At https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/07/01/co2-sustains-greenhouse-farming-revolution/ … a spot of anti alarmism realism. The magic ingredient for the success of modern greenhouse farming is not simply heat applied to fool the plants its summer when it is still a long way off, but what the farmers add to their plastic greenhouses – co2. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell Joe Bloggs how to get the extra co2 so they can enjoy the same benefits for their tomatoes and cucumbers.
We all know alarmists like to harry Joe Public by telling them the world will be a safer place if emissions of co2 were curtailed. Literally, shutting down c02. This is what our teachers in the West drill into their pupils – and the BBC and media in general blockades us with similar such stories every day. So much slush money is out there from the renewables lobby that it is difficult for anyone to sort the wheat from the chaff. We know the media were in crisis as younger generations, and the newcomers, did not read the legacy media. Yet, they are still soldiering on – even after plummeting sales. Again, the BBC is shedding licence payers by the hundreds of thousands – and the newcomers also do not put their hands in their pockets. One can put 2 and 2 together and come to 5. We still can’t pin it on them and probably never will do. However, we do know that scientists focussed on plant physiology, and biologists in general, view co2 as a gift – a vital ingredient of life on earth. It has contributed to a quiet but important revolution in agriculture. Growing crops under cover in plastic tunnels. Drones have even been invented to aid polination in them. Artificial lighting in early spring enables plants to grow out of season – and adding heat in cold spells has obvious benefits. However, it is the addition of co2 to greenhouse farming that has transformed how farmers grow some crops. Not all crops of course as fields of wheat cannot be transferred to plastic tunnels, or root crops for that matter – in general circumstances. The latter are usually farmed where a suitable soil is located – and brassicas in general do not transfer too well to plastic. However, when it comes to salad crops, tomatoes, strawberries, and a variety of vegetables and fruit, plastic grow houses are a perfect step up. These are plants that prefer a warmer clime – and plastic shields them from cold winds and frosts. Plastic is especially suitable for tomatoes and cucumbers – and strawberries. The latter can be grown at waist level with a self watering system and an easy picking range when the fruit ripens. In the UK we now have strawberries grown in plastic from spring to the end of autumn – and in the winter fresh strawberries arrive from warmer climes, or the southern hemisphere. Politicians appear to be catching on to the idea farmers don’t necessarily need lots of fields and if meat is discouraged even less land. Milk cows can live their whole lives under cover – as well as pigs and chickens. In my neck of the woods local farmers joined a huge co-operative, based in Demark, and transferred their cows from fields to a huge barn like structure. The local council are now building huge housing estates on land used for milk cows for hundreds of years. It was standing vacant – and a vacuum waiting to be filled.
However, this is not a peculiarity of the UK – or Europe. Many of us have seen aerial photographs of Almeria in Spain, a very dry region. It is covered in plastic greenhouses as far as the eye can see. A remarkable transformation. The Netherlands were pioneers of indoor farming, one of the most prolific vegetable producers in the world. And such a small country. Denmark has transformed animal husbandry in a similar manner. The post at Watts Up With That provides us with a view of the plastic revolution from an American point of view, and a worldwide look at how it has spread. At the same time co2 has been demonised by the great and the not so good. Politicians love it – yet are now turning their attention to all that lovely farming land that they think is going to fall fallow. Untouched. We can impress the lower classes with our expansion of wild nature – and who needs sheep on upland areas. This can be transferred to posh recreation and hobbies – or planted with co2 harbouring tree plantations.
From the Negev Desert in modern Israel to the Rift Valley in Kenya, farmers have found co2 produces bumper crops. It may be strawberries and tomatoes in the UK but large ares of poor ground in Spain are covered in plastic greenhouse tunnels producing masses of fruit and vegetables for supermarkets. It is similar in Morocco and almost everywhere in the world interested in supplying a global market. Cash for crops is a bonanza. Field grown lettuces seem to be rare in the modern world. Its micro greens and micro salad leaves. Grown under plastic. India’s greenhouse horticultural sector is growing – and their population numbers are skyrocketing. In North Caroline there is currently 8 million square feet of plastic greenhouses – providing food for an expanding population in North America. China, it seems, has 60 per cent of the world’s plastic greenhouses. They have a lot of mouths to feed and historically they have suffered from famines and shortages. Where did all the labour come from to run their factories and other industrialised projects. From the land. Plastic growing houses and co2 are all part of the Chinese miracle of growth. They even supply an off season supply of rice. In the Xinjiang Desert farmers grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons in plastic with levels of co2 at 1200 ppm. Meanwhile, the alarmists are getting themselves excited over a bit more than 400 ppm in the atmosphere. Basically, what this post is telling us is that in plastic greenhouses crops are bountiful with 3 times the amount of co2 than exists in the natural world – and we are supposed to be frightened of it increasing. If co2 is so awful why are farmers allowed to pump it into plastic grow houses? The reason lies in biology. Not in ideology.