Climate hustlers amaze me. It seems now that every one who can climb aboard the climate gravy train is eager to do so, and will warp research and findings to fit that agenda.

Researchers from Stanford and the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology conducted the experiment in about two fenced-off acres of the 1,189-acre Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. The experiment was designed to simulate environmental conditions within the range that climate experts predict may exist 100 years from now--a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide; a temperature rise of 2 degrees Fahrenheit; a 50 percent increase in precipitation; and increased nitrogen deposition--as a likely byproduct of fossil-fuel burning.

Scientists applied each of the four experimental treatments--elevated carbon dioxide, warming, increased precipitation and nitrogen deposition--to intact grassland plots both singly and in all possible combinations. The experiment included control plots that did not receive any treatments. Each of 16 possible scenarios was replicated eight times to allow the researchers to tease apart the separate influences of factors and test the statistical significance of their results. Data reported in this study were obtained from 1999 through 2003.

"Under today's conditions, grasses flower early in the growing season and wildflowers flower later, but when we increased the concentration of carbon dioxide to simulate future conditions, the two groups flowered at the same time," Cleland said.

In recent decades, scientists have observed accelerated springtime developmental activity in many plant and animal species and have assumed it was a response to global warming. In the experiment, researchers found that warming accelerated springtime flowering of all species. But they were surprised to find differing responses to elevated carbon dioxide and nitrogen deposition: Wildflowers responded to these changes by flowering earlier, while the grasses flowered later. This caused the two groups to overlap in their seasonality, where under current conditions they flower at separate times.

Consequences could be significant, points out co-author Loarie: "If plant species overlap more in the future because their timing is altered by global changes, it could lead to decreases in local plant diversity and negatively impact animals that depend on those plants."

There's so much wrong with this study that I won't bother to debunk all of it, just the highlights.

First, it's a broken study if it is fenced. This is the lesson learned already by many previous researchers who used exclusion zones only to discover that this alone broke the ecosystem. All findings under such conditions are meaningless.

The assumptions - double CO2, 2 degrees F increase, half again as much rain, and increased nitrogen - are questionable. Each assumption is a SWAG and together the probabilities are tiny. Each is as likely to be low as high, we just don't know. The future is tough to predict.

The findings, that flowering times of grasses and forbs change, are already well known. Every grazier knows this stuff backwards and forwards from just normal yearly variation. Farmers track "degree days", the total accumulation of heat in a year, as well as photo period, day length, to anticipate flowering and seed set. There's no new knowledge here.

The consequences they cite are selected for maximum climate change funding. Diversity can increase as well as decrease. When a niche is vacated another species has an opportunity. The impact on animals could be highly positive. There is no rational reason to focus on FUD, it's just a hustle for bucks.

I'm beginning to develop a strong dislike for those who call themselves ecologists and environmental biologists. They're really just politicians in drag.