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Yes, you are. But the problem is we don't live in isolation any more. The fact that 13 million hectares of forest and jungle are cut down every year, globally, affects you. It is not just "your cycle", it is a global cycle.
The forested areas in the US have remained stable for the last century and have even increased very slightly. I don't know what the solution is to fix this issue outside of the US but it's going to be very difficult considering they are doing it to put food on the table.
The forested areas in the US have remained stable for the last century and have even increased very slightly. I don't know what the solution is to fix this issue outside of the US but it's going to be very difficult considering they are doing it to put food on the table.
It has been decreasing in the south and the west ecoregions, and only increasing in the North but that is still not the big picture. Forest is a technical term that includes reserve forest but also includes all timber forests as well, which are cut down and regrown but do not provide the same ecosystem services as non timber forest.
This is one thing that is not localized, it cannot be fixed locally or even nationally. Most of that mercury in your soil probably came from China.
Source? Because that is a ridiculous claim.
In the US 60% of anthropogenic Hg comes from US sources, 40% are from the global atmospheric reservoir, of which China is only a proportion.
Additionally, lets not pretend the US isn't contributing more to the Hg reservoir because coal companies realized it was a bad idea and stopped. This is a classic example of regulation being forced on an industry by the EPA and it working. If we have any hope of pushing other big coal nations like China to stop contributing mercury to the global reservoir we need to be able to say "well we stopped releasing mercury into the atmosphere".
No leader of any country can make its populace behave in a manner contrary to its conscience.
While you may not have been the subject of it yet the government does this all the time utilizing taxes, regulations and fees for what they have determined to be the desirable outcome.
Burning wood is undesirable in areas of low air quality because it is very sooty when it burns. We had wood burning bans in the winter at times because the air was so still and the smoke would build up and not dissipate. It is really hard on people with asthma.
Wood as a renewable resource, or if you look at in another way, as a temporary repository for carbon, would be OK if it were truly renewed. But we burn stuff faster than it grows back, or we burn and then don't allow it to grow back because we re-purpose the land. The carbon that was stored as wood gets released and cannot return to new plant material because there is less forested surface of the earth. Otherwise it would be perfect cycle - carbon is released from the wood, goes into the atmosphere as CO2, and gets reused by new trees. The net change of carbon in the atmosphere is zero. But we have messed up the cycle by not allowing new trees growth at the rate that previously existed.
The problem is not those using well seasoned hardwood in certified clean EPA stoves...
The problem is a one size fits all approach and a heavy handed one at that.
California has many plights affecting trees... sudden oak death is one, old age is another and there is storm damage...
There is not a shortage of wood... at least not is the SF Bay Area where people pay to have it hauled off or chipped.
Think of the problem this way: For the last 100 - 200 million years or so the earth has had X amount of carbon within the biosphere. That carbon is continually cycled between different reservoirs - a lot is stored as plant material, some is in the atmosphere, a lot is dissolved in the ocean as carbonic ion, and some is converted into minerals like limestone.
Carbon continually cycles between these different stores, but the key thing is that the total amount of carbon does not change - it is still X. It simply appears as different forms as it cycles around.
But when fossil fuels are burned, we are adding carbon into the total that used to be X. The total is now X+Y. If that new carbon goes into bio-fuels or algae or whatever, it is still a net addition to the biosphere and because the biosphere is in equilibrium with the atmosphere, part of the new carbon will also add to the carbon load in the atmosphere.
The only way to not change the biosphere carbon load, and hence not change the atmospheric load (and oceanic load - carbonization of the ocean is also a problem) is to not release CO2 from burned fossil fuels into the biosphere. It would have to be captured and pumped back into the ground.
Are you saying there is a difference between a log left to decay in the forest opposed to that same log providing heat in a stove?
In addition... just because a log is left to decay in the forest doesn't mean there is no chance of it still burning as demonstrated by the huge wildfires we have in the West.
Mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants comes from mercury in coal, which is released when the coal is burned. While coal-fired power plants are the largest remaining source of human-generated mercury emissions in the United States, they contribute very little to the global mercury pool. Recent estimates of annual total global mercury emissions from all sources -- both natural and human-generated -- range from roughly 4,400 to 7,500 tons per year. Human-caused U.S. mercury emissions are estimated to account for roughly 3 percent of the global total, and U.S. coal-fired power plants are estimated to account for only about 1 percent.
EPA has conducted extensive analyses on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and subsequent regional patterns of deposition to U.S. waters. Those analyses conclude that regional transport of mercury emission from coal-fired power plants in the U.S. is responsible for very little of the mercury in U.S. waters. That small contribution will be significantly reduced after EPA’s Clean Air Interstate Rule and Clean Air Mercury Rule are implemented.
Because mercury can be transported thousands of miles in the atmosphere, and because many types of fish are caught and sold globally, effective exposure reduction will require reductions in global emissions.
Now that the Republicans have taken power and have control of Congress, the presidency, and soon probably also the Supreme Court how do we protect our environment? I assume they will now attack clean air and water regulations and allow companies to pollute all they want to . What can we who care about the environment do to continue to protect it when those who make the rules do not?
They already attacked clean water, under Bush II, btw. He allowed higher lead content in everyone's drinking water. I guess he wanted kids to grow up with more lead in their systems. Thanks, Prez.
The primary source for mercury emissions is Asia which contributes about 50% to the global pool, in particular China. Third world gold mining operations are also another source, some estimates suggest it may exceed global emissions caused by coal.
Guess that will give you different perspective on that wasteful ornamental gold jewelry? Nothing better than having this discussion with someone that has a really nice piece of gold on and being able to crush their self righteousness by pointing to it.
You can get live trees, plant it outside after Christmas and enjoy it forever. It's actually a pretty cool idea, you could have a line of Christmas trees for each year.
I imagine that the breakdown of consumer products containing mercury is also a factor. Most of which comes from China???
I don't know. Like I said, I ignore a lot of those regional issues. When you belong to a higher social classes you have mobility to avoid some of these things...
I self-identify as a "eco-frugal minimalist". Each of those traits make me very different from most women, especially those that have a penchant for ornamental gold jewelry. I am not prone to engaging them in any conversation much less one that would put them on the defense about their lifestyle choices. Why?
Because my views and lifestyle define me as part of a fringe element in society and I am well aware of that.
And do you assume I'm a hypocrite?
No, I really try not to be. When I adopted the lifestyle years ago I gave away whatever jewelry I had except for what I wore the most.. I kept one necklace, one pair of earrings and one ring, but they were actually really cheap gold plated pieces and after daily wear the earrings and the neckless started turning green!
This past summer I spent a ridiculous amount of hours considering replacements. I had a lot to consider.. I wanted something that I could wear with *everything*, that was high quality and would never turn any other color or wear out. I bought one set from Nordstroms and after a month I realized that although the quality was nice they didn't make me as happy as the cheap stuff I had replaced. Fortunately Nordstroms has a great return policy and I exchanged everything for another brand.. this time I settled on brushed gold, which is what the cheap stuff was supposed to be (before turning green!). It's been several months and I am so happy! I don't think about jewelry at all.. I've got my little cheap brass pill box a grandmother gave me 30 years ago and each evening it stores away one pair of brush gold half hoop earrings and a little brush gold bead on a chain and sometimes my 1.5mm brush gold band with a teeny-tiny raw diamond for my ring finger
And that's all I own in the way of jewelry.
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