Well, I learned something today from an article entitled "Global warming alarmists aren't upset enough" by Richard Lasker. Take a look:
An increase of 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit doesn't just mean it's warmer. It means that plants, especially temperate climate plants (not tropical plants), have to keep cool by increasing the rate of transrespiration, moving water throughout the plant. That's how plants "keep cool."
But an increase in daytime temperatures of 10 degrees Fahrenheit equates to a 50 percent increase in transrespiration in most temperate climate plants, less in some, more in others. The water doesn't circulate in the plant, go up then down and all around, it comes out of the leaf stomas (openings) as water vapor. That's part of what humidity is, plant sweat.
Now, with 50 percent of the U.S. currently in one form or another of drought, and plants needing an increase of roughly 50 percent of water movement, doesn't this mean that the plants are using the ground water at half again the normal rate? And, we've established, the ground water (rain) replenishment rate is at drought levels, yes?
That's my point here: Most plant physiologists, most botanists, most biologists know these simple plant facts. Where are they in this "debate" about global warming?
Where are the real alarmists who should be shouting at the tops of their lungs that a major calamity is scheduled to befall the North American continent unless global warming is brought to a halt now. Not 10 years from now, not five years from now. Now!
Allow me to be the alarmist. At the current rate of rainfall, coupled with the current rate of transrespiration, North America will start losing major areas of vegetation in the next two years. Yes, two years. Anyone who knows the climatic history of the Sahara Desert or Spain or Italy can tell you that once you strip or lose the trees and grasses, you do not get the rainfall back.
I wonder if we're going to meet the challenge as a species or just let the calamity happen. I really do. And I'm not optimistic.
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