More CO2 is Good for Aspen

[JimTwoSticks]

Okra,
Do you really farm Okra?

I agree, it appears that this has progressed beyond aspen's response to CO2 concentration.

A really good friend of mine is a young earth creationist and we never got anywhere in our discussions either. But I can guarantee he has sent me many of the websites you have in mind in addition to nearly a bookshelf FULL of books describing the fundamentalist christian worldview  :P. I've read a great deal about it but the main contention I have with folks who follow this line of thinking is that scientific advancement is constantly occurring and you need to adjust how you feel about certain topics when the evidence presented shows that you may be incorrect.
The same thing happened when folks like Galileo suggested that the earth was not the center of the universe and in fact moved around the sun...not the other way around  . The church at that time went absolutely Ape S%$T. Turns out the guy was right and the church was wrong. This is just one of many examples.

I think the main point that needs to be made is that science and religion need not be at odds. I know many christian, jewish, hindu, muslim (you name it) scientists who view learning about our planet as exploring the place that god created. While I do not practice a particular religion and disagree with them I can appreciate their view that an all knowing, all powerful being could have easily created a system like the natural world with it's many complexities and interactions....including macroevolution and an incredibly old earth (4.6 billion years).
Note: I have yet to see any evidence for a young (approximately 6-7,000 yrs old) earth that passes the smell test.

[Okrafarmer]

"The same thing happened when folks like Galileo suggested that the earth was not the center of the universe and in fact moved around the sun...not the other way around  Shocked  . The church at that time went absolutely Ape S%$T. Turns out the guy was right and the church was wrong. This is just one of many examples."

Just to clarify-- the church was wrong, but the Bible was not. Yes, the Bible uses terms like "the sun rises in the east" but that is the same idiom we use today-- the people writing the Bible had a better idea of the universe than the "church" people of Galileo's day. The Bible does not teach an earth-centered universe, nor a sun-centered universe. We "Christians" are not all of the same mind, as you are no doubt aware, and my people would have had nothing in common with those who persecuted Galileo and his fellows. Galileo also would have called himself a Christian, but he had a bright, open, inquisitive, truth-seeking mind. The thought that life could have evolved would have been unthinkable to him. He was willing to face torture for his beliefs, and so are many people I know today. (not as many as I wish, though).

Anyway, I've produced a lot of hot CO2 discussing this topic, but I'm in good company if people don't take me seriously-- I understand old Noah had that problem too.  ;)

To try to give this thread back to its original intentions, I invite anybody who would seriously like to know more of my thoughts on this subject to pm me and I will be happy to discuss it with you in private, but I will now close this tangent issue from this thread, at least as far as my own postings, though if anybody has any parting shots, feel free to let them fly. Or we could start a new thread about "I wonder what kind of sawmill Noah used to build the ark. . . ."

[JimTwoSticks]

The "do you really farm okra?" question was something I was really curious about. It's a pretty cool plant (with a loooong history  ;) of cultivation)...and it tastes pretty good in gumbo.

Found an interesting article about temp and CO2 concentration rise that may not be good for all tree species in all areas. Pretty interesting but puts some of the interactions between the variables into perspective. (it's attached - it would have been anyway...but it's too large - over 600kb -  here is the link http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011543


Well, I'll take my last parting shot on the issue unrelated to the post topic.
Okra, you can't rewrite the history books. What the church believed was not considered out of touch. It was the consensus of the time that the earth was the center of the universe. Nobody before copernicus (i think that's who first suggested it) suggested that the earth may not be the center of the universe. Also, when the bible was written the earth was still flat....and no, the writers did not know that it was a sphere. 

[SwampDonkey]

I much prefer buckwheat in my pancakes. :D

[Okrafarmer]

The "do you really farm okra?" question was something I was really curious about. It's a pretty cool plant (with a loooong history  ;) of cultivation)...and it tastes pretty good in gumbo.

I do really raise it and sell it if that constitutes farming. I do like to make gumbo with it. It is pretty neat stuff.

[JimTwoSticks]

Sounds more like farming than some of the giant corporate farm operations that are nearly completely run by machine

[Okrafarmer]

Sounds more like farming than some of the giant corporate farm operations that are nearly completely run by machine

Yep. You hit the hammer on the head.  : You said it very proficiently.