Our Environment

I think it’s important to keep a positive mental attitude in our lives as much as we can. It’s good for us, good for people around us, it makes the world a better place.

That said there are some things that leave me…. peeved. Not angry, not upset, not hostile just peeved.

Greenhouse Effect - To Be or Not to Be - No Question

The thing that triggers this response in me most readily is comments and belief that Climate Change is a natural phenomenon. That Global Warming is just part of the cycle the Earth goes through, and that no human activity could possibly cause any impact on the larger environment.

Are the people who believe this BS from another planet? Are they consultants for the oil companies and the coal mining lobby? Or does this fall into the basket of someone else’s problem, and let’s just pretend that Climate Change through human activity does not exist. The Ostrich Syndrome…

Last time I checked, the levels of Carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere every day was a staggering 70 million tonnes – each day. Now I don’t care what cultural background you have, or what level of schooling you have enjoyed. But in my humble opinion 70 million tonnes is a lot of anything, let alone a known greenhouse causing gas that we are pumping into the air we breathe every 24 hours.

One favourite pastime of mine is astronomy, I am an amateur astronomer (very amateur) and enjoyed looking into the heavens and dreaming of what’s out there since I was a small boy. So as such I have a fundamental understanding of the nature and composition on the planets in our solar system. Of course where this fits in to this particular comment is the planet Venus, a classic case on runaway greenhouse effect.

The surface temperature of Venus is about 400 °C (or around 800 °F), so what is my point? I am no scientist so let’s have a quote from Bill Arnett (University of Arizona), and I quote.

“The dense atmosphere of Venus (primarily CO2) produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus’ surface temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus’ surface is actually hotter than Mercury’s despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun.”

Venus’ surface is actually hotter than Mercury’s despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun, interesting don’t you think. Why… the CO2.

Thousands of millennia ago the Earth had a carbon loaded atmosphere akin to that of Venus, the temperature unbearable by today’s standards and the atmospheric pressure over 100 times what we enjoy today (equivalent of being about a mile under water).

Over an age through natural processes (including photosynthesis), this carbon was pulled from the atmosphere sequestered into the Earth largely in the form of fossil fuels, oil and coal.

This occurred about almost 3 billion years ago when a microbe called Cyanobacteria (one of the first form of life on Earth) came into being. Cyanobacteria were the first oxygen-producing phototropic organisms, and they slowly sucked in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release the oxygen you and I need to breathe.

This process took a long time, about 500 million years. It happened during the early Paleoproterozoic age. These microbes converted the Earth’s atmosphere from an anoxic (or oxygen-poor) atmosphere into an oxic (oxygen rich) condition.

The problem now is that we are undoing all the good work that the microbe Cyanobacteria did for us. By burning coal and oil and releasing the CO2 back into our atmosphere we are turning back the clock in a way that will eventually lead to an obvious result – the Greenhouse effect.

You and I may not be here to see the Greenhouse effect here on Earth at its worst, though if thing keep going the way they are – out of control – No One Will Be Here To See It….

Food for thought, what are you doing about it today?

Recommended Resource

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-history-of-the-earths-atmosphere.htm

Peeved

Jamie

It is a little known fact that one of the major contributors of carbon emissions into the atmosphere is deforestation. If we could stop deforestation today, we would effectively eliminate the number two man made cause of carbon emissions.The United Nations declared that deforestation accounts for around 25 percent of all emissions of carbon dioxide as a result of human activity. This is roughly the same amount of carbon discharged by the United States each year, the world’s largest polluter.

Over 30 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of CO2 is predicted will be released into the atmosphere this year (2009). It is estimated that this will continue to increase to a staggering 33.1 billion tonnes by 2015.

Deforestation Causes 25% of all Man Made CO2 Emissions

Of the estimated 30 billion tonnes of carbon discharge this year, the felling of trees in Brazilian forests, old growth forests in Asia and in Africa will contribute over 2 billion tonnes. That is unless we start acting now to actually stop deforestation.

The World’s forests harbour a total of approximately 280 gigatonnes of carbon in their biomass. The total amount of carbon stored in forests including their biomass, fallen timber and debris, leaf litter and the soil in which the forests grow is estimated to be one trillion tonnes. This represents almost twice the amount of carbon already present in our atmosphere today.

Is the Answer to The Problem Plantation Grown Timber?

I think yes. Let’s look at the basic forest cycle. Trees like all plants use carbon dioxide as a food source. CO2 combined with sun light and water by means of photosynthesis, converting CO2 into carbohydrates for nourishment and oxygen which is released as a by product.

Planting renewable forests is beneficial in two main ways, firstly new trees will leech CO2 out of the atmosphere, secondly oxygen as we have already said is a by product released by photosynthesis. The new trees will keep the carbon dioxide contained for the life of the plant.

The only trouble with plantation timber being when trees die or indeed are harvested for our use, the original carbon dioxide is released and our CO2 discharge increases with it. As I write today globally we fell many more trees than we are replanting and replacing.

This means that more CO2 is being released than is being captured by the plants and trees photosynthetic processes, leading to our carbon emissions accelerating.

By planting new trees at the same (or indeed a faster) rate than we are consuming the forest resources, we reduce our carbon output by 25%, that’s 7.5 billion tonnes per year at current levels, a huge decrease in CO2 emissions that can be achieve with very little penalty at all.

Plantation Forests May Be the Answer

So are there good reasons to stop deforestation? I believe the answer is self evident. By putting a halt to the felling of old growth forests and replacing our timber consumption with plantation grown trees, and replacing them at an equal or better rate than our prevailing timber appetite, we can put a halt on the second the biggest contributor of man made CO2 emissions that exists today.

We can still use timber for construction, we can enjoy its warmth and beauty in furniture and around our homes. We can stop deforestation without any negative impact on our lives at all. How can we work together to help stop deforestation once and for all?

What do you think?