"A sweeping survey of changes among 32 compounds in 43 crops found that nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels. 'As a scientist, it’s really interesting,' said Sterre F. ter Haar, an environmental scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the survey, published in November. 'As a person … you don’t want to see such a shift, because it’s so negative.' For the past several years, ter Haar and her colleagues have worked to compile a database of all existing research on nutrient changes linked to rising CO2.... Next the team used their dataset to calculate the nutritional densities of each crop under different carbon dioxide levels — and to predict how their composition could continue to shift in the future. On average, they found, nutrients have already decreased by an average 3.2 percent across all plants since the late 1980s, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 350 parts per million...."
From "Carbon pollution is making food less nutritious" (WaPo). That's a gift link, so you can figure out the science and whether this is a case of lying with statistics.
It occurs to me that percentages of nutrients would change if plants just contain more water, but a plant composed of more water might be more appetizing, so just eat a bit more of it. I'm always suspicious of articles that stir up climate-change anxiety.
Posts
76 comments:
Here’s a thought, don’t eat plants. Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.
I imagine this will wind up being filed under “irreproducible experiments.”
Those libtards must have missed the memo. We're back to panicking about a new Ice Age.
Global Warming global grift final gasps: 'He's dead, Jim.'
That is utter rubbish! I can’t emphasize that enough. The early Jurassic period saw an abundance of flora and fauna orders of magnitude greater than the present. It is estimated that the CO2 level at that time was 1200 ppm. Currently it is a little over 400. For most of the past hundred million years, the CO2 level was higher, sometimes much higher, than today. It is factual to say that we are in a CO2 trough now. BTW, 99.9% of all plants and animals that ever existed are extinct.
They are now engaging in sorcery now
"...said Sterre F. ter Haar, an environmental scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the survey.
Not a biochemist, nor a botanist... not even a nutritionist, but an environmental scientist. whatever the hell that is. Something tells me "environmental science" is akin to library science. I'm also quite sure that this survey contains lots of those unreproducible results that are polluting real science in nearly every discipline.
off
stop
Amazing. What did happen to Climate Change? It used to be so important. LIke the Ukraine. Guess the party line changes and the libtards move on.
This research brought to you by Balance of Nature capsules.
It’s not just for FoxNews oldies any more.
Sterre ter Haar - Leiden University https://share.google/p4goHWCkZb565ydG4
Talk about working from a false premise and doubling down
Liebchen the whole planet is made of carbon so are we
I Think the actual nutrition in our food has gone down. Not from Co2 but from soil quality. Feeding plants nitrogen fertilizer makes them grow but it is not the same as nitrogen formed in the soil naturally from decay. But beef and eggs are best foods.
Thats likely true, they will ban nitrogen next they already are
I would say the quality of the soil has more influence on the nutrients found in plants than carbon dioxide. Farmers today use a lot more commercial fertilizers than my dad did back in the day. Small farm with cows, pigs and chickens that provided plenty of "natural" fertilizer.
The best possible climate action of the last decade would have been Not blowing up Nordstream. Meanwhile the planet is getting greener.
Today I learned that I may already be suffering from 'hidden hunger'.
How did this paper oass muster oh this is the same country where they wanted to confiscate farm land for solar panel planting
Bullshit. Higher CO2 always greens up flowering plants. And it makes marijuana sweeter. For years I vented my 5-gallon carboys of ale into my Phototron and the extra CO2 had remarkable effects on the taste and color, both sativa and indica varieties. Then there's all that Jurassic evidence of mega flora too.
"The phrase "carbon pollution" irks me. "Pollution" is "Physical impurity or contamination" (OED). There's nothing impure about carbon dioxide in the air. Actually, the oldest meaning of "pollution" is "Desecration of that which is sacred" and modern-day environmentalism is a religion substitute. An archaic meaning of "pollution," going back to the 14th century, is "Ejaculation of semen without sexual intercourse." From a 1717 work titled "Syphilis": "The Patient is constantly stimulated in his Sleep to nocturnal Pollutions."
It goes back farther than that - at least to the book of Leviticus, probably even before:
Leviticus 15:16 — ‘Now if a man has a seminal emission, he shall bathe all his body in water and be unclean until evening."
Agricultural plants have decreased nutritional density because of deliberate breeding for size and growth rate, and irrigation and over-fertilization. This is obvious to anyone of my generation.
"research on nutrient changes linked to rising CO2."
Oh, it's linked. Well... there you are!
"Climate change" is dead?
Did Tom Steyer get the memo?
That is all.
I will be working on my phototron for the rest of the morning.
Interesting messages are coming in from Alpha Centauri.
"Give a hoot. Don't pollute. No ejaculation of semen without sexual intercourse."
- Pervert Woodsy Owl
Tom (indonesian coal) steyer is an amusinv artefact
You people have a problem with simple stoichiometry. I'll admit the situation is somewhat exaggerated but the increase in plant growth due to carbon dioxide will have the effect of increasing the quantity of sugars and general carbohydrates at the expense of proteins metals vitamins phytochemicals etc.
"What dullards we've become!"
"How dare you!" "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words"
Cue the medieval warming people were there famines no
That said, the massive overproduction of vegetables on us farmland using industrial chemical fertilizers pesticides and herbicides has had a far greater impact on nutrient reduction and overall soil depletion then the relatively minor effects of the increase in carbon dioxide.
"For the past several years, ter Haar and her colleagues have worked to compile a database of all existing research on nutrient changes linked to rising CO2.... Next the team used their dataset to calculate the nutritional densities of each crop under different carbon dioxide levels — and to predict how their composition could continue to shift in the future."
Notice, they didn't do any actual research themselves.
Dr. Joel Wallach’s theory, popularized in his lecture and book "Dead Doctors Don't Lie," posits that almost all chronic diseases are caused by mineral deficiencies rather than genetics or aging. He argues that because modern farming has exhausted the mineral content of our soil, the food we eat is "nutritiously empty," making supplementation essential for survival and longevity.
Advanced Biological Concepts
Advanced Biological Concepts
+3
He got his biggest start on the local radical right wing radio station in Santa Cruz on AM 1080 KSCO
Dr. Joel Wallach and his multi-level marketing company, Youngevity, have a well-documented history of selling colloidal minerals and other supplements through conservative and "fringe" media outlets.
Key Media Partnerships
Alex Jones & InfoWars: Wallach has a long-standing business relationship with Alex Jones. This includes:
The "Alex Pack": A specific bundle of Youngevity supplements marketed under Jones's brand.
The InfoWars Team: A system where listeners can join as distributors to sell Youngevity products.
Talk Radio Presence: Wallach frequently appears as a guest on various talk radio programs to promote his "90 Essential Nutrients" theory. He also hosts his own long-running show and podcast, "Dead Doctors Don't Lie," which is broadcast across various radio networks.
They want fewer people engineered famine would go a long ways unless we want crunchy bug patee
Farewell to the Althouse blog. After 20+ years of readership, it's time to go. WIshing Althouse, Meade, and this crew well. Thanks for the memories. "To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new"
It's no surprise that the Fox News channel is completely and totally sponsored by snake oil salesman and other scam products designed to scare old people and offer them solutions
manpolarbearpig.
Hopefully volcanoes will stop erupting - so the collective left can breathe easy.
The end is near - stop eating! and keep those borders open.
Which is contradictory
I'm glad the US partakes in more organic farming and hope that it continues to expand.
Mass farming stays strong because of mass populations to feed. This is just reality.
This is the biggest load of fertilizer I've ever read.
Howeeee and his “you people” swill again…
When I was a kid in the 1960s, in my neighborhood across from the mental institutions they used to burn used motor oil to heat the hothouses to grow roses. Used motor oil is some of the most toxic shit around. I think they also pumped CO2 as well into the hot house to increase the grow rate. A complete ecological disaster, it was declared a SuperFund site. Now the oil pits and the mental institutions are gone.
I just realized how Dickensian my childhood sounds.
"Carbon pollution" there is no such thing
Organic farming will never break the 1% barrier in total agriculture in the United States the way the current law and regulations are written.
I don't trust scientists who call CO2 carbon.
And yet, out here in the real world, greenhouse operators have pumped extra CO2 into their greenhouses to increase growth rates. Been happening for a few decades.
Keeping the left cult on the religious climate hysteria wagon - is key.
I'm sure these Euro-Commies will be delighted to hear that Belgium has already found the solution to this problem.
Anything to preserve the grift. Who believes scientists, generally speaking, can be trusted to do anything but follow the money?
I generally detest argumentation from authority, of which this is a great example, yet ironically I'm now going to argue from my own authority. (-: My first two degrees are in Geochemisty and I have decidedly non-trivial knowledge in Palæoclimatology, specifically the Permian period of roughly 300 to 275 million years ago.
My next two degrees are in Soil Chemistry and then Agronomy, so I know the science better than the average bear. But I also spent half a century in commercial-scale mixed family farming, first certified organic in 1985, and periodically in the Top 10% of American farms by gross revenue.
On several levels, this has been my world and my life's work as an Active Environmentalist. as opposed to the standard "environmental activist". The entire premise if that article is most generously described as Pig Piffle.
I'll spare you details beyond a few key points --
a) Earth has been cooling steadily for about 100 million years and is currently close to its coldest point in half a billion years.
b) Plants do best at about 1600 ppm CO₂, which just happens to be the average CO₂ level since land plants developed about 450 million years ago.
c) In the Permian, temperatures rose rapidly for about 10 million years *before* CO₂ began to rise at all.
d) I can easily demonstrate [simple arithmetic] that roughly 65 to 70% of all anthropogenic CO₂ release since WWII has *already* been sequestered by natural biological processes.
e) Since 1980, when the appropriate satellites first went up, the total green surface of Earth increaed by 5%. Not only was desertification halted, it was reversed.
f) During the same period, the total VOLUME of plant matter has increased by 20% -- equivalent of a whole new Amazon Rainforest.
I'm fully confident in those last two statements because it was my wife [PhD in Remote Sensing] who developed the methodology, now standard, for such determinations.
There is no "climate crisis" or "climate emergency", and it's interesting how that whole fad got started just when Communism collapsed.
Bart Hall. wow - actual real science.
WE don't get real science from the paid political hack elites. They offer bullcrap and fear. Gotta keep the fake green grift conveyor belt moving.
"...Farewell to the Althouse blog...."
@Stephen, sorry to see you go but Happy Trails, wherever they may take you.
"Because anemic women have fewer red blood cells — the iron-rich cells that transport oxygen throughout the body — the ordinary bleeding of childbirth can deprive their organs of oxygen and eventually trigger heart failure.
For tens of thousands of Nigerian women each year, the consequences are fatal."
That's from the Post article.
"The leading causes of direct maternal mortality were Hypertension (27.0%), Sepsis (20.6%) and haemorrhage (18.7%), while anaemia in pregnancy (3.2%), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (3.2%) and Sickle Cell Disease (2.4%) were the leading indirect causes of maternal mortality"
That's from Lagos University.
Statistics are involved but that's just plain old lying.
Ann Althouse, "The phrase "carbon pollution" irks me."
That's a major part of the CAGW scam. People hear the word "pollution" and think they will be harmed. The EPA's recent repeal of the finding that carbon dioxide is a danger to humans is a big deal of switching the narrative.
The scam all got started when Justice JP Stevens decided that Mass. v. EPA case.
This fake study will be rolled out by the Left as further "evidence" of why the US and Europe need to achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2050. It's their religion.
The wapo article is not scientific enough to include any data analysis so it can’t be technically refuted, it’s all hidden numbers. But the claim is that since CO2 increases plant growth and increases the carbohydrate content (which is the food that keeps people alive, we run on sugar, glucose) the mineral content, specifically iron and zinc, are reduced in percentage even though each plant contains the same absolute amount. So in a drought when plants are stunted, the mineral content is greatly increased as a percent!
The pictures say that by 2024 the average protien content of peanut butter will drop from 24% to 22% and iron in beans will drop from 19% to 18%. I don’t know how the model maintains that as a statistically significant result over a 15 year prediction interval, time series forecasting is notoriously difficult, but they don’t explain.
I am not an agriculture person but I am sure that the mineral content of plants varies all over the world dependent on soil, fertilizer, rainfall, seed genetics, etc. a few percent in an estimated theoretical drop seems to me to be buried completely in the noise of that variation.
But even if it is all true, spending trillions to stop coal and gas is not the answer for this food problem, but rather to spend millions giving people multivitamins where needed, it is multi order of magnitude cheaper, and vitamins have exactly the same soluble minerals, unless you are a believer in high priced boutique “organic” minerals.
I would worry more about people starving from lack of carbs than people getting a few percent less minerals. This article contains the statement of a problem, a claim that the cause is CO2, and the assumption that there is no other possible factor that creates the outcome by other means, so I don’t like it.
"I'm always suspicious of articles that stir up climate-change anxiety."
As it happens, so am I. Too much advocacy, not enough objectivity, even though it's also true that practicing modern science is a highly competitive exercise that necessarily requires the participants to advocate for the value of whatever project they are pursuing.
What new plants will come into being due to the higher carbon dioxide concentrations? How will they alter the food supply?
Any objective scientist would be asking those questions and trying to answer them.
nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels. 'As a scientist, it’s really interesting,' said Sterre F. ter Haar, an environmental scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the survey
So a plant optimized through natural selection to thrive at this level of CO2 is not optimized to thrive at higher levels of CO2?
That is a "really interesting" finding by someone who believes in Darwin's theory of evolution?
(Announcer) These findings are brought to you by "The Party of Science". The Party of Science wants you to know they believe in evolution and the scientific method, even as their scientific findings eschew one or both.
The Party of Science also makes clear it's racist and homophobic to look up or wonder about the meaning of "eschew".
Plants grow faster with higher CO₂, but they may have less in the way of minerals, nutrition, and nitrogen content. What exactly to we mean by "high CO₂" though? What levels are we really talking about? Moreover, not all plants are the same. Wheat and rice and soybeans do well with "high CO₂" environments (up to a point and depending on what we mean by "high CO₂"). Corn and sugar cane do less well.
Time for the UK Met Office to Reform its Junk Temperature Statistics Before It’s Too Late - Watts Up With That? https://share.google/z1EOpmd0DhVfRV1k0
CO2. It's got what plants crave.
It took 4 hours to get a Brawndo reference. Come on, people.
Were with our serious face
Howard bombing the thread with his Inga “you people” rant.
Tiresome.
I call BS on the article. The atmosphere currently contains almost 400 parts per million (ppm) of CO2. I read that commercial greenhouses typically raise their CO2 levels from 500 ppm to 800 ppm. Why would they do that if it were detrimental to plants?
CO2 is a first-order forcing of green diversity, Diversity and thus human viability outside of atmospheric bubbles.
Green flora flourish in CO2 atmospheres.
Who knew the nutritiousness of plants was the one thing that would set Stephen off after 20 years?
"On average, they found, nutrients have already decreased by an average 3.2 percent across all plants since the late 1980s, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 350 parts per million...."
Ok. So? Correlation does not imply causation.
"You people" is just a pussy detector.
I seem to remember when Covid started in a Wuhan wet market.
“Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds”
One of the consequences of CO2 enrichment for plants is that they don't have to transpire as much water to get the CO2 they need to grow. That could account for Anne's theory that they now have more water.
OTH, yields have been rising fairly steadily for most crops in recent years, with fertilizer use, CO2 enrichment, and new varieties probably accounting for most of the increase. It could be the plants are just healthier.
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