Little of this made the news, because good news is no news. But I’ve been watching it all closely. Ever since I wrote The Rational Optimist in 2010, I’ve been faced with ‘what about…’ questions: what about the great recession, the euro crisis, Syria, Ukraine, Donald Trump? How can I possibly say that things are getting better, given all that? The answer is: because bad things happen while the world still gets better.
"Efficiencies in agriculture mean the world is now approaching ‘peak farmland’ — despite the growing number of people and their demand for more and better food, the productivity of agriculture is rising so fast that human needs can be supplied by a shrinking amount of land. In 2012, Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University and his colleagues argued that, thanks to modern technology, we use 65 per cent less land to produce a given quantity of food compared with 50 years ago. By 2050, it’s estimated that an area the size of India will have been released from the plough and the cow."
Land-sparing is the reason that forests are expanding, especially in rich countries. In 2006 Ausubel worked out that no reasonably wealthy country had a falling stock of forest, in terms of both tree density and acreage. Large animals are returning in abundance in rich countries; populations of wolves, deer, beavers, lynx, seals, sea eagles and bald eagles are all increasing; and now even tiger numbers are slowly climbing."
metmike: The big increase in entirely beneficial CO2 and the best weather and climate in the last 1,000 years have contributed at least 25% to increase agricultural productivity vs what it would be without the climate change/global warming on this greening planet over the past century.
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
This image shows the change in leaf area across the globe from 1982-2015.
Don't let the scary words describing a fake climate crisis/emergency bamboozle you. We are having a climate optimum and humans are not going to perish and the planet is not turning into a barren wasteland.
Use authentic facts, empirical data and common sense, critical thinking not emotionally charged, anti science from political ideologies intending to impose global socialism by sneaking it past us, using the hijacking of climate science and mis characterizing the role of CO2 on the environment. CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels and cheap, reliable, efficient and abundant fossil fuels are the life blood of every rich countries economy.........get control of that and you can control them(the Climate Accord does nothing for the climate but transfers massive amounts of money from the developed countries to the undeveloped countries(including China, that does not have to cut CO2 emissions, even though they emit double the amount in the US-as they receive money from the developed countries for climate reparations and made up adaptation-hugh? the climate is BETTER for their productivity!)
Just a reminder, I'm an environmentalist that believes in spreading our wealth to the poor in much greater quantities. I was a long lived democrat that connects with the old school democrats and some socialism principles applied to specific realms(health care).
But not blatant scientific fraud to impose a governing system on people that are intentionally being misled with lies because the truth can't be supported by those people.
We all have basic rights and one of them is to be enlightened with the truth so we can properly exercise our God given rights, in concert with others that know the truth, to make wise decisions for us and in the best interest of our countries/world.
