More bad news in global warming

Alert! Not only will global warming reportedly melt the ice caps, usher in floods, fires, drought and famine, cause widespread extinctions and enable mosquitos to expand their range, it may also make us sneeze more. This according to a backgrounder e-mail we just received from the environmental advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists.

The group, in its warning, cites several experiments conducted in recent years: One suggests that increased carbon dioxide leads to higher rates of pollen production in loblolly pines; others that more carbon dioxide and higher temperatures cause ragweed to germinate earlier, flower more exuberantly and make more pollen.  (On the plus side, we learn elsewhere that more ragweed could be good for quail conservation. There's never a cloud without some silver lining.)

That's it. Now we're really steamed.

--Rosie Mestel

Photo: Clairity (from Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Comments

[JR]

Are you sure that's ragweed in your picture? Looks an awful lot like goldenrod which is often unfairly confused with, and consequently blamed for allergies caused by, ragweed.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldenrod

[Terrie Beaucham[p]

That photo looks a whole lot like Goldenrod to me. NOT ragweed - ragweed has more greenish colors to it and is short

Terrie

[Bill Hanlon]

As others have correctly pointed out, that is not ragweed pictured -- it's goldenrod, and is NOT to blame for hayfever-related allergies.

Ragweed is green and doesn't have showy yellow flowers.

We should not be spreading misinformation that encourages people to pull out the beautiful and harmless goldenrod.