photo credit: woodleywonderworks

There is an interesting article in the Feb/Mar 2007 issue of National Wildlife Magazine (www.nwf.org) that caught my attention. The article is titled: “Global Warming: Coming To Your Backyard?”

The article describes how global warming will probably cause certain plants such as poison ivy and ragweed to prosper because of the increased amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. It also suggests that this will result in increased hay fever allergies for humans, as well as an increase in the population of some insect pests such as mosquitoes and ticks.

Anyway, one part of the article in particular made me do a double-take. Apparently, biologists from Duke University recently conducted a study that resulted in these claims. The article describes the experiment where they:

“…used pipes to pump carbon dioxide into circular areas of forest, each about 100 feet in diameter. The biologists raised the CO2 in the air to the level anticipated for our atmosphere by 2050 if CO2 emissions continue unchanged –about 585 parts per million.”

The article goes on to say:

“After five years of experimenting…”

Now, this may be an example of poor editing, but I got the impression that the experiment with CO2 took five years. I’m no scientist, but I believe that they would have to pump a very large amount of CO2 into those 100 foot areas of forest in order to make any conclusions. Just exactly how much CO2 does it take to cover at least two (implied by the plural “circular areas”) 100 foot areas for five years? Isn’t the whole idea to DECREASE the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere? I’m so confused!