Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Man bites dog......



stories are beloved in the press. We also know that the denialists believe that CO2 is life. Well, in some cases life can bite....

Rising levels of carbon dioxide—a so-called greenhouse gas that traps heat within Earth's atmosphere—can fuel booming poison ivy growth, a new study reports.

Even worse, the rash-inducing vines may become more potent.
At ~600 ppm CO2 poison ivy growth is about 150% faster than in today's ambient atmosphere and the active compound undergoes a chemical transformation and becomes more potent.

Which leaves the question of how much worse the ivy itches today because of those global climate change denialists. (snark off)



1 comment:

Hank Roberts said...

"... urushiol—the plant's carbon-based active compound ..."

Well, as long as the stuff hasn't become silicon-based or digital and uploaded onto the Net, there's still hope, eh?