Wednesday, December 21, 2005
KILL TREES, SAVE THE PLANET
It was a lot simpler back in the days when global warming was first invented. All that was needed then to fix the, er, problem was to plant a few trees. But today we live in a time of post-modern environmentalism, when warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, when environmentalists ride in SUVs, and when Greenpeace vessels damage coastal reefs. You want to plant trees? Well, you might be part of the problem, mister:
In the effort to slow Earth’s rising temperatures, even a well-intentioned proposal could backfire, scientists said Wednesday.
One suggestion has been to grow more trees, which absorb carbon dioxide, the gas blamed for trapping heat. More trees mean more carbon dioxide removed from the air.
New computer simulations, however, indicate that establishing new forests across North America could provide a cooling effect for a few decades to a century, but that after that, they would lead to more warming.
“There’s really no simple answer,” said Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif., who presented the research at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union here. “At least in this calculation, there is predicted to be a net warming effect.”
By as much as 6 degrees Fahrenheit, according to one model. So let’s chop down the damn trees, yes? Save the planet and all? From the warming? No, says Stanford Global Ecology dude:
Caldeira said he was not calling for cutting down forests to battle global warming. “You need to do more study to show it really works,” he said.
But there’s no time for more study! Trees die now! Haven’t you people been listening to Al Gore? “Those who argue that we should do nothing until we have completed a lot more research are trying to shift the burden of proof even as the crisis deepens,” Gore argued in Earth in the Balance. “This point is crucial: a choice to ‘do nothing’ in response to mounting evidence is actually a choice to continue and even accelerate the reckless environmental destruction that is creating the catastrophe at hand.”
I’m with Al. There is no need for more research; with the crisis deepening, we must kill trees!
UPDATE. Canadian warming data examined.
UPDATE II. Cox & Forkum join the fun!
UPDATE III. New Zealand—which once expected to cash in on Kyoto, only to find itself in debt to Russia—has now abandoned a planned carbon tax:
The Government yesterday dumped plans to impose a carbon tax on fossil fuels from 2007 after a 400-page Ministry for the Environment report that concluded the proposed charge was unfair, inefficient and unlikely to substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Naturally, supporters of stupid Gaia-appeasing taxes are pig-biting mad over this. Greenpeace’s response:
“Dropping the carbon tax shows a remarkable absence of leadership across Parliament on the most catastrophic problem facing the planet,” said Greenpeace Campaigner Steve Abel today. “Greenpeace always maintained that the carbon tax was not hefty enough – but the response should have been to increase it, not drop it ...”
Climate change is already hitting hard and is expected to get a lot worse if we do nothing. Scientists last week released a new study showing more polar bears may be drowning due to the shrinking ice cap ...
Not to mention the added stress for bi-polar bears, who have enough problems as it is.