- If you covered the whole planet with forest, you'd still only Archived Message
Posted by David Macilwain
on March 2, 2020, 11:00 am, in reply to "Re: Utter certainties on display again. Is this really open-minded scepticism? Or are we all in the grip"
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reabsorb the CO that was emitted over the last two thousand years as those forests were cut down, leaving all the emissions from burning coal, oil and gas where they are. The only way to cope with rising CO2, other than adaptation, is to cut out all the FF Carbon burning as soon as possible, preferably be simply using less. But many claims are made about forest that are not scientific - most notably that mature forest is somehow a great carbon sink. It isn't, as every stable ecosystem is carbon neutral, with growth balanced by decay. In OZ we have a great fever for "Carbon Farming" and "regenerative agriculture", which is all very good, but has absolutely nothing to do with CO2 emissions. In the last three months, bushfires have burnt the equivalent of one and a half times Australia's annual emissions, and negated 50 years of tree planting and carbon sequestration. Our reduction goals are based largely on offsets because we won't reduce our FF emissions, and most offsets are bogus forestry or agricultural ones. No Greens agree with me! Personally I think it is way too late to prevent the accelerating change and instability in the climate, epitomised by the melting Antarctica and dying barrier reef. there is fifty years of inertia in the system, as well as a load of heat and CO2 stored in teh oceans. And I no longer believe in the Gaia hypothesis...until the Gulf stream stops. But don't worry, because nuclear winter will make it all seem irrelevant! |