Good news!

[Vawmataw]

Good news for the environment
Because not all is getting worse

I have two good news. 


Remote coral reefs may recover from bleaching if longer isolated

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/07/remote-coral-reefs-recover-isolation_n_3023659.html

The destroyed Scott coral reef in 1998 by El Niño have regrown for 15 years. There were no humans around to hunt them. So while climate change may be wreaking havoc on coral reefs around the world, these ecosystems might stand a chance of bouncing back once humans are no longer around to bother them.


The Canadian city of Saguenay is able to reduce considerably its petrol use
From: Le Journal de Québec (Québec Newspaper)

Unlike cities like Québec and Montreal, the city of Saguenay may reduce its petrol use by agriculture.

They say that it is harder for cities, but they can use what they can for reducing its petrol use.


With these good news, you can realize that you can change something for the planet.

Yay for more good news!

[Blue Elf]

Nature works well without human intervention. People usually drive things the wrong way.... unfortunately.

[Vawmataw]

I have more good news. This one is amazing.

Increasing CO2 in air is making deserts greener
Source: http://earthsky.org/science-wire/elevated-carbon-dioxide-making-arid-regions-greener

Scientists call this a "carbon dioxide fertilization effect." It has caused a gradual greening of arid regions on Earth from 1982 to 2010.

Scientists have long suspected that a flourishing of green foliage around the globe, observed since the early 1980s in satellite data, springs at least in part from the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. Now, a study of arid regions around the globe finds that a carbon dioxide fertilization effect has, indeed, caused a gradual greening from 1982 to 2010.

But it's not a reason to pollute more. It causes good, as we see, but bad consequences.

[Tsanten Eywa 'eveng]

Increased global warming is a fact. Here in Norway, the forest fire danger has increased a lot, and the gouvernment need to order more forest fire helicopters, and we have only one forest fire helicopter in Norway. And the main base to this helicopter has been moved longer north, because the forest fire danger is increasing in the north.

This is just one of the signs that global warming is increasing fast.

[Raiden]

I have more good news. This one is amazing.

Increasing CO2 in air is making deserts greener
Source: http://earthsky.org/science-wire/elevated-carbon-dioxide-making-arid-regions-greener

Scientists call this a "carbon dioxide fertilization effect." It has caused a gradual greening of arid regions on Earth from 1982 to 2010.

Scientists have long suspected that a flourishing of green foliage around the globe, observed since the early 1980s in satellite data, springs at least in part from the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. Now, a study of arid regions around the globe finds that a carbon dioxide fertilization effect has, indeed, caused a gradual greening from 1982 to 2010.

But it's not a reason to pollute more. It causes good, as we see, but bad consequences.

This is no worse than melting icebergs or shriveling forests.

Deserts are not wastelands. They are their own unique ecosystems, with their own unique inhabitants. They have become adapted (via natural selection, which can take at least thousands of years to make really appreciable differences) to hot and dry climates, just the same as how jungle animals and plants have adapted to warm, wet climates.

If a desert suddenly experiences an increase in a specific species of plant that can use the CO2 (not all plants use the same type of photosynthesis...), then food plants for insects, birds, tortoises, ants (I'm mainly thinking of SW North American deserts, since those are the only type I'm remotely familiar with) may be out-competed, and the animals that depend on them may starve.

Over the course of tens or hundreds of thousands of years, this isn't a big deal, but (relatively) very few animals and plants are really capable of coping with the rate of climate changes that our society is imposing on them.

"Desert greening" is just a symptom of the problem, it's far from "good news".

[Tìtstewan]

I'm agree with Raiden.

I think, it would be very interesting what will happend with the plants on a dry and hot world. 95% of all the plant on Earth are C3-plants the other 5% are C4-plants. If the average temperature higher than 30°C, C3-plant can't survive it very well. A hot and dry clima will support mostly C4-plants (grasses or corns) instead C3-plants, because they need not much water and nitrogen and supports average temperatures of 40°C.

So, what a world we will create, if there too hot? Surely no rainforests...

[Niri Te]

 In my experience of LIVING in the Desert Southwest since 1992, I have NOT seen the desert getting greener. As a matter of fact, it is getting MUCH BROWNER, which is NOT a good thing for MANY species. The 30 year average YEARLY RAINFALL for the Salt Flat area of Far West Texas is right around 3.5 inches. This year, we have to date gotten 0.68 inches, which is the SAME that we have gotten for the last several years. It is getting HOTTER and DRIER. In thirty years, we might look like the Saudi deserts.