Random but funny

Programme here.

I'm a big fan of the BBC's Countryfile programme. Apart from Newsnight, Questiontime and some sport it's just about all I watch on the BBC these days.

Pink Floyd's 'I got 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from' was woefully optimistic way back when. At least on the BBC one only has 4 channels of shit to choose from. I usually choose the 'off' button.

I'm a big fan because I am a 'crunchy bumpkin', love nature and wildlife, live in a rural community, have farmers for friends - I'm of the soil one might say and whilst some of the stuff they broadcast is risible, it's the only stuff on offer in many ways. They tend to be reasonably fair (it's the BBC so one has to make allowances of course) to the rural way of life, they even try to be even handed on the issues of huntin' shootin' and fishing although it obviously goes against the grain for the BBC.

But whilst last Sunday's programme on 'woodland' was excellent (I live next to ancient woodland in Rockingham Forest - a Mecca for Doormice, presumably Muslim Doormice but they haven't shown their hand yet) (that was almost a joke by the way); they had this bit (start at 45 minutes in) wherein they had various professors conducting a long-term experiment about CO2 and its effect on trees.

The learnéd professor from Birmingham University opined that the purpose of the experiment was to find out how trees will react to slightly higher levels of CO2 than are currently extant. He stated that it was about how woods respond to climate change. Fair enough, whether one believes that climate change is an issue (which it is because it has been happening forever and will go on happening forever) or whether one feels that it is just a natural phenomenon and one that we have no hope of being able to control (which is the reality).

Anyway your man said the experiment was to find out how trees will respond to known levels of CO2 in 50 or 100 year's time. 'So we can see how the woodland responds to the atmospheric conditions that we know will be around us all'. Again, fair enough. But then he said:

'The big question is where does this extra carbon dioxide go? We know that plants, woodland and trees are pulling down some of that carbon and helping us avoid some of the worst excesses of climate change, but we're not sure whether that will continue into the future.'

So trees might start eating insects or beef or lentils? Instead of CO2 which is the fundamental building block of plant life on the planet? His name is Rob Mackenzie, I'm sure he's a lovely man who derives his tax-payer funding for this experiment quite legitimately.

I can save you decades of worry Rob. The trees will flourish from having more CO2 to 'eat'. They will be more healthy, they will be greener. They will actually 'fix' more carbon from the atmosphere because it is available to them. Just as is happening across Asia where there has been a measurable 'greening' as CO2 levels have increased - at the same time as global warming has stalled. For nearly 19 years now. It's because the planet achieves equilibrium over time. More CO2 equals more plants and then less CO2 as a result. Over time this means that the planet's eco-system works and we are here to tell the tale.

We're paying an eminent scientist and his team to find out whether trees consume CO2? I kinda 'did' this at 'O' level when the Tudor dynasty was contemporary history.