Global warming alarmists aren’t upset enough

Global warming alarmists aren’t upset enough

Friday, August 25, 2006
Richard Lasker

Lasker is the director of Brabant Research Inc. in Bent Mountain.

I recently learned from the "Captains of Industry," specifically Stanley Lewandowski, Intermountain Rural Electric Association’s general manager, that those who believe that global warming is a man-made occurrence are "alarmists."

What I guess this means is that pointing out an observational scientific situation that counters industrial or business special interests is not "real" science but "chicken-little" science. Hence, "alarmist."

This made us at Brabant Research sit down and take a stronger look at this "alarmist" thing. Here is what we’ve learned:

Where are the alarmists? No, I don’t mean the environmentalists; I don’t mean the "do-gooders" or "hippies." What I mean is: Where are the real alarmists?

What we are seeing in the global warming picture is record heat and less-than-average rains, especially across North America. But, at Brabant Research Inc., we do biological and botanical research, primary research, (that means we actually do all the analytical testing as well as the field and lab research work), and we’ve been looking at the global warming picture since 1995 from an analytical and plant physiology viewpoint. All that experience makes us wonder, where are the real alarmists? Let me explain:

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.

To be clear, these three examples were all man-made occurrences: The Sahara was stripped for wood for Egypt and Carthage. In Spain, forests were clearcut for wood for the Spanish Armada. In Italy, it was for wood for the Roman Empire.

Spanish people tell me that prior to the Spanish Armada deforestation, a monkey could cross Spain from tree to tree and never touch the ground. Rain fell in excess of 36 inches a year. Today? A few inches at best in the most of Spain, and in some places it hasn’t rained in decades.

You have to give water, (from the ground through the plants) to get water. Uprising hot ground water from plants "seeds" the passing fronts and makes rain. With no plant "sweat," with no ground moisture, the passing water-laden weather fronts just evaporate; no rain. Gee, sound familiar?

And I haven’t even started with what happens to a plant with an increase of 10 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

So, where are the rest of the plant "experts" and why aren’t they sounding the alarm? Well, I think you’ve already deduced that answer on the cover of the Aug. 6 Horizon section of The Roanoke Times, in an article titled: "The best minds money can buy."

So, I will be the alarmist:

America, wake up, this is no joke. It’s not just warmer. It’s not just unpleasant. It’s the beginning of a very real problem if someone, many someones, don’t start making intelligent decisions and put greed behind survival. Soon.

Real soon.

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/wb/xp-79644