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Forests no longer allies in climate-change fight
Toronto Star ^ | Apr 04, 2007 | Allan Woods

Posted on 04/05/2007 2:29:07 AM PDT by jsh3180

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To: listenhillary
Cutting down forests is good for the planet.

Earth First!

Mars, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto next!

Then we'll capture the Asteroids.

Mankind marches on!

21 posted on 04/05/2007 4:16:25 AM PDT by woofer (Some strive to soar like an eagle, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.)
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To: jsh3180

Perhaps we can spray the forests with DDT and cover them with asbestos.


22 posted on 04/05/2007 4:38:21 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: jsh3180
If anyone had any doubt, that climate change, carbon credits and all that nonsense was NOT science, here's proof that it's politics:

"Instead of forests being used as a credit to offset other emissions, the government is now afraid that including forests in the formula could drive up Canada's climate-change burden."

Forests are forests and they do what they do. Science is about uncovering the reality of what forests do in their gas exchanges, growth, disease, etc. Politics is deciding how to "credit" what forests do as a positive or negative to some political formula thought up by governments.

It can't get any clearer.

23 posted on 04/05/2007 4:51:07 AM PDT by Jabba the Nutt (Jabba the Hutt's bigger, meaner, uglier brother.)
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To: jsh3180

Growing more forests in United States could contribute to global warming (Save Earth! Cut trees!)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ^ | December 5, 2005 | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1534904/posts

LIVERMORE, Calif. ­ Planting trees across the United States and Europe to absorb some of the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels may just outweigh the positive effects of sequestering that CO².

In theory, growing a forest may sound like a good idea to fight global warming, but in temperate regions, such as the United States, those trees also would soak up sunlight, causing the earth’s surface to warm regionally by up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit.

Forests affect climate in three different ways: they absorb the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and help to keep the planet cool; they evaporate water to the atmosphere, which also helps keep the planet cool; and they are dark and absorb a lot of sunlight, warming the Earth.

Using climate models, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology have found that forests in the mid-latitude regions of the Earth present a more complicated picture. Trees in these areas tend to warm the Earth in the long run.

The darkness of these forests absorbs abundant sunlight, warming the land. While the darkness of the forest lasts forever, the effect of the forest sequestering carbon dioxide slows down over time as the atmosphere exchanges CO² with the ocean.

The conclusion: Planting a forest in the United States could cool the Earth for a few decades, but would lead to planetary warming in the long term. These are the results of a study that will be presented at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco.

“On time scales longer than a few centuries, the net effect will actually be warming in these regions,” said Govindasamy Bala of the Livermore team. “We thought planting trees across the northern hemisphere would help curb global warming by the CO² absorption but what we found was a different story.”

The authors discovered that a global replacement of current vegetation by trees would lead to a global warming of 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Global replacement with grassland led to cooling of about 0.7°F.

The researchers also found that planting trees between 30 and 50 degrees latitude worldwide saw the global mean surface air temperature increase by 0.7°F. Regional warming in North America and Eurasia was as high as 8°F. In earlier studies, planting trees in the boreal forest regions (found mostly in the upper half of the Northern Hemisphere) caused a warming of surface temperatures.

“Although it was previously known that trees could have an overall warming effect in the boreal forests (north of 50 degrees), this is the first study to show that temperate forests could lead to net global warming,” said Livermore’s Seran Gibbard, lead author of the study.

The story is different for the tropical forests. In tropical regions, forests help keep the Earth cool by not only absorbing carbon dioxide, but by evaporating plenty of water as well.

“Should we give carbon credit to the planting of forests? Probably not for countries in mid and high latitudes,” Bala said. “But the tropical forests present a win-win because they cool the planet by evaporative cooling and the uptake of carbon.”

Co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution warned that proposals to grow more forests to cool the planet should be greeted with caution.

“I like forests. They provide good habitats for plants and animals, and tropical forest are good for climate, so we should be particularly careful to preserve them,” he said. “But in terms of climate change, we should focus our efforts on things that can really make a difference, like energy efficiency and developing new sources of clean energy.”

The research, also authored by Thomas Phillips and Michael Wickett of Lawrence Livermore, will appear online in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important issues of our time. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. bttt

The Gaia Religion’s “holy trinity” - “saviors of mother earth”, are pictured here:

James Hansen, Deepak Chopra, and Algore’s plan to “End the war on Terra” http://www.championtrees.org/climate/WaketheFolkUp.htm


24 posted on 04/05/2007 7:28:00 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (To have no voice in the Party that always sides with America's enemies is a badge of honor.)
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To: Matchett-PI

That is a good find. We’re going to have the enviroweeenies so tied up in knots they’ll be spouting gibberish and bouncing off the walls.

Wait...


25 posted on 04/05/2007 7:35:25 AM PDT by listenhillary
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To: jsh3180

We have to kill the trees before they kill us all...


26 posted on 04/05/2007 7:37:09 AM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: rickylc

Moreover, they are so caught up in their insanity they can’t even acknowledge fundamental facts. There is only a fixed amount of carbon on the planet. So, any annual carbon budget, or carbon cycle analysis will be dealing with the same amount of carbon. The issue then is where does it go. That poor schlub who found trees were net carbon sources failed to work with the larger picture. Whether a sink or a source, the tree is either putting more carbon back into the soil, or drawing it out of the soil, or out of the air and the water in the soil and air. If he did it properly, the total picture would net out to zero and he would have an honest appraisal of how carbon gets partitioned in the environment by trees.

Even then, if you take a closer look, you will find fascinating differences in carbon utilization among different species of trees, as well as the microorganisms associated with them.


27 posted on 04/05/2007 7:39:55 AM PDT by bioqubit (bioqubit, conformity - such a common deformity)
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To: jsh3180

Canada,

You are being had, reducing CARBON DIOXIDE emissions will have ZERO impact on anything other than adding more burden and slowing down your economy. It will do didly squat for “global warming”.. you are being conned.

Total CO2 in in the atmosphere is about 350 parts per MILLION, or to put it another way, that’s 350/1000000 or .035% of the total atmosphere of the earth is Carbon Dioxide... of that only a very tiny percentage of it comes from human activity...

I believe its something like 3-4% so that’s about .0014% of the Atmosphere is CO2 caused by human activity.. and only about 25% of that is CO2 caused by economic activities the other 75% is created simply because of the fact we BREATH and deficate, and basically live....

So, the amount of the atmosphere that can remotely be contributed to burning of fossil fuels over the past few hundred years is .... Wait for it.... 0.00035% of the atmospheric content, or 3.5 parts per MILLION... so there are another 3.5 parts per Million in the atmosphere of CO2 because of human burning of fossile fuels over the last few hunhdred years, than there would be if we didn’t burn them at all.

Now, if you think an additional 3.5 Parts per Million over 200 years is causing global warming, you are frankly insane.


28 posted on 04/05/2007 7:42:41 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: listenhillary

“...they’ll be spouting gibberish and bouncing off the walls. Wait...” ~ listenhillary

The gibberish has been going on behind the scenes for a L O N G time:

The NFTS Alliance for the New Humanity coverage ~ a ground breaking event with Deepak Chopra and Al Gore (and many more!) happened on Dec. 11-14, 2003 in Puerto Rico and News for the Soul was there to cover it - and will be there again! These are the people who are going to lead the rest of us in changing the world. http://www.newsforthesoul.com/alliance.htm

Deepak even appears on Al Gore’s cable TV venture Current TV: http://www.slate.com/id/2123953/
http://dummiefunnies.blogspot.com/2005/08/dummie-funnies-08-01-05-al-gore-tv.html
And “The young staff of reporters, producers and hosts includes Gotham Chopra, son of self-help guru Deepak Chopra and Laura Ling (Channel One News, MTV). http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/19/84047.shtml

James Hansen, Deepak Chopra, and Algore plan to “End the war on Terra” http://www.championtrees.org/climate/WaketheFolkUp.htm

Deepak on his blog http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2005/10/dear_friends_i.html : “..trading emissions to reduce global warming ..” “The future is not built through events but through awareness.” “We believe that if enough people share the value of peace, war can be brought to an end. If enough people shift their awareness toward social justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability, the injustice, oppression, and destruction of the eco-system can be stopped. Every great change in the world requires a shift in awareness first. Such a shift is already occurring—now it needs critical mass, which in turn needs organization. The Alliance aims to connect caring communities and groups (what we wish to call “peace cells”) at a global level, and thus to promote understanding of humanity’s underlying unity.”

Posted by Scott at 07:02 AM http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2004_04.php
Deep, deep Deepak

I am unfamiliar with the phenomenon of Deepak Chopra, but I didn’t have to read more than a sentence or two into Kay Miller’s account of his recent visit to the Twin Cities to hear the echoes of the Confidence Man, of the Duke and the Dauphin, and of Elmer Gantry, all in a New Age guise.

We appear to have here the recurrenece of a classic American character in cosmopolitan form. Kay Miller’s profile of Chopra in this morning’s Star Tribune begins:

Gini Rackner waited in a line 50-deep to meet Deepak Chopra. He had changed her life. She wanted to thank him.

“He’s right up there with the Dalai Lama, Buddha and Jesus — the people on Earth who spread love, compassion and good health among other souls on Earth,” Rackner said.

She was one of nearly 1,000 people who heard Chopra speak at the Minneapolis Convention Center recently. For an hour before the speech, dozens of Golden Circle participants who paid $99 for premium seats and a private reception with Chopra sipped wine from plastic glasses and waited in a line that stretched to the door.

“This is so stupid. I feel like I’m meeting God,” one teary-eyed woman told him. “I have read so much of your stuff. Now I don’t know what to say.” Chopra gave her a beatific smile. “Shall I sign this ‘To the goddess?’”

At the end of the profile Miller highlights Chopra’s versatility:

On other nights in other places, Chopra will talk with corporations about maximizing profits or with golfers about improving their swings.

“When I speak to Kellogg Business School, it is about spiritual states, but it has more to do with ‘How do I make my shareholders happy?’ “ he said.

“This is most enjoyable, because these people are coming from simplicity, innocence and tender hearts. I want people to get to this larger domain. And it doesn’t matter where I bring them from.”

Mr. Chopra indeed appears to be the master of his domain, if not of the larger domain.

*

From the Fall 1991 issue of ScienceWriters:
The Newsletter of the National Association of Science Writers
http://www.aaskolnick.com/naswmav.htm

The Maharishi Caper: Or How to Hoodwink Top Medical Journals
by Andrew A. Skolnick


29 posted on 04/05/2007 8:06:51 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (To have no voice in the Party that always sides with America's enemies is a badge of honor.)
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To: bioqubit

what drove them even crazier was research that was in progress showing that not only were the forests (in northern michigan, mostly aspen) net carbon emitters, but the majority of the carbon in the summer season was in the form of VOC’s, a major component in the formation of ground level ozone. It was amazing to see them wrestle with that one!

LOL!!


30 posted on 04/05/2007 6:19:53 PM PDT by rickylc
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