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So why are the forests growing faster

Climate patterns are changing. My kids will retire with the cheap old farmland we bought that I’m planting black walnuts on.

Upstate NY was ideal maple syrup production territory for years. Now, we’ve changed from USDA Zone 5 to 6, so the region will be more like western Virginia in 20 years.

The TLDR is that they aren't. Global warming made some areas more hospitable to forests (warmer, more precipitation) and increased drought resistance counteracts some of the increased aridity in other ares: https://e360.yale.edu/features/greening-drylands-carbon-diox...

The atmosphere has so far barely changed in temperature compared to natural variations in temperature over time that had smaller and lesser effects than the effect we are seeing.

The abnormally rapid rise in CO2 levels we are seeing is unusual and accords better with the unusualness of rapid global greening. It isn't climate change that is causing it. It is CO2, directly.

If you look at the absorption spectrum of CO2 and historical data, I think it would be more correct to say, that CO2 has caused a noticeable increase in temperature in the past, but now absorption has reached a saturation level. The last 100 years temperature effects might have been dominant, but in the future direct effects of CO2 are absolutely going to dominate.

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