Time Mag Warns 'Climate Change Lengthens Allergy Season,' Ignores Benefit of Longer Growing Season

Climate alarmists always want to point out the downside of a warming planet while never informing the public of the benefits.

Take for example Time magazine's Tuesday piece bemoaning global warming's impact on allergy sufferers but never once mentioning that a longer growing season for the dastardly pollinating plants means a commensurate rise in the growing season of things we eat:

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows a link between warming temperatures and a longer ragweed pollen season. According to researchers led by Lewis Ziska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the ragweed season is now 27 days longer in the northernmost areas of North America, largely because winters starts later and ends earlier, extending the time for pollen-bearing plants to thrive. [...]

The PNAS researchers examined ragweed and daily temperature data from Canada and the U.S. at 10 different latitudes. In eight of those areas—and in all seven spots north of 40 degrees latitude, around Philadelphia—the ragweed season increased between 1995 and 2009.

To be sure, this is not at all surprising even to climate realists. After all, no one is arguing that global temperatures haven't risen since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850. At issue are the amount of the increase and the causes.

Also not being debated is that with such increases in temperature, growing seasons around the world are going to lengthen, including for plants that people are unfortunately allergic to.

The Nature Center in the Netherlands reported earlier this month that the growing season there has increased by about 26 days in the past ten years. Throughout Europe the growing season has also expanded.

NASA's lengthy report on global warming states, "The growing season in parts of the Northern Hemisphere became two weeks longer in the second half of the 20th century. Spring is coming earlier in both hemispheres."

With commodity prices on the rise all across the world, aren't longer growing seasons a good thing? Mightn't Canadians, Chinese and Russians be better able to feed their populations with longer springs and summers?

Regardless of the cause of the roughly one degree Celsius rise in global temperatures since 1850, there are indeed benefits to a warming planet that climate alarmists in the media choose to always ignore as they prophecize the end being nigh.

Ironically, the best example is that far more people die each year in winter than in summer.

So cheer up, allergy sufferers. As long as the pollen doesn't kill you, you'd much rather be sneezing than freezing.