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Landownership is actually what is driving the deforestation, same as was the case in the early part of our development. Yes deforestation has decreased the last few years but still very significant and it accounts for around 70% of their carbon emissions.
Not quite accurate. Most of it appears to be criminal activity. Criminal activity is not capitalism.
In Brazil, the events set in motion by logging are almost always more destructive than the logging itself. Once the trees are extracted and the loggers have moved on, the roads serve as conduits for an explosive mix of squatters, speculators, ranchers, farmers, and invariably, hired gunmen. The land sharks follow the roads deep into previously impenetrable forest, then destroy tracts to make it look as if they own them. Land thievery is committed through corruption, strong-arm tactics, and fraudulent titles and is so widespread that Brazilians have a name for it: grigalem, from the Portuguese word grilo, or cricket. Grileiros, the practitioners, have been known to age phony land titles in a drawer full of hungry crickets. When Brazil's agrarian reform agency, Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária, reviewed Amazonian land ownership records over the past three years, it voided more than 62,000 claims that appeared to be fraudulent.
Plants materials that are not in contact with oxygen after they die will not release carbon.
Where there is now coal, there was once a peat bog.
What college did you get your chemistry degree from? I want to make sure I don't send my kids there. Ever heard of swamp gas? Methane is a byproduct of the decay process that goes on in bogs and methane is 75% carbon. How do you get that carbon is not released during the process of converting peat to coal?
I'm not a biology major but I don't believe that the forest floors are a source of either peat or coal and decay on the forest floor should be mostly aerobic not anaerobic. Yes bogs are an example of anaerobic decay but you still get carbon released during the decay process.
And, FTR, this discussion is about carbon dioxide not carbon. Though carbon sources do produce carbon dioxide when they burn. For example that swamp gas I mentioned earlier often self ignites to create little blue flames on the surface of the water in swamps and bogs. The question at hand is whether forests absorb more CO2 than they give off and I believe they do. Even though both plant respiration and decay release CO2 I think enough carbon is stored in the plants and takes long enough to decay that the net is an reduction in CO2. However, we need a LOT of forests to deal with our CO2 problem and it seems kind of pointless to burn coal as fuel while we plant trees to deal with CO2 emissions. We need a lot of trees.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 01-01-2015 at 07:19 PM..
That might be the most ridiculous post I have ever read. It's so silly I refuse to post links. I can assure you that the amount of water and CO2 has a huge impact on growth. Ever hear of growth rings on trees?
It is clear you know nothing about agriculture. Let me keep this simple. If boosting CO2 cause more plant growth, we would already be in the midst of a green revolution as the level of CO2 has doubled in the last 200 years. While we grow more in the United States, that's the result of man made fertilizer, pesticides, and expansion of arable land.
I planted a royal palm 11 years ago and did an experiment and watered it every day for 4 years with septic water, the growth was exponential!!!!! its 60 feet tall now.. I've asked visitors how old they think the royal palm is?? and they always think it's like 50 to 60 years old.. the same day I planted five other royal palms and did not water them at all, they were left to grow only by what nature would provide, and they are one fifth the size.. water and nutrients makes a huge difference...
If the plant has too little water, growth will be retarded. All farmer know that irrigation beyond what the plant needs is just a waste of water. Double or triple the amount of water you apply to the plant. You'll find it doesn't help.
If the plant has too little water, growth will be retarded. All farmer know that irrigation beyond what the plant needs is just a waste of water. Double or triple the amount of water you apply to the plant. You'll find it doesn't help.
But we are not talking about "beyond what is needed". We are talking about the impact of CO2 on plants. I'll help you out here;
These experiments suggest that higher CO2 levels could boost the yields of non-C4 crops by around 13 per cent.
It has been well established that rising CO2 will stimulate plant growth. Indeed, climate change associated with rising atmospheric CO2 has already altered ecosystem carbon balance through rising temperature, increased growing season, and increased atmospheric water content. Studies in native ecosystems have shown that while grasslands show a relative small stimulation of shoot growth, woody plants respond vigorously to elevated CO2.
If its one thing I learned over the years is that when ever a so called expert in science or the stock market predicts anything lookout. Most times they are wrong. If they were not then everyone could dump money into the market and get rich. These same scientists said in th e70s the earth was cooling and we were going into an ice age, they said in the 80s that by 2000 the seas would be dead. There is no end to predictions and I have seen none come to pass. This global warming is the liberal tin foil hat issue. I am not saying we are having absolutely no impact on the environment but not to the end of the world BS the libs throw out. Its just a way to get rid of something they do not like. Libs use any death to try to get rid of guns, anything that goes wrong on a exaction by the state to say the death penalty is wrong, and any thing they can against oil to say that fossil fuels are wrong. Libs live in a tangerine trees and marmalade sky's world.
They didn't. In the 70s scientist confirmed Milankovitch cycles as important to solar insolation striking the earth. Science confirmed that Milankovitch cycles are a driver of Ice Ages. They did not predict any cooling in the near term.
It has been well established that rising CO2 will stimulate plant growth. Indeed, climate change associated with rising atmospheric CO2 has already altered ecosystem carbon balance through rising temperature, increased growing season, and increased atmospheric water content. Studies in native ecosystems have shown that while grasslands show a relative small stimulation of shoot growth, woody plants respond vigorously to elevated CO2.
According to some accounts, the rise in carbon dioxide will usher in a new golden age where food production will be higher than ever before and most plants and animals will thrive as never before. If it sounds too good to be true, that's because it is. A two-decade study of rainforest plots in Panama and Malaysia recently concluded that local temperature rises of more than 1ºC have reduced tree growth by 50 per cent (see Don't count on the trees).
You might as well quote Mad Magazine as New Scientists. It's not published by scientists.
As I said before if increasing CO2 yielded a green revolution we would be in one today as CO2 levels have doubled due to man.
But a green revolution in the form of massive replanting of the rain forests would reduce our CO2 levels. While plants growing faster due to higher CO2 levels is debatable, that more plants would use more CO2 is not.
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