APP - poison ivy (and other plants) and CO2

Don Quixote

Don Quixote

cancer survivor
Contributor
another side effect of growing CO2 levels and global climate change

By Jon Bowermaster | Takepart.com 13 hours agoTakepart.com Nature





​
It takes a Pennsylvania journalist to educate me on why so much poison ivy is growing along the paths and up the trees in my home state of New York this summer.
Global warming is literally changing the chemistry of poison ivy; experts believe it has doubled in strength since the 1960s.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it's global warming, stupid! And apparently it’s a countrywide problem.
It also partially explains why there have been more bears walking through the backyard this summer, since they love to munch on the urushiol soaked leaves, the name for the oil or sap that lives on the skin of poison ivy and is such a pain for 85 percent of people.
An increase in carbon dioxide encourages plant growth like some kind of super fertilizer. And for some yet uncertain reason, poison ivy is proving especially greedy when it comes to CO2, sucking it down and spreading through fields and strangling trees at a record pace.
According to field studies by the Department of Agriculture, as long as CO2 levels keep rising, poison ivy will keep spreading, in some places virulently. It’s not just the number of plants that are growing, but also the potency of its poison. Global warming is literally changing the chemistry of the poison ivy; experts believe it has doubled in strength since the 1960s.
Poison ivy is not the only plant being impacted by global warming. Other studies, one by the biology department at Southwestern University in 2010, shows how an increase in CO2 increases photosynthesis in plants and encourages some to grow 30 to 40 percent faster. This is not necessarily a good thing. Even as they are growing faster, nitrogen levels in the plants are decreasing—as are othere important minerals including calcium, magnesium and phosphorous—which makes them drastically less nutritious for the herbivores (and man) that depend on them.
So, this is our future. Dirtier air and faster growing, evil-intended plants. I’m guessing next we’ll see news stories confirming that cockroaches and rats somehow thrive on increases in CO2. (Somewhat to the contrary, if you believe that superstorms, like Sandy, are encouraged by global warming they are proving to be hard on rat populations. The rat population in NYC went down post-Sandy, due to drowning.)
Be careful out there! Poison ivy’s ill effects aren’t only gained from brushing up against it in the woods. If its vines are burned or even churned up by weed whacker or lawn mower, the poisonous oil can become airborne and impact susceptible lungs.
What can you do about this advance, if you’re among the majority badly infected by poison ivy, the itchy, pimply blisters of which can last for several days?
First and foremost, learn to identify the plant. And then stay far away from it. Truth is, if you show the plant to most they mistake it for something innocuous, even marijuana.
Some Forest Service employees spray antiperspirant deodorant on exposed skin because the aluminum chlorohydrate may help prevent the oil from penetrating skin. (A human form of geo-engineering!)
At our house, where others are very susceptible, we keep a big, red bottle of Tecnu soap next to the sink all summer long and at the merest inkling of a brush-up there’s a rush for cold water and soap. (If you think you’ve made contact, move fast. The oil on the leaves, which is the ‘poison’ in poison ivy, often doesn’t sink into skin for about 15 minutes.) Jumping in a cold pond or pool is a possible instant remedy; Calamine lotion and ice can work after the fact.
It’s not like the measles or chicken pox. Apparently once you’ve had an allergic reaction to poison ivy you become even more at risk.


http://news.yahoo.com/itchapalooza-2013-climate-change-fuels-poison-ivy-boom-172928502.html
 
This is just fucking great. I see poison ivy and I get it. Have had it from head to toe and it's miserable for those who have never had it. I've had it at Christmas when the plant is buried under 2 ft of snow. It's one reason I moved to AZ - and then it took a year to see the last of it between my fingers.

Now it's thriving on the increased levels of CO2 that bring conservatives their profits. No wonder I dislike both of them, they both get under your skin and cause misery.
 
Crashk said:
This is just fucking great. I see poison ivy and I get it. Have had it from head to toe and it's miserable for those who have never had it. I've had it at Christmas when the plant is buried under 2 ft of snow. It's one reason I moved to AZ - and then it took a year to see the last of it between my fingers.

Now it's thriving on the increased levels of CO2 that bring conservatives their profits. No wonder I dislike both of them, they both get under your skin and cause misery.
Click to expand...

Was doing some brush clearing in an area where we saw ZERO poison oak. It was mid-winter, so it was pretty dormant. Because it was raining, we had rain gear on top of our normal pants/boots/shirts.

We STILL got poison oak rash. Sucks.
 
If you've been exposed, alcohol within 15-20 minutes will wash off the urushiol. I used to get it all the time as a kid, but in my region now it doesn't grow as well. It seems to be in localized regions.

Even in winter, all parts of the plant have urushiol, and you can get infected.
 
tekkychick said:
oh great. Wonder if that applies to poison oak as well? Sigh
Click to expand...


Climate SHOCKER: Rising CO2 is turning the world's deserts GREEN

Arid regions blossom as humanity's beneficial burning takes effect

By Lewis Page, 11th July 2013

Far from turning the Earth into a baking lifeless hell as had been thought, elevated levels of atmospheric CO[SUB]2[/SUB] are causing the deserts of the world to bloom with new green foliage.

green_deserts.jpg


Fire up the patio heater and watch the world turn green!

That's according to new research from government scientists in Australia, who've been scanning the planet's formerly dry and lifeless regions using satellite imagery.

"We found a strong link between the rise in atmospheric CO[SUB]2[/SUB] concentrations and a greening that’s been observed across many of the world’s arid environments," explains Dr Randall Donohue of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency. According to Donohue and his colleagues' research, climbing levels of CO[SUB]2[/SUB] in the air correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982 to 2010 across arid areas in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa.

"In Australia, our native vegetation is superbly adapted to surviving in arid environments and it consequently uses water very efficiently," Dr Donohue says.
"This, along with the vast extents of arid landscapes, means Australia featured prominently in our results."

Scientists had long speculated that rising carbon levels would make life easier for the green plants which keep us all alive by the sun-powered process of photosynthesis, in which they suck CO[SUB]2[/SUB] from the air, mix it with water to make sugar for themselves and throw away some of the oxygen (so permitting us animals to breathe). "Our work was able to tease-out the CO[SUB]2[/SUB] fertilisation effect," explains Donohue, saying he and his team adjusted their satellite data to account for other processes such as precipitation, air temperature, the amount of light, and land-use changes.

Donohue cautions that the greening of the deserts could have unforeseen side-effects - for instance there might be more wildfires, now that there are more leaves and plants in arid regions to dry out and burn during hot seasons. Certainly there has been much media coverage of wildfires in recent years.
Nonetheless, he says, "on the face of it, elevated CO[SUB]2[/SUB] boosting the foliage in dry country is good news".

That would certainly seem to be true for those worried about a warming world. A powerful negative feedback of this sort would suggest that worries over positive-feedback runaway warming - of the sort which underlies the more negative climate forecasts - is much less likely than had been thought.
Donohue and his colleagues' research has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, and was flagged up by CSIRO here. ®


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/co2_greens_the_deserts/
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Climate SHOCKER: Rising CO2 is turning the world's deserts GREEN

Arid regions blossom as humanity's beneficial burning takes effect

By Lewis Page, 11th July 2013

Far from turning the Earth into a baking lifeless hell as had been thought, elevated levels of atmospheric CO[SUB]2[/SUB] are causing the deserts of the world to bloom with new green foliage.

green_deserts.jpg


Fire up the patio heater and watch the world turn green!

That's according to new research from government scientists in Australia, who've been scanning the planet's formerly dry and lifeless regions using satellite imagery.

"We found a strong link between the rise in atmospheric CO[SUB]2[/SUB] concentrations and a greening that’s been observed across many of the world’s arid environments," explains Dr Randall Donohue of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national science agency. According to Donohue and his colleagues' research, climbing levels of CO[SUB]2[/SUB] in the air correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982 to 2010 across arid areas in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa.

"In Australia, our native vegetation is superbly adapted to surviving in arid environments and it consequently uses water very efficiently," Dr Donohue says.
"This, along with the vast extents of arid landscapes, means Australia featured prominently in our results."

Scientists had long speculated that rising carbon levels would make life easier for the green plants which keep us all alive by the sun-powered process of photosynthesis, in which they suck CO[SUB]2[/SUB] from the air, mix it with water to make sugar for themselves and throw away some of the oxygen (so permitting us animals to breathe). "Our work was able to tease-out the CO[SUB]2[/SUB] fertilisation effect," explains Donohue, saying he and his team adjusted their satellite data to account for other processes such as precipitation, air temperature, the amount of light, and land-use changes.

Donohue cautions that the greening of the deserts could have unforeseen side-effects - for instance there might be more wildfires, now that there are more leaves and plants in arid regions to dry out and burn during hot seasons. Certainly there has been much media coverage of wildfires in recent years.
Nonetheless, he says, "on the face of it, elevated CO[SUB]2[/SUB] boosting the foliage in dry country is good news".

That would certainly seem to be true for those worried about a warming world. A powerful negative feedback of this sort would suggest that worries over positive-feedback runaway warming - of the sort which underlies the more negative climate forecasts - is much less likely than had been thought.
Donohue and his colleagues' research has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, and was flagged up by CSIRO here. ®


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/co2_greens_the_deserts/
Click to expand...

what is happening is global climate change. some areas will get more precipitation and other areas will get less precipitation.

along with changes to land areas, ocean storms are shifting and their strength and in some cases creating 'super storms'

did you notice the part of the article where while the CO2 is acting like a fertilizer, the nutritional value of the faster growing plants is dropping.

as long as the atmosphere content continues to change, so will the weather patterns, as will the ph of the oceans and precipitation.

global weather change is not a static thing. who knows what other changes will occur?
 
We're rolling dice with climate change, no idea what the end effects will be.

Remember, nature doesn't care if "human race" survives or not.

As DQ says, some places will get more rain, some less. Some will get warmer, some cooler. That's why it's "climate change".

My guess is we aren't going to like the overall results. Insurance companies already don't like the results.
 
tekkychick said:
We're rolling dice with climate change, no idea what the end effects will be.

Remember, nature doesn't care if "human race" survives or not.

As DQ says, some places will get more rain, some less. Some will get warmer, some cooler. That's why it's "climate change".

My guess is we aren't going to like the overall results. Insurance companies already don't like the results.
Click to expand...

dang, you and i think too much alike

however, i appreciate you filling in some of the blanks that i leave out
 
Don Quixote said:
another side effect of growing CO2 levels and global climate change

By Jon Bowermaster | Takepart.com 13 hours agoTakepart.com Nature





​

It takes a Pennsylvania journalist to educate me on why so much poison ivy is growing along the paths and up the trees in my home state of New York this summer.
Global warming is literally changing the chemistry of poison ivy; experts believe it has doubled in strength since the 1960s.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it's global warming, stupid! And apparently it’s a countrywide problem.
It also partially explains why there have been more bears walking through the backyard this summer, since they love to munch on the urushiol soaked leaves, the name for the oil or sap that lives on the skin of poison ivy and is such a pain for 85 percent of people.
An increase in carbon dioxide encourages plant growth like some kind of super fertilizer. And for some yet uncertain reason, poison ivy is proving especially greedy when it comes to CO2, sucking it down and spreading through fields and strangling trees at a record pace.
According to field studies by the Department of Agriculture, as long as CO2 levels keep rising, poison ivy will keep spreading, in some places virulently. It’s not just the number of plants that are growing, but also the potency of its poison. Global warming is literally changing the chemistry of the poison ivy; experts believe it has doubled in strength since the 1960s.
Poison ivy is not the only plant being impacted by global warming. Other studies, one by the biology department at Southwestern University in 2010, shows how an increase in CO2 increases photosynthesis in plants and encourages some to grow 30 to 40 percent faster. This is not necessarily a good thing. Even as they are growing faster, nitrogen levels in the plants are decreasing—as are othere important minerals including calcium, magnesium and phosphorous—which makes them drastically less nutritious for the herbivores (and man) that depend on them.
So, this is our future. Dirtier air and faster growing, evil-intended plants. I’m guessing next we’ll see news stories confirming that cockroaches and rats somehow thrive on increases in CO2. (Somewhat to the contrary, if you believe that superstorms, like Sandy, are encouraged by global warming they are proving to be hard on rat populations. The rat population in NYC went down post-Sandy, due to drowning.)
Be careful out there! Poison ivy’s ill effects aren’t only gained from brushing up against it in the woods. If its vines are burned or even churned up by weed whacker or lawn mower, the poisonous oil can become airborne and impact susceptible lungs.
What can you do about this advance, if you’re among the majority badly infected by poison ivy, the itchy, pimply blisters of which can last for several days?
First and foremost, learn to identify the plant. And then stay far away from it. Truth is, if you show the plant to most they mistake it for something innocuous, even marijuana.
Some Forest Service employees spray antiperspirant deodorant on exposed skin because the aluminum chlorohydrate may help prevent the oil from penetrating skin. (A human form of geo-engineering!)
At our house, where others are very susceptible, we keep a big, red bottle of Tecnu soap next to the sink all summer long and at the merest inkling of a brush-up there’s a rush for cold water and soap. (If you think you’ve made contact, move fast. The oil on the leaves, which is the ‘poison’ in poison ivy, often doesn’t sink into skin for about 15 minutes.) Jumping in a cold pond or pool is a possible instant remedy; Calamine lotion and ice can work after the fact.
It’s not like the measles or chicken pox. Apparently once you’ve had an allergic reaction to poison ivy you become even more at risk.

http://news.yahoo.com/itchapalooza-2013-climate-change-fuels-poison-ivy-boom-172928502.html
Click to expand...

I just found a PI vine growing up a tree in the front yard. It's the first I've ever seen it there.
 
Crashk said:
This is just fucking great. I see poison ivy and I get it. Have had it from head to toe and it's miserable for those who have never had it. I've had it at Christmas when the plant is buried under 2 ft of snow. It's one reason I moved to AZ - and then it took a year to see the last of it between my fingers.

Now it's thriving on the increased levels of CO2 that bring conservatives their profits. No wonder I dislike both of them, they both get under your skin and cause misery.
Click to expand...

I've never had it yet *fingers crossed* but both my sons are extremely susceptible. The younger one used to get it so bad he had to miss school. He looked awful and I hated to take him anywhere because it looked like he was being abused. Swollen eyes, puffy face etc.
 
We've had poison ivy here all my life. Never had it (rapping myself in the head), knock on wood, but some of my siblings get it if they walk too close to it. I had my boy help me clear some brush the other day and there was plenty of it out there. He's shown no signs of getting it so hopefully ...
 
tekkychick said:
We're rolling dice with climate change, no idea what the end effects will be.

Remember, nature doesn't care if "human race" survives or not.

As DQ says, some places will get more rain, some less. Some will get warmer, some cooler. That's why it's "climate change".

My guess is we aren't going to like the overall results. Insurance companies already don't like the results.
Click to expand...

Global temperatures have not changed in 16 years, explain that!!
 
christiefan915 said:
I've never had it yet *fingers crossed* but both my sons are extremely susceptible. The younger one used to get it so bad he had to miss school. He looked awful and I hated to take him anywhere because it looked like he was being abused. Swollen eyes, puffy face etc.
Click to expand...

Luckily we don't get that over here.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:
Global temperatures have not changed in 16 years, explain that!!
Click to expand...

Start checking your yard for poison ivy...

Here you go, go read some science -
http://www.skepticalscience.com/no-warming-in-16-years.htm

Update 26/05/2013: The '16 years' video, originally linked from this article, is not representative of the scientific consensus. In fact the short term trends are rather more complicated. The problem is explained in more detail in this article.

Humans have continued to contribute to the greenhouse warming of the planet over the past 16 years. The myth arises from two misconceptions. Firstly, it ignores the fact that short term temperature trends are strongly influenced by a variety of natural factors and observational limitations which must be analyzed to isolate the human contribution. Secondly it focuses on one small part of the climate system (the atmosphere) while ignoring the largest part (the oceans). We will address each of these errors in turn
Click to expand...
 
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