emissions are actually doing a great job feeding plants and greening the world.

Global greening, in turn, is apparently diminishing the impact of so-called global warming as well as weather extremes.

A peer-reviewed study recently published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation underscored that "global greening is an indisputable fact" and has accelerated over the past 20 years across over 55% of the globe.

The global leaf area index — the measure of the amount of leaf area relative to ground area — based on satellite observations has shown the world to be greening since the early 1980s. Researchers from Australia and China endeavored to confirm with remote sensing data whether this trend has continued in recent years, especially in the face of recent suggestions that the world is alternatively browning.

The researchers found that "the global greening was still present in 2001-2020, with 55.15% of areas greening at an accelerated rate, mainly concentrated in India and the European plains, compared with 7.28% of browning."

Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that the "dominant driver" for this trend was carbon dioxide.

A 2019 paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment and taken up by NASA indicated greening slows global warming.

The paper stated, "Vegetation models suggest that CO2 fertilization is the main driver of greening on the global scale, with other factors being notable at the regional scale. Modelling indicates that greening could mitigate global warming by increasing the carbon sink on land and altering biogeophysical processes, mainly evaporative cooling."

Shilong Piao of Peking University, lead author on the 2019 paper, said, "This greening and associated cooling is beneficial."

"It is ironic that the very same carbon emissions responsible for harmful changes to climate are also fertilizing plant growth," said co-author Jarle Bjerke of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, "which in turn is somewhat moderating global warming."

Another recent study published in the sustainability journal One Earth found that greening "has mitigated day time and nighttime hot temperature extremes."

Despite the upsides of global greening, climate alarmists tend to cast it in a negative light.

Upon reviewing the recent study indicating more than half the world is getting greener, Vox concluded greening is "not inherently good. Sometimes it's very bad."

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times claimed in a 2018 article that a greener world is "nothing to celebrate."

Zimmer quoted an environmental scientist from the University of California, Santa Cruz, who suggested carbon dioxide "only accounts for a small fraction of the increase."

Contrary to the suggestion by Zimmer's expert, a 2016 study published in Nature Climate Change made clear that satellite data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments showed carbon dioxide fertilization accounts for 70% of the greening effect.

While cynical about the good of greening and ostensibly willing to downplay the impact of carbon fertilization, Zimmer noted that plants remove an estimated 25% of the carbon humans emit; plants are apparently taking out more carbon dioxide every year; and with greening, the world will have more plants to help out.

Nevertheless, Zimmer characterized the carbon emission-driven phenomenon thusly: "It's a bit like hearing that your chemotherapy is slowing the growth of your tumor by 25 percent."

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Plants emit ultrasonic screams when stressed: Study



Vegetarians may be unsettled to learn that while bloodless, their groceries went out screaming.

Scientists have long known that plants have the capacity to exhibit changes in their phenotypes in response to stress. Some plants can, for instance, wilt, change color, or release volatile organic compounds. Apparently they can cry, too.

A new study published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Cell revealed that stressed plants make informative sounds, which could potentially be detectable by other organisms besides curious scientists.
An Israeli team of researchers at Tel-Aviv University's School of Plant Sciences and Food Security recorded ultrasonic sounds (20-150 kilohertz) emitted by tomato and tobacco plants inside an acoustic chamber and used machine learning algorithms to classify the recordings.
Itzhak Khait and his colleagues then tested the system in a greenhouse, monitoring not just the sounds made by the plants but also their physiological well-being.
In an effort to determine whether plants emit different sounds for different reasons, the researchers recorded them under different circumstances: when being deprived of water; when being cut; and when in a controlled setting.

They found that under all circumstances, the tobacco and tomato plants made sounds, but were much more sonically active when stressed.

Tomato and tobacco plants subjected to drought conditions made 35 sounds and 11 sounds an hour, respectively. However, unstressed plants made fewer than one sound per hour on average.

The researchers noted that in the pot control, where a pot with soil but no plant was recorded, their system did not record any sound ">500 h of recordings."

The researchers successfully trained machine learning models to classify different plant conditions and species on the basis of the sounds they made. In light of the accuracy of the interpretation, the researchers concluded, "plant sounds carry information that can be interpreted and used for classification of plant type and condition."

This emission and receipt of informative sound was possible outside the acoustic chamber as well.

"In order to distinguish between the sounds generated by plants and background greenhouse noises, we first constructed a library of greenhouse noises, by recording in an empty greenhouse," wrote the researchers. "We then trained a convolution neural network (CNN) model to distinguish between these empty greenhouse noises and the sounds of dry tomatoes recorded in the acoustic box."

Again, they found that the tomato plant was noisily indicating its condition, such that the researchers could distinguish between the drought-stressed plants and the control plants with roughly 84% accuracy.

Edward Farmer at the University of Lausanne told New Scientist that cavitation is most likely the cause behind the sounds stressed plants make.

The study underscored, "These findings can alter the way we think about the plant kingdom, which has been considered to be almost silent until now."

Khait and his colleagues only provided evidence of tomato and tobacco plants' thoughtless cries, but are confident other plants — such as the vegetarian's coveted kale, avocado plant, and spinach — might similarly make sounds.

Although human beings may have been deaf to plant chatter up until now, the researchers indicated that other organisms may have evolved to pick up and comprehend the meaning of these sounds.

"For instance, many moths—some of them using tomato and tobacco as hosts for their larvae—can hear and react to ultrasound in the frequencies and intensities that we recorded. Nearby plants may also respond to the sounds emitted by plants. Plants were already shown to react to sounds and specifically to increase their drought tolerance in response to sounds," said the study.

With the help of machine learning algorithms, the researchers indicated humans, farmers in particular, can exploit this new understanding: "Plant sound emissions could offer a way for monitoring crops water and possibly disease states—questions of crucial importance in agriculture. More precise irrigation can save up to 50% of the water expenditure and increase the yield, with dramatic economic implications."

Anne Visscher, a research fellow at the Royal Botanic Gardens, cast doubt on the agricultural application of this research, telling New Scientist, "The suggestion that the sounds that drought-stressed plants make could be used in precision agriculture seems feasible if it is not too costly to set up the recording in a field situation."

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World's largest meatpacker hit by cyberattack, shuts down all firm's US beef plants



The world's largest meatpacker, JBS SA, was reportedly hit by a cyberattack over the weekend, forcing the firm to halt production in all its U.S. beef plants and sparking fears of meat shortages in multiple countries.

What are the details?

Bloomberg reported that the Brazilian company has not yet released details itself, but that an official with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said JBS has shut down its beef processing facilities in America following a ransomware attack.

Fox News reported that the shutdowns impacted all nine JBS beef plants in the U.S., with locations in Arizona, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wisconsin, Utah, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

JBS did confirm that it suspended its North American and Australian computer systems following the Sunday attack, but remains mum on how operational its plants are globally. The Wall Street Journal reported that JBS produces one quarter of the United States' beef and one-fifth of the country's pork. The company's pork plants in the U.S. appear to remain operational.

The Daily Mail noted that "JBS sells meat under 52 different brand names in the US, including Certified Angus Beef, 5 Star Reserve, Blue Ribbon Angus Beef and Pilgrim's."

According to Bloomberg, "The prospect of more extensive shutdowns worldwide is already upending agricultural markets and raising concerns about food security as hackers increasingly target critical infrastructure. Livestock futures slumped, while pork prices rose."

White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the Biden administration "has offered assistance to JBS" following the attack, and disclosed during a media briefing that JBS told the White House that they received a ransom demand from a criminal organization "likely based in Russia," CNN reported.

What else?

The attack comes off the heels of a cyberattack on the U.S. Colonial Pipeline Co. last month, which forced the company that supplies nearly half the fuel to the Eastern Seaboard to shut down and purportedly pay millions in ransom to a Russian criminal group to regain operations.

The attack on Colonial sparked fears of shortages and caused a run on gas stations in the southeastern U.S., driving up prices regionally and pushing the national price of gasoline upwards of $3.00 per gallon. The Daily Caller pointed out that at least four governors declared states of emergency during the ordeal.