More CO2 is Good for Aspen

[Gary_C]

Study: Aspen warm to extra CO2 in air

Aspen trees, the backbone of Minnesota's paper industry, are liking the extra carbon dioxide in the air linked to global warming.

New research published Friday found that aspen growth rates increased by 53 percent during the past half-century, as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased about 20 percent.

[Coon]

Aspens thrive on CO2 but try tell the farmers around here this.     They seem to be knocking as much of the treed lands down as they can because cultivated acres sell much higher than those with trees.  In the farmland areas much of the treed land is not maintained at all and deemed as useless land.  Trees are useless as far as most of them are concerned.     The good thing about this is that I can get alot of aspen for next to nothing.     Aspen is our main species of wood here until you get a bit further north.   

Brad.

[jon12345]

carbon sequestration is important to a lot of industry, and will become more and more important as global carbon emissions increase

[Okrafarmer]

CO2 is what plants need to live. Some species may respond more dramatically than others to CO2 increases. Generally most plants should do better. Which means. . . . .

They'll make more oxygen!

[Woodcarver]

Most plant life evolved when atmospheric CO2 levels were significantly higher than they are now. One of the "secrets" of growing vigorous plants in commercial greenhouses is to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in the greenhouses.

Studies done by agronomists at Purdue University indicate that there is the potential to increase grain yields by as much as 30% if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to increase.

[Okrafarmer]

Most plant life evolved when atmospheric CO2 levels were significantly higher than they are now. One of the "secrets" of growing vigorous plants in commercial greenhouses is to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in the greenhouses.

Studies done by agronomists at Purdue University indicate that there is the potential to increase grain yields by as much as 30% if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to increase.

There are some of us who believe that there is no such thing as evolution-- that God created the earth in a much more excellent state than it is now, and later destroyed the wicked civilization of mankind by a devastating flood. Taking that view, we generally understand that the pre-flood atmosphere was far different than what we have today, probably with higher atmospheric pressure, and likely with different amounts of oxygen and CO2 than we have today. There may also have been a denser atmospheric canopy protecting the earth from solar radiation. Fossil trees have been found some 900 feet long, and it has been shown that much of the earth was once covered in redwoods. Creation scientists believe the massive coal deposits are a result of the one-time flood that buried vast lush forests and swamps that were far richer in flora (and fauna) than we have today. After the flood the mud hardened into rock rather rapidly, and today's earth is a meager ghost of what the former one was. But God gave mankind grace and fitted Noah and his progeny to survive in this altered world.  BTW, I'm just stating my opinion, not trying to get in a fight here. If my opinions differ from others, I'm not trying to offend anyone and you are free to think of me as being crazy or foolish, I'm used to it!

[SwampDonkey]

I have seen a decline in aspen personally. The aspen that was cut around here the last 25 years got pretty big, so big we had to have special "over sized" tickets to move the wood at some mills. They would only take so much volume of that big wood. I find the suckered stuff doesn't look all that great, a lot of disease and shoot blight. Some years are better than others. The last couple years haven't been too bad. But for 3 years before, the tips of the trees died off from some kind of blight. Turned black. This was mostly in trembling. However we did some thinning in aspen this year, on a dry knoll a bunch of large tooth grew up and most every one were dry stubs, tops missing or just a 3 or 4 leaves left up there. It wasn't moose unless they can fly way up there in the tree tops.   My friend who is a bug man, says it's called aspen decline and is happening on a large scale. I can see on my woodlot there was a bad year about the 3 rd year the aspen had suckered, almost every aspen has a J-crook in the stem at the same level. These would be even aged. You can also see a crook in older pole wood in another stand of even aged trees, same height as surrounding trees. Much higher up in the canopy because they would be 10 years older than the most recent cut.

[JimTwoSticks]

Okra, thought you were joking at first....wow.
 
First I've heard of 900 ft. long fossil trees. I managed to keep a straight face while reading your post until "creation scientists"

Craziness is relative and your opinions are just that. However, having an opinion on an issue is totally different than completely ignoring how nature works. 
Briefly, there is no evidence of a great flood. "Redwoods" did not cover the earth; trees similar to them were present millions of years ago...it's a member of a very old lineage of woody plants. "After the flood the mud hardened into rock rather rapidly", huh?
If there ever has been a 900 foot tall tree someone please inform me...never heard of it.

[northwoods1]

Okra, thought you were joking at first....wow.
 
First I've heard of 900 ft. long fossil trees.
If there ever has been a 900 foot tall tree someone please inform me...never heard of it.

Whoa, that was what I was thinking too! A 900' tree? Can you imagine if it was a pine and you were standing next to it and a pine cone fell from the top and hit you on the head? Ouch!

[John Mc]

I read a few years ago that one species that responds dramatically to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is poison ivy... something to look forward to, huh? 

I do have to wonder who thought up the experiment of putting poison ivy in an environment where they could artificially increase the CO2 levels and monitor the results.

[Okrafarmer]

Okra, thought you were joking at first....wow.
 
First I've heard of 900 ft. long fossil trees.
If there ever has been a 900 foot tall tree someone please inform me...never heard of it.

Whoa, that was what I was thinking too! A 900' tree? Can you imagine if it was a pine and you were standing next to it and a pine cone fell from the top and hit you on the head? Ouch!

Nobody has to believe it. I'm not offended.

http://s8int.com/WordPress/?tag=giant-petrified-trees

http://www.lachlanhunter.deadsetfreestuff.com/JB/Big-Trees/big-trees.htm

"A short drive from Florissant, Colorado, is the Pike (also called the Colorado) Petrified Forest.  It is small, but the sequoias that once grew here were towers.  One of the stumps has a base diameter of 27 feet. The height of the live tree can only be conjectured.  The largest tree yet discovered is also a sequoia - 14 feet, not the greatest diameter, but the trunk can be traced to 295 feet.  Weight may be 500 tons.  It rests prone, partly covered by desert sand in the Emerald Formation of Southwest Nevada near Coaldale"

And one of many organizations that teaches Creation:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

For those who want to go deep and scientific in a peer-reviewed way

http://www.creationresearch.org/

And here is Dr. Walt Brown's exhaustive study of the Genesis flood, which I've found most informative, and after objectively reading what he wrote, I tentatively agree with at least 80-90% of his conclusions though I would question some of his minor points. He, by the way, is at least humble enough to admit that he might be wrong about some of it, which is always the best way to go about bringing forth ideas you can't actually prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Preface.html

I'm not asking anyone to change your beliefs unless you should wish to, just showing you where I come from and that I'm not alone. Foolish or crazy I may be, but I don't take it personally.

BTW, old Noah may have been one of the greatest sawmill operators on earth. . . . . perhaps.

[Ianab]

Yeah, but you can't just scale the stump and assume the height will match, trees dont work that way. There are Kauri recorded here in NZ that were 25ft dia at the stump, but only 100-150ft tall. Once a tree reaches a certain height it becomes difficult for the tree to bring water and nutrients up from the ground, plus the top is out exposed in the weather, so if gets beaten up in storms. The trunk keeps growing, and while the crown may spread it doesn't get much taller. Kauri reach close to their max height in about 100 years, then spend the next 1,000+ getting fatter.

So I don't argue with the stump size, trees that big have existed for sure. But to say that 3X the stump size = 3X the height, nope, doesn't work like that.

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

Petrified trees now, but they grew way up on the Queen Elizabeth Islands. How long ago do you suppose they were growing there? And how long for the oil they are extracting there? Now how old is the bible and how much geography and scope, flora and fauna is described? Any mention of giant lizard-like beasts eating other giant lizards and maybe people? When did we war against them and destroy them? Or where they just as vile as man and consumed in the flood? Seems to me the bible said two of every kind were on that ark.

[Okrafarmer]

Well, SD, I have "my" answers to all those questions, if you really want to know. The short answer is-- the great flood changed the entire environment and crust of the earth in vast ways that we are just now capable of discovering. As for the dinosaurs, Noah did take them on the ark (small juvenile ones no doubt so they didn't take up much room) and they survived the flood. However, they were probably not well suited for the changed atmospheric conditions on the postdeluvian planet. Still, there are many many historical accounts of dinosaurs (usually called dragons or monsters) being encountered by people throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa in particular through the medieval period and possibly up to the present time in the Congo. These modern day beasts may not be anywhere near as big as their antedeluvian ancestors, due to genetics selecting for the postdeluvian atmospheric conditions-- and possibly increased gravity from the earth's crust collapsing in on itself (the planet may be denser today than it was before the catastrophic flood, as the Bible states that great underground fountains of water broke up to cause the flood, the rain was the least of their worries)

Dinosaurs are mentioned in the bible, called "behemoth" in Job and referred to as dragons elsewhere.

Here is a link exploring the possibilities of dinosaurs existing today-- there are many other sites out there-- yes it is speculative in regards to some of it, and there may not be any, but I lay out there that there is a possibility. Species do become extinct when their environment is destroyed or they are hunted to death.

http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/behemoth/behemoth.htm

[SwampDonkey]

Well that certainly is amazing. I must be missing a few chapters and books in my book. Need to look into getting the revised copy.

[JimTwoSticks]

I don't even know where to start....
Here in no specific order are a few points I can think of off the cuff in a couple of minutes.
A. A global flood is not possible. Was it fresh water or salt? Where did it come from?
B. 6000 years (if that's when the flood happened since the earth is only 6600 years old right?) is not enough time to get the genetic variation we see in the human race if at time zero (6000 yrs ago) 9 individuals who all happened to be related (Noah and his family) started procreating....gross
C. The ark could not have existed. A wooden boat carrying 2 "of every kind" - or whatever argument you young earth creationists fire back when asked how 2 of every animal could possibly fit in the boat let alone be collected - would have been too large to reliably float. What about the animal crap? What about the food?
D. What about plant life? The majority of terrestrial plants cannot survive if submerged for any amount of time.
E. If it did happen (it didn't by the way) where did the water go once it receded? Keep in mind, earth is essentially a closed system.

Unrelated to the flood ridiculousness but related to the conversation. The creation research society creationresearch.org is not a recognized science organization. In actual science, any conclusions drawn from the data are acceptable if they are justified with repeatable experiments and fit the data presented. If you read the abstracts from the "peer-reviewed" journal published by this society you will find they tow the company line and are therefore NOT composed using the true scientific method.
I'm sorry to get condescending about this stuff but you are completely ignoring how this place (earth) works in favor of a literal interpretation of a storybook.

You're opinions are just that but when they are wrong, they're wrong.
For instance, if I believed the detroit lions were the best football team in the NFL and that they were 3-0 this season it would be my personal belief, but would still be completely false.
Go Packers!

[Jeff]

Okay, I was standing by allowing the creation debate to go for a little bit, but I gotta draw the line on picking on the Detroit Lions.

Seriously, this conversation, or variants there of has occurred on the Forestry Forum before. Each time its ended badly. Why? Because there are people that just can't debate a point without becoming personal, emotional or just outright angry.

 So, here is fair warning, go ahead and continue your conversation if you will, but be forewarned that if I see ANY type of post that *I deem over my line of good conduct or judgement with one another  *("I" means I don't care what you think, because I get to make the rules so don't try to argue the point with me) Then I will pull the plug on this conversation and the person or persons I feel responsible will find themselves on a different website when they try to visit here for a day or two.

Okay, now continue two by two if you want with extreme caution.

[barbender]

I would just say that I am a young earth creationist myself. I've come to my conclusions through much research and I don't expect anyone else to share my views, nor do I regard anyone else as a moron because they believe evolution is how we got here. I've sure had a few folks try to straighten me right out for being such a dummy however  That's all I'll say about the issue, back to the issue of CO2 and Aspen growth, how do we know we had more CO2 in the past? (That's an honest question, I don't how scientists measure this) If atmospheric CO2 was higher, why was it higher and how do we know that the rising levels we see now aren't a natural cycle, rather than man made? 

[Gary_C]

how do we know we had more CO2 in the past? (That's an honest question, I don't how scientists measure this) If atmospheric CO2 was higher, why was it higher and how do we know that the rising levels we see now aren't a natural cycle, rather than man made? 

From what I know, air is trapped in ice in glaciers and scientists have the ability to measure the components of those ancient air bubbles.

Yes, we do know the amount of CO2 in the air changes with time.

And the last question is the $64 question. The global warming crowd claims that the increase is primarily due to man's activities. And the opponents say there are holes in that theory. And one big hole is the timeline for the increase that started before humans began mass burning of fossil fuels.

So there are your answers in a nutshell. But then again, anything that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. 

[DouginUtah]

We know that we are adding, in round numbers, 24 million tons of CO₂ per day to the atmosphere. This has been occurring on an incline to present day numbers for about 100 years. It isn't a stretch to believe that these quantities would have some impact on the atmosphere.