From wattsupwiththat.com

Global vegetation reached a new greening peak in 2020, continuing a long-term trend since 2000 according to new dramatic findings published by a team of scientists based in the United States. The work helps confirm other recent scientific work that points to massive global plant growth directly related to recent increases in natural and human-caused carbon dioxide. Plants have evolved to grow in an atmosphere much richer in CO₂ than current near-denuded levels, and the recent growth and its myriad benefits for humankind should not be surprising. Needless to say, the news is absent from mainstream headlines since the ‘pollutant’ is temporarily being blamed for climate collapse in the interest of boosting the collectivist Net Zero fantasy.

The latest work on the ‘gas of life’ notes that the greening is linked to continuous growth in boreal and temperate vegetation. The scientists also suggest that the increase has been complemented by a tropical vegetation boost due to higher rainfall. Higher growth in northern regions would also have been helped by slightly warmer temperatures which have marginally increased growing seasons. The climate might be collapsing for ill-informed readers of the Guardian and listeners of the BBC, but nature continues to find ways to thrive. The scientists note that there is a “robust resilience and adaptation” of global vegetation in the face of a changing environment. Using a number of remote sensing devises, the year 2020 is pinpointed as an “historic landmark” since it registered as the greenest year in modern satellite records from 2001 to 2020.

This is not the first time that an acceleration in global greening over the last two decades has been observed. Last year a group of Chinese scientists found that about 55% of global land mass had shown an “accelerated rate” of vegetation growth. The Chinese team that included the Eco-Climatologist Professor Tiexi Chen stated that “global greening is an indisputable fact”. Climate change drought is a favourite fear mongering scare with activists but it was found that any water scarcity trend only slowed global greening, “but was far from triggering browning”.

The extent of the recent greening is shown in the map above and along with the latest results from the US team it reveals extensive growth in northern regions. But there has also been obvious de-desertification south of the Sahara and many famine-prone areas in eastern Africa have been given a welcome natural boost to food supplies. 

In addition, these ecological improvements boost wildlife and create healthier eco-systems. They go back further than the turn of the century with evidence of widespread greening stretching back to at least 1980. Some estimates suggest increased levels as high as 14%. In a detailed paper published in 2016 by 32 authors from eight countries, it was noted that there was a “persistent and widespread increase” in growing season greening over 25-50% of the global vegetated area.

In fact, the new greening of the planet is helping to feed the world. The authors of a recent science paper Charles Taylor and Wolfram Schlenker recently stated: “We consistently find a large fertilisation effect; a 1 part per million increase in CO₂ equates to a 0.4%, 0.6%, 1% yield for corn, soybean and wheat respectively”. A previous extreme environmentalist scare about rising populations and food scarcity was forced to take a back seat as crop yields soared due to hydrocarbon-produced artificial fertiliser and higher levels of atmospheric CO₂. Ironically, a successful Net Zero and a resulting collapse in global food supplies could see the former much-missed scare return to centre stage.

It is difficult to see how the idea that there is a climate ‘emergency’ can continue to be taken seriously given that it lacks any substantial or convincing proof. The trend in almost all extreme weather events is not getting worse and this is accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Increasingly discredited weather attribution linking individual events to humans conflicts with the IPCC fact-based view. Slightly warmer temperatures have benefited humans, a species that emerged from the sub-tropics and thrives best in warmer climes. Climate ‘refugees’ don’t exist and can’t even be defined. Climate tipping points exist only on the hard drives of climate models as does almost every prediction of Armageddon. Fake predictions heavy with dubious stats and temperature recordings are becoming the butt of jokes, if not in the mainstream media then across the more important social media arena. Meanwhile, corals, polar bears and whales multiply (the latter of course provided they stay away from the killing waters of offshore wind parks).

Even the deserts can’t be trusted to get bigger and create millions, perhaps billions, of climate refugees. According to a recent Yale Environment 360 article, CO₂ is “fast tracking” photosynthesis in plants. By allowing them to use scarce water more efficiently, the CO₂-rich air fertilises vegetation growth in even some of the driest places, it is observed. You can of course only have so much good news in Green Blob-funded operations like Yale and it also noted, “arid eco-systems matter”. We can but pray that nobody tells the Guardian about all this green encroachment and ruins its day. It recently reported that “desertification is turning the Earth barren” and the expansion of drylands is leaving entire countries “facing famine”.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor