Over the Hedge by T Lewis and Michael Fry for November 13, 2019

Well, there is still time before we go over the edge, but we can’t afford to hedge.

Will George revert to his original size then?

Hey, George will have a head start on all the others.

Excuse me, but don’t plants breathe in CO2?

OMG, OMG the Sky is falling (again). For the last 50 years we have been assailed with promises of Disaster. Not one has happened. Get over it.

I love this comic but I wish the writers would stop with the speculative political narratives…….

CO2 does not and cannot generate heat. It does, however, allow plantlife to live which allows us to have the oxygen we need to live. And by the way, the ice caps are not melting, they are currently growing.

CO2 TRAPS solar heat. So does methane. It is not generating it. It is preventing the normal levels of loss of gained heat from the sun back into space so the trapped heat levels are gradually rising.

The caps are not increasing. There WAS an increase in snow fall this year due to the high humidity from the level of melting, but the melting continued unabated and overall there has been a loss. Do NOT confuse short term events (weather) with climate.

Be very careful to not over simplify it when you think of plant respiration.

There are currently not enough plants to deal with the level of increase in CO2.

Not all plants like high CO2 levels. Ragweed is among the plants that love more it, but grasses become less productive. Now, I know someone is not thinking that through and is now saying, “Yay, less mowing.” And maybe that person also has celiac so does not eat any grains (grasses) like wheat, rice, corn, etc. And perhaps that person is a vegetarian so does not eat any of the herbivores that eat grass plants like cattle or deer, or their seeds like poultry gets in its feed. Not many people fit in that category. It is also exceedingly hard to balance the essential amino acids (protein building blocks that our bodies can not create from other amino acids) on a vegetarian diet without having grains.

Of course, add enough CO2 and not only does the trapped heat increase but the acidity of the rain is further worsened. That introduces new problems.

Meanwhile, the melting of the polar regions’ ice is altering both pH and salinity of the northern waters and waters affected by upwelling of their currents that dip down till they warm enough to rise. Mess with the pH too much and members of the plankton community that need to create exoskeletons can not do so well enough. Crash the plankton and you crash the oceanic food chain.

Continuing the broadcast of wrong data. AGW is non-existent

CO2 is life to our planet! We Humans should be planting more trees & stopping the burning of the Amazon rain forest to grow crops. Plus China & India pollution should be forces to fallow the rules of the USA and EU.

The dinosaurs were the dominate species for 160 Million years before someone hit the reset button. We are a species, we are not special, and the world will get along fine if we wipe ourselves out. Give it a million years or so and something new will come along. Life itself is the purpose of the planet, what kind doesn’t really matter.

Highly recommended graphics.

Look up your areas and others to see how the average temperatures have changed over time:

https://showyourstripes.info

But to us it matters or should matter. This warming shouldn’t be happening but humanity in its large scale stupidity let it happen made it happen. It was cheaper so go with it regardless of the very expensive costs not being paid by us. Most humans are irrational and short sighted. Logic of the market short term is what they like. As a test as a species continues we are losing and failing ourselves and our posterity.

H2O + CO2 = H2CO3 or carbonic acid found in the oceans now. Good news! As the oceans heat they can hold less CO2 so it evaporates out lessening the acidity. Bad news it goes right back into the air to trap more heat. Also the heating oceans are less able to hold oxygen and too hot for sea life migrating to colder climes right now. Just as animals and plants are moving North or South and up mountains.

A recent Times opinion piece included this quotation from the paleoclimatologist Lee Kump: “The rate at which we’re injecting CO2 into the atmosphere today, according to our best estimates, is 10 times faster than it was during the End-Permian.” (2017)

Plastic toy dinosaurs are made out of REAL dinosaurs.

Short article and video:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/watch-arctic-s-sea-ice-slowly-disappear?utm_campaign=news_daily_2019-11-12&et_rid=54806180&et_cid=3070945

are you listening Trump!

Let them whine. In 12 years who’s gonna care about them?