London Low Emission Zone - Feasiblility Study

6 Responses to “What effect would a drastic reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions have on plant life?”

1. Sade on November 24th, 2009 at 5:55 pm

   A carbon offset is a financial instrument aimed at a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) and may represent six primary categories of greenhouse gases.[1] One carbon offset represents the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases.

   There are two markets for carbon offsets. In the larger, compliance market, companies, governments, or other entities buy carbon offsets in order to comply with caps on the total amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to emit. In 2006, about $5.5 billion of carbon offsets were purchased in the compliance market, representing about 1.6 billion metric tons of CO2e reductions.[2]

   In the much smaller, voluntary market, individuals, companies, or governments purchase carbon offsets to mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, electricity use, and other sources. For example, an individual might purchase carbon offsets to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions caused by personal air travel. Many companies (see list[3]) offer carbon offsets as an up-sell during the sales process so that customers can mitigate the emissions related with their product or service purchase (such as offsetting emissions related to a vacation flight, car rental, hotel stay, consumer good, etc). In 2008, about $705 million of carbon offsets were purchased in the voluntary market, representing about 123.4 million metric tons of CO2e reductions.[4]
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2. gone galt on November 24th, 2009 at 6:39 pm

   yes, but there’s no chance of that happening.
   any reduction one country makes is more than offset by other country’s increases as you can see here.
   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091117/ap_on_sc/sci_carbon_pollution
   incidentally, the U.S is expected to have a further 5.9% reduction in GHG emissions for 2009 on top of the 3% 2008 U.S. reductions mentioned in the article.
   http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/press328.html
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3. WeatherRusty on November 24th, 2009 at 7:08 pm

   We have no chance of reducing CO2 level to what it was even 160 years ago. It now stands at 387ppmv. Around 1850 the level was 280ppmv. Plant life was doing just fine at 280ppmv I do believe!

   280ppmv is the normal background equilibrium level during the Holocene epoch, you should be asking what effect disturbing that level upward may have on plant life.
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4. Killian on November 24th, 2009 at 7:28 pm

   I understand your idea, but the reduction of CO2 won’t be drastic enough to have a damaging effect.

   Plants rely on CO2 in the environment to photosynthesise. If plants have lived in CO2-rich environment, they will produce less stomata (pores on the surface of the leaf which take in CO2 and put water out). Essentially, if there’s enough CO2 in the environment, the plant will have less stomata because they’ll get enough CO2 without losing as much water in the process (efficiency!).

   If suddenly CO2 levels drop for this plant, it will do poorly as it will not have enough stomata to take in CO2, and only be able to photosynthesise at a reduced rate.

   Except that the change in CO2 levels in the air won’t be drastic enough to make a noticeable difference - partly because the plants will have time to adapt to the new conditions, and partly because there’s little chance the emission reduction schemes we have in place are going to change the CO2 levels enough quickly enough to cause any actual damage.
   References :
   First year botany

5. James E on November 24th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

   This is easy to answer, it would cause massive crop reduction world wide. Co2 is a major part of higher crop yields in the modern world and why the world oceans release co2 from storage as they warm. This is why co2 rise always follows climate change so that as the oceans warm the release co2 to feed the growing numbers of plants that need it to grow and and produce more food and oxygen for population increase promoted by warmer temperatures. The liberal mind has never been able to comprehend how science works and how changes in solar output causes environmental changes on earth. But this is why in the past knowledgeable societies like the Hindu and Celtic ones segregated liberal minds into societies that could not influence society while still providing work and food for these mentally disadvantaged types.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:0Master_Past_20000yrs_temperatures_icecore_Vostok_150dpi.png
   http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/global_warming.html
   http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
   http://reasonmclucus.tripod.com/CO2myth.html
   http://mc-computing.com/qs/Global_Warming/Atmospheric_Analysis.html
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
   Where the heat came from and why it was abnormally cold previously
   http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~dbunny/research/global/215.pdf
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
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6. HAHAHA on November 24th, 2009 at 8:32 pm

   No it wouldn’t: animals and fungi, ect has existed for millions of years. Factories etc have only been around for a few hundred.
   References :

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