CO2 Fert

DDI 2008 SS
JBox

AFF Answers To CO2 Fert

AFF Answers To CO2 Fert............................................................................................................................................................1
Idso Biased....................................................................................................................................................................................2
Wildfires DA.................................................................................................................................................................................3
CO2 -> Weeds...............................................................................................................................................................................4
CO2 Doesn’t Help Plants..............................................................................................................................................................5
CO2 Hurts Plant Proteins..............................................................................................................................................................6
CO2  Extinction - Oceans..........................................................................................................................................................7
CACO3 Kills Reefs.......................................................................................................................................................................8

1
CO2 Fert
DDI 2008 SS
JBox

Idso Biased
The Idsos are paid by big oil
Exxon Secrets.org, 8/3/06, Corrupt Idsos, Corrupt co2science.con website , http://misc.mailarchive.ca/survivalism/2006-
08/0423.html
Arizona State University Office of Cimatology
Arizona State University Office of Climatology has received $49,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998. Associated: Robert C.
Balling Jr., Sherwood Idso, father of Craig and Keith Idso, is an adjunct professor at the ASU Office of Climatology. All of
the Idsos are associated with the (Greening Earth Society) Western Fuels Association and the (Greening Earth Society)
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (associated TASSC A. Alan Moghissi).

All the Idsos are funded by the Western Fuels Association and Exxon
Eco Syn, No date given, http://www.ecosyn.us/adti/Corrupt_Idsos.html
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Center for the Study of CO2 and Climate Change
When the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change's web site debuted September 23,1998, The Western
Fuels Association-funded Greening Earth Society issued the press release announcing The Center's new site. Fred Palmer, head
of Western Fuels, stated in the release, "The Center's viewpoint is a needed antidote to the misleading and usually erroneous
scientific claims emanating from the Federal scientific establishment and adopted by leading politicians, such as Vice President
Al Gore." The Center has since tried to distance itself from the Western Fuels Association, but still regularly publishes articles
on the Greening Earth Society website. The Center is run by Keith Idso and Craig Idso, along with their father, Sherwood Idso.
Both Idso brothers have been on the Western Fuels payroll at one time or another. Keith Idso, then a doctoral candidate at the
University of Arizona, was a paid expert witness for Western Fuels Association at a 1995 Minnesota Public Utilities
commission hearing in St. Paul, MN, along with MIT's Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, and Robert Balling. (The Heat is
On). According to news from Basin Electric, a Western Fuels Association member, Craig Idso produced a report, "The
Greening of Planet Earth." Its Progression from Hypothesis to Theory," in January 1998 for the Western Fuels Association.
(The Center also came into being in January 1998, according to information provided by the Center). (Basin Electric Latest
News no date given)
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has received $65,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

2
CO2 Fert
DDI 2008 SS
JBox

Wildfires DA
A. Increased CO2 alters vital growth patterns in weeds – These alterations
inherently make them more combustable and will spark wide-spread wild fires
on a scale never seen.
Tom Christopher, studied and frequently writes about horticulture for the New York times, June 29, 2008, works cited from Lewis
Ziska, a –weed ecologist with the Agriculture Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’, accessed through Lexis
The spread of cheatgrass has been widely attributed to the degradation of native grasslands by overgrazing -- cattle prefer and
selectively eat the native grasses -- and more especially to its exceptional combustibility. Periodic fires are an integral part of
the rangeland ecology, but when the rangeland is still dominated by native grasses, fires occur in some areas at average
intervals of every 60 to 110 years. In areas overrun by cheatgrass, however, fire sweeps through every three to five years. While
cheatgrass can tolerate such frequent burns, the native flora cannot. Cheatgrass's combustibility is inherent in the plant's pattern
of growth. Sprouting in the fall, it resumes growth at winter's end to mature and set seed in early summer, whereupon the plant
dies, leaving a tuft of dry, highly flammable leaves through the following dry season. Ziska and his colleagues discovered,
though, that the weed's flammability seems to have been greatly augmented by the increases in atmospheric CO2 that occurred
during the period of cheatgrass's spread through the West. The scientists grew the plant at four concentrations of CO2: at 270
p.p.m. (the ambient level at the beginning of the 19th century, before the Industrial Revolution), at 320 p.p.m. (a 1960s level),
370 p.p.m. (a 1990s level) and 420 p.p.m. (the approximate level predicted for 2020 in all the climate-change panel's estimates).
What they found was that an increase of CO2 equivalent to that occurring from 1800 until today raised the total mass of
material (the biomass) each cheatgrass plant produced by almost 70 percent. In addition, the composition of the cheatgrass
changed as the CO2 level increased, the tissues becoming more carbon-rich so that the plant leaves and stems are less
susceptible to decay. In a natural setting, this would mean that the dead material would persist longer, adding yet more fuel for
wildfire. More fuel, with a longer life -- Ziska says that the rise in greenhouse gases we have already achieved may have played
a decisive role in the spread of a weed that has already transformed the ecology of the Western United States. The situation
seems likely to worsen too. The cheatgrass that Ziska grew at the CO2 level equal to that projected for 2020 increased the
plant's biomass by another 18 percent above current levels. Global climate change, it seems, will further stoke the rangeland
wildfires.

B. Forest fires hurt biodiversity, crush corporations, deplete water, and erode soil
World Wildlife Foundation, 9/12/06
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/forests/problems/forest_fires/index.cfm
The immediate impact of forest fires can be devastating to human communities and forest ecosystems alike. Fires can alter the
structure and composition of forests, opening up areas to invasion by fast-colonizing alien species and threaten biological
diversity. Buildings, crops and plantations are destroyed and lives can be lost. For companies, fire can mean the destruction of
assets; for communities, besides loss of an important resource base, fire can also lead to environmental degradation through
impacts on water cycles, soil fertility and biodiversity; and for farmers, fire may mean the loss of crops or even livelihoods.

3
CO2 Fert
DDI 2008 SS
JBox

CO2 -> Weeds

Weeds benefit more from CO2 enrichment – also leads to them becoming more
resistant to herbicides and harder and more expensive to control.
Tom Christopher, studied and frequently writes about horticulture for the New York times, June 29, 2008, works cited from Lewis
Ziska, a –weed ecologist with the Agriculture Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’, accessed through Lexis
Ziska, together with Bunce, has been testing the effects of changing CO2 concentrations on a range of crop and weed species.
Wending his way through a basement full of pumps, filters and boxlike aluminum growth chambers, Ziska showed himself to
be a connoisseur of atmospheres. Peering at the instrument panel outside one growth chamber, he noted a CO2 concentration of
310 p.p.m. ''That's a 1957 atmosphere, the year of my birth,'' he said. What he and his colleagues have found, he said, is that
weeds benefit far more than crop plants from the changes in CO2 and that the implications of this for agriculture and public
health are grave. Tests with common agricultural weeds like Canada thistle and quack grass found them more resistant to
herbicides when grown in higher concentrations of CO2, making them harder to control. Ziska hypothesizes that this may be a
result of faster growth; the weeds mature more rapidly, leaving behind more quickly the seedling stage during which they are
most vulnerable. This promises to be an expensive problem for farmers, who will have to spend more on chemicals and other
anti-weed measures to protect their crops. (Herbicides already cost farmers more than $10 billion annually worldwide.)

Higher CO2 levels make weeds and poison ivy grow stronger. Weeds produce
twice as much pollen and poison ivy is more virulent.
The New York Times, Tom Christopher, horticultural and environmental topics, 6/29/08 “Can Weeds Help Solve the Climate
Crisis?” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29weeds-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&ref=magazine
But enhancing CO2 levels, Ziska has found, not only augments the growth rate of many common weeds, increasing their
size and bulk; it also changes their chemical composition. When he grew ragweed plants in an atmosphere with 600 p.p.m. of
CO2 (the level projected for the end of this century in that same climate-change panel “B2 scenario”), they produced twice as
much pollen as plants grown in an atmosphere with 370 p.p.m. (the ambient level in the year 1998). This is bad news for
allergy sufferers, especially since the pollen harvested from the CO2-enriched chamber proved far richer in the protein
that causes the allergic reaction. Poison ivy has also demonstrated not only more vigorous growth at higher levels of
CO2 but also a more virulent form of urushiol, the oil in its tissue that provokes a rash.

Weeds benefiting from increased CO2 will change the ecology and landscapes
of much of the eastern US in the next 3 decades. It has already started.
The New York Times, Tom Christopher, horticultural and environmental topics, 6/29/08 “Can Weeds Help Solve the Climate
Crisis?” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29weeds-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&ref=magazine
Subsequent speakers got down to cases. Andrew McDonald, an agricultural scientist at Cornell University, had used the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s high projections for CO2 levels at the middle and end of the century to create an
atlas of potential weed migrations in cornfields in the Eastern United States. If these projections prove accurate, Kentucky, by
the end of the next one to three decades, should have a climate (and weed flora) resembling that of present-day North
Carolina; by century’s end, it will have shifted to a regime more like that of Louisiana. Delaware, over the same period,
will be transformed to something first like North Carolina and then Georgia, while Pennsylvania will metamorphose
into West Virginia and then North Carolina. Florida will become something unprecedented in this country. Field
observations indicate that these transformations are already under way: another speaker pointed out that kudzu, “the
weed that ate the South,” has already migrated up to central Illinois and by 2015 could be extending its tendrils into
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

4
CO2 Fert
DDI 2008 SS
JBox

CO2 Doesn’t Help Plants

Increased CO2 empirically doesn’t help plants
Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economic Service and Adviser to the Government on the economics of climate change
and development, 10/30/06. "Stern Review on the economics of climate change, http://www.
treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm
Carbon dioxide is a basic building block for crop growth. Rising concentrations in the atmosphere will have benefits on
agriculture – both by stimulating photosynthesis and decreasing water requirements (by adjusting the size of the pores in the
leaves). But the extent to which crops respond depends on their physiology and other prevailing conditions (water availability,
nutrient availability, pests and diseases).
Until recently, research suggested that the positive benefits of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations might compensate for
the negative effects of rising mean temperatures (namely shorter growing season and reduced yields). Most crop models have
been based on hundreds of experiments in greenhouses and field-chambers dating back decades, which suggest that crop yields
will increase by 20 – 30% at 550 ppm carbon dioxide. Even maize, which uses a different system for photosynthesis and does
not respond to the direct effects of carbon dioxide, shows increases of 18 – 25% in greenhouse conditions due to improved
efficiency of water use. But new analysis by Long et al. (2006) showed that the high-end estimates were largely based on
studies of crops grown in greenhouses or field chambers, whereas analysis of studies of crops grown in near-field conditions
suggest that the benefits of carbon dioxide may be significantly less – an 8 – 15% increase in yield for a doubling of carbon
dioxide for responsive species (wheat, rice, soybean) and no significant increase for non-responsive species (maize, sorghum).
These new findings may have very significant consequences for current predictions about impacts of climate change on
agriculture. Parry et al. (2004) examined the impacts of increasing global temperatures on cereal production and found that
significant global declines in productivity could occur if the carbon fertilisation is small (figures below). Regardless of the
strength of the carbon fertilisation effect, higher temperatures are likely to become increasingly damaging to crops, as droughts
intensify and critical temperature thresholds for crop production are reached more often.

5
CO2 Fert
DDI 2008 SS
JBox

CO2 Hurts Plant Proteins

CO2 decreases the protein is foods such as potatoes, barley, wheat, and rice.
This is devastating to poor countries.
The Lempert Report (Food, Nutrition and Science) 2/25/08. “The Affect of Rising CO2 Levels on Food Nutritional Content”
http://www.foodnutritionscience.com/index.cfm/do/monsanto.article/articleId/125.cfm
Last month, our Florida report demonstrated how rising temperatures on the Earth’s surface could be negatively affecting the
quality of certain crops. Now, a Southwestern University study confirms this notion. According to the study, rising CO2 levels in
the atmosphere could decrease the nutritional value of many major food crops in the years to come. “Various studies had reported
that CO2 has a large effect on crop protein concentration, or that it had little or no effect. The value of a meta-analysis such as ours
is that rather than focusing on the results of one or a few experiments, ours comprehensively addresses the totality of the research
literature. In this case, the literature as a whole clearly shows decreases in protein concentrations for several important crops,” says
Taub. The Southwestern study found that crops grown in atmospheres containing elevated levels of carbon dioxide had
significantly lower protein concentrations. Potatoes showed a 14% decrease in protein, barley showed a 15.3% decrease, rice was
down 9.9%, wheat down 9.8%, and soybeans showed reductions of 1.4%. Crops grown at higher temperatures have a shortened
life cycle, and that affects quality. Changes in taste can be frustrating to retailers and consumers, but changes in nutritional content
can be devastating – especially to poorer communities.

6
CO2 Fert
DDI 2008 SS
JBox

CO2  Extinction - Oceans

CO2 increases oceanic acidity which leads to species extermination
Dr. Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution, 6/30/05, “Oceans turning to acid from rise in CO2”,
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/ci-ott063005.php
Stanford, CA. A report issued by the Royal Society in the U.K. sounds the alarm about the world's oceans. "If CO2 from human
activities continues to rise, the oceans will become so acidic by 2100 it could threaten marine life in ways we can't anticipate,"
commented Dr. Ken Caldeira, co-author of the report and a newly appointed staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution's
Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, California.* The report on ocean acidification was released today by the Royal
Society. See http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/ Many scientists view the world's oceans as an important sink for capturing the human-
induced greenhouse gas CO2 and slowing global warming. Marine plants soak up CO2 as they breathe it in and convert it to
food during photosynthesis. Organisms also use it to make their skeletons and shells, which eventually form sediments. With
the explosion of fossil-fuel burning over the past 200 years, it has been estimated that more than a third of the human-originated
greenhouse gas has been absorbed by the oceans. While marine organisms need CO2 to survive, work by Caldeira and
colleagues shows that too much CO2 in the ocean could lead to ecological disruption and extinctions in the marine
environment. When CO2 gas dissolves into the ocean it produces carbonic acid, which is corrosive to shells of marine
organisms and can interfere with the oxygen supply. If current trends continue, the scientists believe the acidic water could
interrupt the process of shell and coral formation and adversely affect other organisms dependent upon corals and shellfish. The
acidity could also negatively impact other calcifying organisms, such as phytoplankton and zooplankton, some of the most
important players at the base of the planet's food chain. "We can predict the magnitude of the acidification based on the
evidence that has been collected from the ocean's surface, the geological and historical record, ocean circulation models, and
what's known about ocean chemistry," continued Caldeira. "What we can't predict is just what acidic oceans mean to ocean
ecology and to Earth's climate. International and governmental bodies must focus on this area before it's too late."

7
CO2 Fert
DDI 2008 SS
JBox

CACO3 Kills Reefs

CO2 induced CACO3 dissolution kills reefs—it’s key to growth and protection
Robert W. Buddemeier, KANSAS GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, Joan A. Kleypas, NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC
RESEARCH, and Richard B. Aronson, DAUPHIN ISLAND SEALAB, February 2004 “Coral reefs Potential Contributions of
Climate Change to Stresses on Coral Reef Ecosystems & Global climate change” Published by the Pew Center for Climate Change
Reef-building occurs where calcium carbonate precipitation exceeds its removal. The structural components of reefs (skeletons
of corals and algae) are glued together and made more resistant to physi- cal breakdown by calcium carbonate cements that
precipitate within the reef framework, and by the over- growth of thin layers of calcareous algae. A reduction in
CaCO3precipitation by whatever means (mortality of reef organisms, lowered calcification rates, or lowered cementation
rates) reduces a reef’s ability to grow and to withstand erosion (Kleypas et al., 2001). Some slow-growing or weakly cemented
reefs may stop accumulating or shrink as carbonate deposition declines and/or erosion increases. Such effects have been
observed in the Galápagos and elsewhere (Eakin, 1996; Reaka-Kudla et al., 1996). Future changes in seawater chemistry will
not only lead to decreases in calcification rates, but also to increases in CaCO3dissolution. Field experiments (Halley and
Yates, 2000) indicate that the dis- solution rate could equal the calcification rate once atmospheric CO2concentrations reach
double the preindustrial levels. This points to a slow-down or reversal of reef-building and the potential loss of reef structures
in the future.