If we believe anthropogenic CO2 causes catastrophic global warming, we deforest the earth to grow “carbon neutral” biofuel.
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| The Congo Rainforest |
Deforestation causes droughts, and deforestation, for a variety of reasons, may be a greater contributor to global warming than rising levels of CO2.
What if the deforestation to produce biofuel crops causes more harm (droughts, global warming) than good?
SOME RELEVANT FACTS:
Land surface of planet earth - 56 million square miles
Total arable farmland on earth - 5 million square miles
Biofuel potential with conventional crops - 5,000 barrels per square mile per year
World biofuel production using all farmland on earth - 25 billion barrels
World petroleum production 2005 - 30 billion barrels
Desert area 150 years ago - 5 million square miles
Desert area today - 8 million square miles
Forest area 150 years ago - 30 million square miles
Forest area today - 18 million square miles
February 28th, 2008 at 5:50 am
Ecosystems go into quick decline when warming reaches a certain threshold. Leemans and Eickhout (2004) found that more ecosystems collapse as warming speeds up:
If the warming is 0.1 °C per decade, 5 percent of ecosystems will collapse.
If the warming is 0.3 °C per decade, 15 percent of ecosystems will collapse.
If the rate exceeds 0.4 °C per decade, all ecosystems will be quickly destroyed.
The IPCC stated that the temperature is now rising at a rate of 0.2 °C/decade. That is an average of all the temperatures around the world, even counting the relatively cooler air over water.
Forests are one of the most vulnerable of ecosystems to global warming. For instance, the Boral forest is under imminent threat from the invasive pest the Pine Beetle due to warmer winters. Furthermore, forest fires constitute one of the largest sources of anthropiogenic emissions after the burning of fossil fuel.
“We now have evidence from the Earth’s history that a similar event happened fifty-five million years ago when a geological accident released into the air more than a terraton of gaseous carbon compounds. As a consequence the temperature in the arctic and temperate regions rose eight degree Celsius and in tropical regions about five degrees, and it took over one hundred thousand years before normality was restored. We have already put more than half this quantity of carbon gas into the air and now the Earth is weakened by the loss of land we took to feed and house ourselves. In addition, the sun is now warmer, and as a consequence the Earth is now returning to the hot state it was in before, millions of years ago, and as it warms, most living things will die.” (The Revenge of Gaia)
February 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
The argument back and forth about whether or not the planet is getting warmer, is silly. Thermometers tell us it is and our common sense should confirm this just by looking at the world around us.
So we need to stop talking about the problem, arguing about the problem and documenting the problem. We got a problem now let’s deal with it.
There is a huge amount of change needed in order to put our planet on a more sustainable path. Furthermore, there is no way any national government is going to be able to institute the level of change need with the full cooperation and support of its people.
Unfortunately, there is not mechanism in place to organize the world’s people against a truly global problem.
That’s where the EARTH-SHIP(c) program comes in. This is the first global people-to-people program the world has every seen. If we all work together we can put the world on a more sustainable path. Check out http://www.earth-ship.org. Do something. Get involved. Become a digital crewmember on the EARTH-SHIP