"Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds” | NASA

"From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown
significant greening over the last 35 years”. NASA

I didn’t catch this when it came out in 2016, but I did in 2019 and then again just recently. 

I’m guessing -- just guessin’ mind -- that this information, from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wasn’t widely disseminated then and hasn’t made it into the public mind, then or now, because it goes against the narrative that the world is melting, that it’s due to CO2 emissions and we have to get to Net Zero CO2 and that anything that goes against that must be suppressed. Just guessing. 

The idea that CO2 has increased green cover by the equivalent of two times the United States (!), in turn consuming CO2, would muddy the waters, as it were. 

Especially since one of the Very Important Things we’re supposed to do when we take a flight, is to mitigate our CO2 emissions by buying “carbon offsets”, paying companies to plant trees for us -- rather like Catholic indulgences, wiping out your sins. A transatlantic flight, and you to pay for five trees to be planted. But... but, meantime Mother Nature is creating greenery at the rate of an area twice the United States every 35 years or > 1,500 km² per day. Of new greenery. That’s an area roughly 40 km x 40 km. One can imagine it.  Every day. 

/Snip:

From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.

And now Jimmy Dore finds out. He and fellow comedian Kurt Metzger are amused and amusing about it.