Fail: Climate Change Garden Withers Due To Incompetence

This is what happens when you let your feelings get in the way of science

(Syracuse.com)  Three years ago, Syracuse University announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind “climate change garden” to study the effects of climate change on plants.

But today, the garden of 100 trees and shrubs in front of SU’s $114 million life sciences building is being ripped up and replaced because many of the trees were simply too big and are already dying.

“The specifications we used were those of a landscape architect who wanted the garden to look nice right off the bat,” said Doug Frank, one of two SU professors running the project. “The trees were too big and root masses too small, so we weren’t able to really get them to a stage where we felt they were healthy and we could use them.”

Here’s what they were thinking in terms of plants being doomed from small increases in CO2 (otherwise known as “plant food”) and warmth (because plants do awesome when it’s cold) from the “announced” link

“My hypothesis would be that the local species would not do as well over time,” Frank said. “You would see their growth rates decline, and the species native to warmer climates would see increased growth rates. I think of our garden as a harbinger of what Central New York forests will look like in the future.”

Now back to the new article

“It was a kind of comedy of errors,” said SU biology professor Jason Fridley, who works with Frank on the garden.

The whole “science” of anthropogenic climate change in a nutshell.