"We actually get paid to do this."
Posted on 11/15/2008 4:59:02 AM PST by Libloather
Scientists angry after feds ax forest study
The government wanted to see how forests responded to carbon dioxide.
By Jeff Barnard
The Associated Press
Published on Wednesday, November 12, 2008
DURHAM — For more than a decade, the federal government has spent millions of dollars pumping elevated levels of carbon dioxide into small groups of trees to test how forests will respond to global warming in the next 50 years.
Some scientists believe they are on the cusp of receiving key results from the time-consuming experiments.
The U.S. Department of Energy, however, which is funding the project, has told the scientists to chop down the trees, collect the data and move on to new research. That plan has upset some researchers who have spent years trying to understand how forests may help stave off global warming, and who want to keep the project going for at least a couple more years.
**SNIP**
Some scientists, though, believe ending the long-term research may be a mistake.
“If we stop these experiments now, it could cost many years to get back to this point, time we may not have,” Kevin Lee Griffin, associate professor of environmental sciences at Columbia University, wrote in an e-mail.
The research program, Free Air CO2 Enrichment, or FACE, consists of rings of tall white plastic pipes with holes along their length that emit once-liquified carbon dioxide in carefully metered doses. The loblolly pines planted in 1983 at Duke are located behind gates several miles from campus. Carbon dioxide enrichment began in 1994.
There are also experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the Harshaw Experimental Forest in Wisconsin. The carbon dioxide levels around the trees are about 50 percent higher than current levels — the amount expected 40 to 50 years from now.
(Excerpt) Read more at fayobserver.com ...
Marijuana growers have been pumping increased amounts of CO2 into pot plants for years. Yeah, it increases the amount of plant material significantly.
Does that mean if we start scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere, I don’t have to mow the lawn as much?
I don't know anything about this study, but it would appear to me the only reason to test the response of trees to elevated levels of CO2 is too check the increase in growth rate (read: increased CO2 absorption rate).
Such a study is much more likely to oppose global warming than to support it. This is one study I would like to see continued.
An outcome supporting global warming would be a decrease or no increase in growth rate. If they are looking for support for global warming, why not publish now if they have the data? Now maybe the scientists are afraid they will have to end their study and get a real job. That is another story.
The U.S. Department of Energy, however, which is funding the project, has told the scientists to chop down the trees, collect the data and move on to new research. That plan has upset some researchers who now have to find a real job.Gentlemen, there go our phony baloney jobs!
'Global Warming' is the new Lysenkoism. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.
In greenhouses, the rose growers (fresh market cut flowers) have CO2 generators to pump more gas into the confined environment. If it wasn’t having a positive impact, I really do doubt the rose growers would be using the system.
Applied Ag Science 101
I wrote Fox and Friends this morning to report on how much carbon tax Oprah would have to pay for the CO2 emissions from her burning house and yard.
Why “favorite part of the story”? This study has shown how CO2 in the atmosphere benefits plant growth and how younger forests benefit most, which leads to the conclusion that cutting mature trees is good forest management.
This may not be what all the researchers wanted to find but there it is.
Global warming on Free Republic
bttt
The U.S. Department of Energy - demanding trees be cut down?
I'm in pig heaven.
The Tree SolutionAs Greenpeace expanded to become the world's largest international environmental organization, Moore's star steadily rose and he eventually became vice president of research. Then he did something even more unexpected than joining the organization in the first place. He packed up and quit... In the months before his departure, Moore had begun talking heresy. "The environmental movement had gone astray and lost its perspective on forests," Moore says. "Rather than cutting fewer trees and using less wood, we should be growing more trees and using more wood." Greenpeace branded him an eco-Judas. Now comes the biggest surprise of all. Recently published research suggests that Moore is right. Cutting down old trees could be the best way to thwart global warming.
by Jim Wilson
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