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Not something you see in the news or hear about... I was blown away at this and what we simply don't know and see out there. Farmers burning their land? I understand about the Ash but in such a rural area of Iowa I guess they don't care about the atmosphere?
Honestly that farmer's tiny wee little controlled grass fire is negligible in the amount of smoke it's producing, it does no harm, the fire doesn't last long and the smoke doesn't linger. Something like that grass fire is so small it wouldn't even show up on satellite imaging.
It's when fire and smoke gets like this below that it's a problem and you really need to start worrying about air quality when the sun at noon looks red like the red seen in the picture, like a greyish-red light bulb.
The fires that are happening right now near the Canadian Arctic Circle look like the picture below and those clouds of smoke plumes are being carried south on the jet stream for thousands of miles directly towards you at your farther southern USA location of the continent. It will be unmistakable what it is when the smoke from this reaches you.
Unless you're using fossil fuels, fire is carbon neutral. The CO2 released by the fire was sequestered into the biomass during it's lifetime. Whatever CO2 is released during the brush fire will be reabsorbed by whatever grows in it's place.
The reason fossil fuels are "bad" is that we're mining CO2 from plants that lived millions of years ago and bringing it forward in time to our present environment. Eventually the plants on the Earth will reabsorb that CO2 as well but modern thinking is that the plant life on the Earth cannot keep up with the rate that we are pulling CO2 from Earth's past. Humans cannot "create" carbon by burning things, the carbon was already here, we are moving it around.
Last edited by terracore; 05-30-2019 at 09:59 PM..
Seriously? Brush fire killing the atmosphere? Um, fire has been a constant for the planet earth since day 1... :-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoisite
Honestly that farmer's tiny wee little controlled grass fire is negligible in the amount of smoke it's producing, it does no harm
Quote:
Originally Posted by terracore
Whatever CO2 is released during the brush fire will be reabsorbed by whatever grows in it's place..
And some are worried about Lawn mowers. lol. Volcanoes produce the most CO2 and they are always erupting (in different places).
I was talking about locally really. See all that wind carrying it? I would hate to be a neighbor even though the neighbors there are miles away.
But is it worth the risk? Why not just use a machine to scrap the ground? Maybe just too much work and then you have the overgrowth debris to deal with.
Interesting burn though, never seen a farmer do it and didn't know it was legal.. Is it? Definitely not legal in CT
Open burning is nothing new. Most states require permits to conduct burns, and only under certain conditions. CO2 is not the primary air quality concern: it's PM, ozone, and toxics. However, there are benefits to certain kinds of burns, which is why it is legal in some cases. That said, it is an air quality concern, one that EPA and states have been tracking and reporting for dozens of years. This is a nice intro for those who want to know more:
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