February 14, 2019
To Fix Global Warming Cut Down those Damned Trees!
Timothy Birdnow
James Pinkerton, a fairly bright guy and one of the editors at the American Conservative, penned a reasonably lucid piece on the stupidity of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Soylent Green New Deal. But in the latter part of Pinkerton calls for planting trees to solve the "problem".
From the American Conservative article:
I can understand Pinkerton's reasoning but cannot concur.
Let me offer exhibit A.
From an article in Livescience by Jamie Workman, writer for the Environmental Defense Fund,"
The result?
End excerpt.
So, the trees suck up water, block sunlight for other plants, and create a fire hazzard.
It should also be pointed out, as Ronald Reagan famously did (and was mocked for it), trees produce ozone, an air pollutant. In fact, Reagan was right to point out that trees are a primary source of air pollution in the United States. Even the New York Times concurs.
Workmans solution is the old fashioned chainsaw; cut down the little crap and haul away the waste products. In other words the exact opposite of what Pinkerton suggests.
Now, I'm not prone to buy into ideas proposed by environmentalists, but I believe Workman is right and in fact the huge fires we have witnessed out West are not evidence of Global Warming but of the very problem of over growth of trees. We have too many, not too few.
It also should be pointed out that the oceans are the world's primary carbon sink/oxygen producer and forest land is not in the same ballpark. Planting trees is a rather unhelpful effort.
But it's great for making baseball bats, boards, and asundry wonderful things we need and want. But in the end wood turns back into carbon dioxide.
In the end, this is a solution looking for a problem. The Earth is in a low-carbon-dioxide era, one of the lowest in geological history. In fact, there was five times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 250 million years ago than today, and life did just fine. Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, creatures much bigger and more active than anything currently alive.
And carbon dioxide reaches a wavelength saturation, meaning you only get about a two degree rise in temperatures before the whole thing craps out. Now, the alarmists and their computer models - the only evidence that they have - suggests this will lead to more water evaporating, leading to more CO2 to more water, a runaway greenhouse effect. But this ignores that increased water vapor in the atmosphere creates more clouds, thus blocking more sunlight. A cursory look at Mars suggest this is the case; Mars warms up, the air pressure rises, then wind increases, kicking up dust, blocking sunlight, and reducing planetary temperatures. In the end the planet returns to a static state.
Earth is a different place, certainly, but there is every reason to think there are negative feedbacks rather than all positive. History is on our side.
And so is the actual science; there has been no planetary warming since the late '90's, we are NOT seeing an overall loss in ice, neither in the Arctic nor Antarctic. There is no tropical tropospheric hot spot. Scientists STILL can't find the "missing heat".
In other words, we do not have a problem, but we have hysterical calls for desperate measures. And those measures will hurt the poor the most and do irreparable damage to the world economy.
Maybe if the Climate Change people would quit flying around the world to hold meetings and hump hookers we would have less greenhouse gas in the atmosphere? Just asking...
James Pinkerton, a fairly bright guy and one of the editors at the American Conservative, penned a reasonably lucid piece on the stupidity of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Soylent Green New Deal. But in the latter part of Pinkerton calls for planting trees to solve the "problem".
From the American Conservative article:
Yet even if most people would like to forget the AOC Green New Deal, there is one part that’s worth remembering, even resuscitating. In the document’s FAQ, the subject of planting trees as a partial solution to climate change comes up repeatedly: we are urged to "plant lots of trees.â€
Trees are, in fact, valuable in the fight against climate change because they provide a "carbon sinkâ€: that is, through photosynthesis, they pull carbon out of the atmosphere. A living tree is about 15 to 18 percent carbon, and according to Scientific American, there are some three trillion trees in the world.
In fact, every living thing, flora or fauna, also contains carbon—and so that’s a lot of sunk carbon in the planetary biota. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that all the life forms on earth hold about 550 gigatons of carbon (a gigaton is a billion metric tons).
For purposes of comparison, humans have released somewhere north of 1,500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere over the last century and a half. In other words, the total of organically captured carbon is about a third of what’s in the atmosphere. And so we can readily see: if more carbon could be captured organically, that would have a major impact on the carbon load in the atmosphere.
Trees are, in fact, valuable in the fight against climate change because they provide a "carbon sinkâ€: that is, through photosynthesis, they pull carbon out of the atmosphere. A living tree is about 15 to 18 percent carbon, and according to Scientific American, there are some three trillion trees in the world.
In fact, every living thing, flora or fauna, also contains carbon—and so that’s a lot of sunk carbon in the planetary biota. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that all the life forms on earth hold about 550 gigatons of carbon (a gigaton is a billion metric tons).
For purposes of comparison, humans have released somewhere north of 1,500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere over the last century and a half. In other words, the total of organically captured carbon is about a third of what’s in the atmosphere. And so we can readily see: if more carbon could be captured organically, that would have a major impact on the carbon load in the atmosphere.
I can understand Pinkerton's reasoning but cannot concur.
Let me offer exhibit A.
From an article in Livescience by Jamie Workman, writer for the Environmental Defense Fund,"
Today, our Western forests — from the Rockies to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada — are loaded with several billion excess trees. This is the unintended consequence of a longstanding federal policy, symbolized by Smokey Bear, to stamp out forest fires.
That policy has radically altered our forest landscapes, where fires set by lightning or Native Americans had always limited forest stocks to roughly a few dozen trees per acre. All that changed in 1910, when a series of huge wildfires led the federal government to declare war on wildfires through a program that now costs more than $2 billion a year.
The result: roughly 112 to 172 more trees per acre in mountain forests of the West. This process of unnatural afforestation (the establishment of trees or tree stands where none previously were) may sound green and benevolent, but the reality is quite different.
That policy has radically altered our forest landscapes, where fires set by lightning or Native Americans had always limited forest stocks to roughly a few dozen trees per acre. All that changed in 1910, when a series of huge wildfires led the federal government to declare war on wildfires through a program that now costs more than $2 billion a year.
The result: roughly 112 to 172 more trees per acre in mountain forests of the West. This process of unnatural afforestation (the establishment of trees or tree stands where none previously were) may sound green and benevolent, but the reality is quite different.
The result?
The new trees' canopies collectively intercept 20 to 30 percent of snow and rain that can no longer seep into the ground, and each additional tree's roots suck 18 gallons of moisture up out of the ground before runoff can feed thirsty creeks.
That adds up. Helen Poulos, a fire ecologist at Wesleyan University, and I have estimated, conservatively, that excess trees in the 7.5 million acres of Sierra Nevada conifer forest are responsible for the loss of more than 15 billion gallons per day, or 17 million acre-feet of water per year. That's more than enough water to meet the needs of every Californian for a year.
Metastasizing native tree growth also physically alters the temperature, chemistry and biology of the landscape. It crowds out indigenous plant and animal species. Shade tolerant species take over. Deprived of low-intensity, naturally occurring fires, aspen, lupine, sequoia and fireweed can't reproduce. Deer lose edge habitat. Threatened owls and raptors can't navigate through increasingly dense thickets.
And, when the inevitable forest fires rage through over-forested lands, they burn hotter and faster, and are deadlier and costlier than other fires, thanks to all that extra fuel. They also spew huge amounts of carbon and asthma-inducing particulate matter into the air — a big fire is like setting a coal-fired power plant in the middle of a forest.
That adds up. Helen Poulos, a fire ecologist at Wesleyan University, and I have estimated, conservatively, that excess trees in the 7.5 million acres of Sierra Nevada conifer forest are responsible for the loss of more than 15 billion gallons per day, or 17 million acre-feet of water per year. That's more than enough water to meet the needs of every Californian for a year.
Metastasizing native tree growth also physically alters the temperature, chemistry and biology of the landscape. It crowds out indigenous plant and animal species. Shade tolerant species take over. Deprived of low-intensity, naturally occurring fires, aspen, lupine, sequoia and fireweed can't reproduce. Deer lose edge habitat. Threatened owls and raptors can't navigate through increasingly dense thickets.
And, when the inevitable forest fires rage through over-forested lands, they burn hotter and faster, and are deadlier and costlier than other fires, thanks to all that extra fuel. They also spew huge amounts of carbon and asthma-inducing particulate matter into the air — a big fire is like setting a coal-fired power plant in the middle of a forest.
End excerpt.
So, the trees suck up water, block sunlight for other plants, and create a fire hazzard.
It should also be pointed out, as Ronald Reagan famously did (and was mocked for it), trees produce ozone, an air pollutant. In fact, Reagan was right to point out that trees are a primary source of air pollution in the United States. Even the New York Times concurs.
Workmans solution is the old fashioned chainsaw; cut down the little crap and haul away the waste products. In other words the exact opposite of what Pinkerton suggests.
Now, I'm not prone to buy into ideas proposed by environmentalists, but I believe Workman is right and in fact the huge fires we have witnessed out West are not evidence of Global Warming but of the very problem of over growth of trees. We have too many, not too few.
It also should be pointed out that the oceans are the world's primary carbon sink/oxygen producer and forest land is not in the same ballpark. Planting trees is a rather unhelpful effort.
But it's great for making baseball bats, boards, and asundry wonderful things we need and want. But in the end wood turns back into carbon dioxide.
In the end, this is a solution looking for a problem. The Earth is in a low-carbon-dioxide era, one of the lowest in geological history. In fact, there was five times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 250 million years ago than today, and life did just fine. Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, creatures much bigger and more active than anything currently alive.
And carbon dioxide reaches a wavelength saturation, meaning you only get about a two degree rise in temperatures before the whole thing craps out. Now, the alarmists and their computer models - the only evidence that they have - suggests this will lead to more water evaporating, leading to more CO2 to more water, a runaway greenhouse effect. But this ignores that increased water vapor in the atmosphere creates more clouds, thus blocking more sunlight. A cursory look at Mars suggest this is the case; Mars warms up, the air pressure rises, then wind increases, kicking up dust, blocking sunlight, and reducing planetary temperatures. In the end the planet returns to a static state.
Earth is a different place, certainly, but there is every reason to think there are negative feedbacks rather than all positive. History is on our side.
And so is the actual science; there has been no planetary warming since the late '90's, we are NOT seeing an overall loss in ice, neither in the Arctic nor Antarctic. There is no tropical tropospheric hot spot. Scientists STILL can't find the "missing heat".
In other words, we do not have a problem, but we have hysterical calls for desperate measures. And those measures will hurt the poor the most and do irreparable damage to the world economy.
Maybe if the Climate Change people would quit flying around the world to hold meetings and hump hookers we would have less greenhouse gas in the atmosphere? Just asking...
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:36 PM
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