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ECO-CONSCIOUS ARE ECO-HARMERS
The Guardian warns again of the environmental threat posed by trees:
Neutralising your carbon emissions is becoming the must-do activity for the eco-conscious citizen. But now an international team of scientists has raised an unexpected objection: some tree-planting projects may, they suggest, be doing more harm than good.
Ronald Reagan was way ahead of the curve on this. Via Ripclawe, who has further views on these earth-baking parasites. Audioblogger David Krueger presents additional insights.
UPDATE. Antony Loewenstein protects himself from global warming. Which is caused by trees.
You mean scientists have written computer models for trees? The mind boggles.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 23 at 02:44 AM • permalinkWhen I wrote, in an article in the local newspaper, that the vast number of vineyards in my area presented the same evapo-trans-spiration problem as mentioned in the linked-to article, by sucking millions of gallons of water out of the Russian River aquifer only to have that water evaporate out through the leaves of the grapes, especially on hot summer days, you’d have thought I shot someone’s horse. The rich winery owners - most of whom are also avid members of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and are constantly having fund-raisers for the latest eco-craze (where they all get shit-faced on each other’s high-priced merlots while getting real serious about the terrible dying Amazon rainforest, blah blah blah) - wanted me strung up from the nearest
treeboulder.They are very big on you and me doing something for the environment, but as for themselves, they will send a check - impressive to us maybe but little to them - yet if it means cutting back on the incessant discing and planting, now gone up the oak-forested hillsides, and irrigating of their huge wine crop every year, they draw the line. One man’s environmental consciousness is another man’s pocketbook issue, I guess. Oh, yes, they are overwhelmingly Democrats.
Doing good is a tricky thing.
If it’s done publicly, it turns to evil very fast (Hannah Arendt).
The hiding the light under the bushel thing wasn’t an injunction to modesty, but a remark on what actual doing good looks like.
Chiefly it’s discovered only retrospectively, involves hard work and deep knowledge, and might not help at all, as far as you can tell at the time.
My own favorite doing-good is a grocery chain letting you buy food at retail that they collect and donate to the needy. Marketing genius
Sounds like you broke someone’s bubble, ekw, and violated their dreamworld. Excellent job! Keep up the good work!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 23 at 10:27 AM • permalinkWell I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to come down against wine production. I mean, if we have no California wine, we might have to go back to drinking (shudder) French wine. (Australia can’t make up all the difference.) And evaporated water does go somewhere, it just doesn’t vanish from the universe.
Also, I like trees, because they block out the evil, horrible sun. (Living in Florida makes you really conscious of the sun’s true nature, which is that of a demonic nuclear beast that hates you and wants to burn your skin and boil your blood.)
Still, pricking the bubble of environmental smugness that surrounds anyone is a good thing.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 23 at 10:57 AM • permalinkYou mean scientists have written computer models for trees? The mind boggles.
The Real JeffS—Not very good ones. The trees are too fast for ‘em…
Never mind too smart.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 23 at 11:17 AM • permalinkHey, Tim! Love the blog ad. Nothing like getting PETA to pay for your bandwidth, eh?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 23 at 12:04 PM • permalinkBumper Sticker:
Save the Earth!
Don’t Hug A Tree!
Choke it!Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 23 at 04:05 PM • permalinkAs much as I’d like to believe that my rainforest timber diining table is saving the planet (or at least be able to claim that to eco-aware friends), i wonder how much faith we can have in results like this. As Andrea points out, the water doesn’t disappear, it evaporates into the air which, unless there is some reason for the air increasing its capacity to retain mosture, would return as rain.
Still, nice to have something else to put greenies on the defensive at dinner parties.
The article I wrote was more about this: the enviros were attacking the gravel mining in the river. They talked about how much damage the mining was doing. I researched this subject exhaustively and wrote an article wherein I said that the vineyards were easily as damaging if not more so than the gravel mining (the gravel from the Russian River is considered the best in the state for making aggregate which is used in the building and repairing of roads and bridges. It is an essential product for use in maintaining infrastructure. For instance the Golden Gate Bridge footings were made from Russian River aggregate, and as they are constantly worn away by strong ocean currents, they need continual maintenance to keep them safe).
The mining has become really nothing more than bar skimming these days, not digging. The gravel bars that build up in a river cause the river to erode the banks more and more taking land and crop away with it. So the skimming was a good thing, and it was promoted by a number of farmers and vineyard owners as well. My point was that the aquifer was being depleted by the grapes, and I meant to gore the rich and hypocritical environmentalists who attack one thing but protect another - equally harmful - practice because it enriches them (for instance: a number of wealthy landowners are environmental activists. Many of them have large, second-growth redwood trees on their properties. They take full advantage of the law by harvesting these redwoods and selling them at inflated market prices, prices inflated because of their lobbying against the cutting of redwoods). Believe me, no harm was done to the wine growers in Sonoma County. They are flourishing. The mining companies were allowed a ten-year extension of their permit to bar-skim the river.
The mining companies were allowed a ten-year extension of their permit to bar-skim the river.
Interestingly enough, ekw, I know of other parts of the country trying to do the same thing. Got a link to that article?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 23 at 07:27 PM • permalinkWhile the water does return as rain, Francis, it doesn’t necessarily return to the place from whence it was taken. It evaporates, is taken up as vapor, strikes the cold air, condenses, forms clouds and returns as precipitation. But where this happens greatly depends upon air currents in the upper atmosphere.
The aquifer needs to maintain a certain level or it begins to dry up and this lowers the level of the river. With so many crops near the river drawing water from the aquifer, there is inevitably a drawdown of water from the aquifer, and this drawdown greatly affects riverine systems and impinges on an already threatened biologically diverse ecosystem. The thrust of my article was not so much to attack growers but to point out that the gravel miners they were attacking not only provided much needed aggregate for highway and bridge maintenance and repair, etc. - they all depend upon the highway system but seem to conveniently forget that when they need to - but their own crops were not without some direct effect on the land.
(they didn’t like the way the skimming machinery - about three or four cranes visible from their viewing porches - hurt the views from their wineries which draw many tourists who expect to see a kind of pristine, almost Disneylandish, picture-perfect postcard area - which in many ways it is. This is what they didn’t like so they tried to build a case against mining from an environmental perpective in order to get rid of the cranes. In other words destroy an important industry -which employs several hundred men and women - to improve their views)
It’s the Joos’ fault. Ever since they returned to the Holy Land they’ve been planting trees to reforest the land. Millions of trees. Millions of horrible, polluting trees! Diaspora Joos actually contribute money to pay for tree planting there as a way of commemorating childrens’ birthdays or deceased relatives. It’s part of their Zionazi plot TO DESTROY THE WORLD!
The Palestinian Arabs help to save the Earth by setting arson fires to burn the new forests down. That’s their true love for the land showing.
It’s an evil plot by the Joos I tell you, just like everything else that happens. Plots! Plots! Plots!
[/sarcasm, if anyone was in doubt]
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 12 23 at 07:53 PM • permalink_Jeffs, it was a long time ago. It was in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. I don’t know if they maintain stuff that old (ten years by now). I’ll take a look for you, though. (I had a house fire which destroyed all my work, and my computer, etc. All the writings I have done over the years were destroyed, so I have no copies of anything. Some of the publications I’ve written for are the only places I can imagine that still might have them archived)
ekw, I think this year most of the evaporated water came to Florida in the form of rain. Today was one of the first beautiful, rain-free days we’ve had in I don’t remember how long. Sure, the clouds were keeping the horrible sun hidden, but I was starting to mildew.
No, I’m never satisfied with anything, why do you ask?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 23 at 09:59 PM • permalinkThanks, ekw. Just curious, don’t kill yourself.
Merry Christmas!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 24 at 02:25 AM • permalink
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Ronnie was ahead of the curve on most things, God bless ‘im.