Recently, knowledge of the general 'greening' of the planet, primarily due to increased atmospheric CO2, but also due to lengthening growing seasons, higher rainfall, etc., has become fairly widespread. However, the ideologically driven media quickly mobilized with articles such as this one in the NYT, 'Global Greening' Sounds Good. In the Long Run, It's Terrible. Clearly, it is well established that more CO2, warmer temperatures and higher rainfall leads to more plant growth, which gets eaten by more herbivores, which, in turn, feeds more carnivores. This is not controversial; it is why greenhouses increase all three. So, it takes more than a little bit of journalistic legerdemain to turn it into 'terrible'.
I will briefly review the four points that the article makes to demonstrate just how disengenuous the news coverage is when reporting or commenting upon ideologically charged subject matter. The first point is that "More photosynthesis does not mean more food". That is true if we are speaking just about human food. The point that the vast increase in yield per acre over the last century was not the result of more CO2 in the atmosphere. It was due to better cultivars, better agricultural practices such as crop rotation. However, all things being equal, with higher CO2, less land needs to be dedicated to agriculture at the same level of agricultural technology. In other words, the 'greening' means that Mankind's 'footprint' is smaller. That is good.
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The article states that a 30% increase in CO2 does not create a 30% increase in food production. That is true. However, a doubling of CO2 does create approximately a 40% increase in food production. The notion that, because the increases do not correspond precisely, the whole idea of increased CO2 can increase food production can be dismissed is ridiculous. One can calculate a ratio and estimate that a 2^.5 increase in CO2 will create a 1.4^.5 increase in food production. An 18.3% increase in food production simply from the increasing CO2 level of 41% is very significant. By the way, the 41% is close to the amount of CO2 increase expected by 2100. So, we see that 'reason one' is absent any value whatsoever.The second claim is that vegetables grown in higher CO2 concentrations can be less nutritious. That is true to a degree, but it certainly hasn't been brought up with regard to hydroponic vegetables that all are grown at multiples of atmospheric CO2 levels. The article correctly states that all the reasons why higher CO2 grown plants may be less nutritious are not known. The word may is critical. It is not the case that all plants grown at higher CO2 concentrations are less nutritious. As CO2 levels, temperatures, growing seasons, rainfall change, farmers change cultivars based upon the research done and provided by the seed manufacturers. In other words, the seed suppliers and farmers naturally compensate for this factor, since they want to bring the best product to market in order to command the highest prices.
The third item is that the greening of the planet won't stop climate change. This is a complete straw man since absolutely nobody claimed that it would. It is rather that the scientific community and the Progressive media wishes to advance a narrative that climate change is a wind that will blow everyone ill in every way. The greening of the planet is an example of a good thing that comes from increased CO2 and a warmer climate. The title of the article says that the greening of the planet is terrible and this argument doesn't support that statement in the slightest.
The fourth item is that the greening may not last forever. That a good thing may not be permanent doesn't make it terrible while it lasts. Furthermore, the article doesn't actually present any evidence that the greening will end. It simply asserts that one cannot prove that it will last forever. Of course, that is possible due to unforeseen interactions of the climate with the biosphere. However, that is an unlikely result for which there is no support.
So, here we see one of the most prestigious, if not the most prestigious, newspapers in the world publishing a piece of propaganda, simply to blunt any objection to the narrative that CO2 emissions are anything other than an unmitigated negative. It makes the blatant statement in its headline that, in the long run, global greening is terrible and then provides not even a little bit of support. If it was the only example, we could ignore it, but it is the prevailing treatment of global warming issues. It needs to be nullified and that can't just be done with YouTube videos and obscure articles. Hard research is required. Several things in the article are not well known, primarily because it is not well studied. Nearly 5 billion USD is being spent on climate research directed at finding out 'how bad is it?' and virtually nothing is being funded to find out 'how good is it?' In fact, when good impacts of AGW are inadvertently found, effort is expended specifically to neutralize it. That needs to be fixed.
Economics is an area where politics and ideology constantly invades the science. There are many examples, but here I will consider the war between Supply Side and Demand Side Economics. Sadly, the vast majority of the research is targeted at proving one side correct and the other side wrong. In truth, it is a false dichotomy that intelligent lay people can grasp. Supply Side says that money made available to enterprises will cause them to produce more, hire more people, who will then have more money to spend and will buy the extra production. The Demand Side argues that if you put more money in the hands of the consumer, they will go out and spend it which will create more production and more hiring, etc.
Even a naive analysis makes it patently obvious that in order for the Economy to grow, consumers must have more disposable income and enterprises must have the capital to buy more equipment and finance increased working capital needs. If consumers have more money, but enterprises can't produce more, the extra money will simply cause inflation. If the enterprises have more money, but consumers do not, the enterprises will likely buy back their own stock, since producing more will simply result in inventory surpluses. Clearly, an enlightened attempt at increasing Economic growth will attempt to increase both. It will also, as is the case right now, stimulate automation and fund education if there is a labor shortage in the needed jobs. This 'hypothesis' is not being researched and disseminated because politics has taken over the discourse.
We understand that right now, the developed world is likely to go through an explosion of unemployment as driverless cars and trucks, automated restaurant kitchens, AI replacement of clerical and low level professionals, takes out literally millions and millions of jobs. Sadly, the current research is designed based upon an acceptance that the Technological Unemployment is not a Luddite Fallacy. While this isn't actually supported by solid research, it is being substantiated with research that is intended to justify a UBI (universal basic income). In other words, this is Social Engineering masquerading as science.
My purpose is not to make a comprehensive argument for junk science being used to forward a Progressive agenda, but rather just to give a couple of examples. It is everywhere, especially, but not entirely within the Social Sciences. The problem is that literally billions USD is being funneled to Academia for this purpose and almost none is being provided to researchers who will likely weaken the Progressive arguments. I am suggesting that those who are not Progressive, either by virtue of being a Conservative or neither Progressive nor Conservative, but dedicated to good science, create a research fund for that purpose. I have no illusions that anything even close to the billions of research dollars that are being commandeered to this end can be matched by such a fund. However, at least the practice will not go unchallenged.
The research funding will fall into two broad categories. The first is research areas where only research likely to support a political or ideological position is being funded. Someone should be funding research that may draw an opposite conclusion. The other is research areas that are not funded at all because the resultant research may produce politically or ideologically uncomfortable results. It is important that the latter is chosen for its scientific merit, not simply to add to the ammunition available to the anti-Progressive side. The purpose is to blunt the effect of ideology on science. I, for one, would contribute to such a fund.
