I tend to be a bit of an environmentalist (conservationist, really), but I have my limits. For instance, I'm not ready to conclude that global warming is a) a unique phenomenon separate from cyclical climate changes, and b) if it is, that human activity is mostly to blame for it. I have an open mind about global warming, and a big reason is my scientific education. I can't look at the data (especially since it's way out of my field of expertise) and confidently state points a and b. Mankind simply hasn't been keeping climate records long enough for us to be certain that we're ruining the planet. I should point out, though, that it's better to be safe than sorry. There's nothing wrong with being responsible stewards. Also, based on the evidence, I cannot conclusively dismiss not-a or not-b.
Now, having made my position clear (I hope), check this article out. Apparently, unbeknownst to scientists until recently, plants emit methane. In fact, they seem to emit quite a bit; current estimates range from 10 to 30 percent of the yearly global methane budget (between 62 and 236 Teragrams). For a breakdown of the budget (that doesn't include the new findings, of course), go here. If I've calculated correctly, humans account for about 120 Tg CH4 per year. IOW, plants might be just as bad as humanity. Worse yet, planting trees to absorb nasty gases might be backfiring if trees and other plants are putting out that much methane. It'll be very interesting to see if these results stand up to scrutiny, and if they do, how rabid "Hug a tree" lefties and "Earth first; we'll stripmine the other planets later" righties will spin them.
Funky Dung
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It doesn't seem surprising (as a non-biologist) that plants produce methane, which is of course a "fossil fuel" and the primary ingredient of natural gas. But I've been under the impression that CO2 was by far the most culpable "greenhouse" gas. If that's true, then it seems that an increase in methane might (again, non-biologist typing) be more than compensated by a large plant's ability to take CO2 out of the atmosphere. The article doesn't say whether or not this might be true. To complicate matters, it is AFAIK still an open scientific question about how much additional CO2 newly planted forests might remove.
Safest bet: live lightly on the land (which, of course, we're not doing).
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Posted 13 Jan 2006 at 3:44 pm ¶Actually, Steve, methane is a more potent absorber of infrared light than CO2, as a I recall.
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Posted 14 Jan 2006 at 1:35 am ¶The Earth's ecosystem works like a buffer. CO2 and methane were produced for years before human technology increased greenhouse gasses. The system was able to handle the natural CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases. It was even able to handle some of the human greenhouse gasses. But like any buffer system, it can be pushed past it's ability to buffer. When that happens, the system starts to decompensate and greater changes can occur.
Is it the human-caused greenhouse gasses or the plant-caused greenhouse gasses that cause global warming? It's both, but we are responsible for the gasses that pushed the system past the buffering capacity. It's like a patient with asthma that has his mouth taped in a robbery. The asthma may cause the patient to be unable to breathe sufficiently through the nose — both it and the tape caused the death. No one would argue the robber is not responsible for the murder. Ok, so the perp's lawyer tried, but the jury didn't buy it.
This information on methane will determine strategies for controlling greenhouse gasses. There may not be simple answers to this problem like "plant more forests."
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Posted 14 Jan 2006 at 2:12 am ¶Jerry, that may very well be true, but if a mature tree (let's say… and this is quite simplistic of course) releases X kg of CH4 per year but absorbs 20X kg of C02, then the tree may still prove a net benefit.
Good points Rob.
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Posted 14 Jan 2006 at 4:47 am ¶Ha! Well I just mosied my lazy arse over to Wikipedia wherein we find…
Methane's effect as a greenhouse gas is twenty times greater than carbon dioxide.
So my above thought experiment with methane and C02 was a wash. Let's say that tree absorbs 40 times more C02 than it exhales CH4.
Carry on.
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Posted 14 Jan 2006 at 5:57 am ¶Steve,
The balance may be more difficult to work out than that. I recently read another article that seemed to indicate that what kind of forests were planted and where they were planted made a big difference in the net effect — this may have been the methane article.
When you read as many science sources as I do, you get this weird "deja vu" when something hits the mainstream media.
I don't honestly believe Kyoto or planting forests or dumping iron in the ocean will be enough. The Earth is big — by the time we started noticing a problem, it had a lot of inertia behind it.
Kyoto and other stopgap measures will delay the problem slightly, buying us enough time for a technological fix. Either that or we just live with a severe amount of damage to the Earth that will drastically affect humans.
Unfortunately, it will mostly affect the poor, which is why there's as little concern as there is.
The technological fix will have to be either something on the order of nuclear power plants that suck carbon out of the air and bury it in the ground (or make things, actually — picture cheap artificial diamond house construction and furniture) or gengineered plants that sequester carbon at high rates. Again, how about plants that grow cheap diamonds?
I suppose a sun umbrella in space might work. There's a trick where you can balance a solar sail between the Earth and the Sun. It's not in a traditional orbit — the thrust of the solar sail allows the sail to remain stationary in a place no orbit would permit. Blocking sun over the polar caps and intermittently over the rest of the earth might not cause too much damage to the ecosystem. The resulting space program would be absolutely wonderful, but I'm not sure that we'd have that level of technology soon enough.
Then again, of 2020 really is a critical point, we might just move the Earth away from the sun enough to restore the climate balance.
This is actually a problem: do you spend money implimenting Kyoto-like protocols and attempting current fixes, or do you spend the money on research to fix the problem more effectively? On an economic basis, it's a no-brainer: spend the money on research. Yes, you have to fix more when you come up with the solution, but it will be far cheaper and more effective. Long-term, more lives will be saved and less damage done.
The problem with that solution is that, as Niven pointed out, humans are cowards at the core. If we don't spend the money on Kyoto-type solutions, we won't spend any money on research directed at the problem. The only way to inspire the research is to create an economic incentive to solve the problem.
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Posted 14 Jan 2006 at 6:49 pm ¶Rob, you're confidence (or at least hopefulness) in the ability of science and technology to alleviate this problem is I think rather ironically misplaced, since science & technology have been the very problem from the start. Or rather that the increasingly unbridled (and unbridle-able) power that modern technologies have given fallen (and as you say cowardly) men are the very source of most of the world's ills, from exploiting native inhabitants of the Western and Southern hemispheres and the lands underneath them 4-500 years ago, to designer lifeforms, designer noses, and designer babies. I say instead live lightly on the land… and pray for (and work for) conversion of souls and for the preservation of local communities. And if science should in the meantime happen to give us something useful for good and not harm, great! But I'm not holding my breath.
Cheers!
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Posted 16 Jan 2006 at 9:01 pm ¶"modern technologies have given fallen (and as you say cowardly) men are the very source of most of the world's ills, from exploiting native inhabitants of the Western and Southern hemispheres and the lands underneath them 4-500 years ago"
Steve, it doesn't take modern technology to enslave populations, as the Babylonians or Romans could tell you. I don't deny that technology has caused problems, but you address the relevant point later on with the bit about fallen humanity. I prefer to keep the focus on that.
Heck, goats and pigs have arguably done more to *directly* damage ecosystems than fossils fuels (and not just the livestock that Westerners carted around–Polynesians made big impacts on the islands they colonized; Easter Island wasn't always as bleak as it is!).
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Posted 17 Jan 2006 at 12:47 am ¶It's not confidence.
It's the only hope we have.
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Posted 17 Jan 2006 at 1:05 am ¶Rob, I stand corrected.
Jerry, I'm not arguing that everything was all so hunky-dory prior to (take your pick) the Age of the Conquistadores, or the Age of the Industrial Revolution, or the Age of Eugenics & Genetic Manipulation, but merely that each incremental leap permits fallen man to do more damage either to his fellow man or the environment (or both) than the previous leap.
Sure Western Europe cut down and burned up all (okay, most) its trees centuries ago. This perhaps represented a spending of stored fuel at a rate 2-10 times the rate at which such could reasonably be expected to be renewed. But with fossil fuels we're spending them at a rate that is at least 1,000,000 times faster than they can be renewed. So advancing technology (burning gasoline vis-a-vis burning a log) really amounts to accelerated exploitation. Such exploitation has come to be equated in the past 200 years or so with (the less insidious term) "wealth"… and why there will be no political solution: viz., everybody thinks that they earned their wealth… Well they did, in a manner of speaking, but it was always at "somebody" else's expense.
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Posted 17 Jan 2006 at 9:39 pm ¶Post a Comment