Comments on: Trees Are Not The Answer To Climate Change

By: Jamie Friendly

Jamie Friendly — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:04:09 +0000

That is fantastic!

By: Post On Fire

Post On Fire — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:31:56 +0000

As we all know plants are known for there capacity to absorb CO2 from the air and release oxygen that’s during the day and it they do the opposite at night. Due to the global warming the ability of the plants to do that is getting weaker.

By: yup

yup — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:20:13 +0000

Within our means, I believe that we should all do what we can to decrease global warming; however, let us not forget that global warming has increased more because of natural causes rather than by human negligence like CFC’s (Chlorofluorocarbons), etc. One example of the natural causes is the explosion of Mount Penitubo, which was the second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century. It resulted in the leading cause of global warming.

By: MK Web - Blog » Trees Are Not The Answer To Climate Change

MK Web - Blog » Trees Are Not The Answer To Climate Change — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:18:45 +0000

[...] Take: So does that mean we should stop breathing?read more | digg story [...]

By: Dr. Treewdj

Dr. Treewdj — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:55:08 +0000

but trees also produce CO2 in the night, therefor all the co2 they used during the day would be produced in the night again. Trees are not the answer! We should invent some kind of machine that would take in C02 and convert it into oxygen or combine other elements to even produce other matter such as fuel and such. These machines should be power by solar or nuclear or any other clean energy source. Also they should be placed in strategic locations across the globe and monitored consistently. the machines should also be run on Linux.

By: k

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:07:24 +0000

The overly-sensational title and poor writing quality of this article detracts from what appears to be a reasonable argument.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:59:51 +0000

“These results tell us unquestionably that we need to stop passing the buck, and stop creating CO2.”
OK, everyone stop breathing.
I find some elements of this story somewhat wrong, plants don’t store CO2 for one, they use it, storing the carbon for their own growth and releasing the oxygen. There is CO2 released during their decomposition, but a large majority of the carbon stays in the plant material and after quite a bit of time, heat and pressure, is combined with hydrogen into complex chains (hydrocarbons) which become the fossil fuels we use. So trues might not be the only answer, but increased vegetation and longer growing seasons are good things and do help. It is a complex system and this article only scratches the surface lightly.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:27:59 +0000

Dave,

That’s an interesting point. A couple of things really. Firstly, the title may be a little reactionary, but I think it’s the kind of thing that makes people listen and draws them into reading. I think this can be ok, so long as the information presented is not innacurate or very biased.

Secondly, I’d also like to add something – I believe our society’s focus on CO2 is slightly misguided. CO2 is by no means the only greenhouse gas, and it is not the most damaging – methane is far more harmful and vast quantities are produced by agriculture. This accounts for 15% of all greenhouse gasses. Let’s also not forget volcanoes!

However, nature does often provide a solution to these things, for example, plankton sequesters CO2 from volcanoes and other sources. A delicate balance is created. This article I think looks at one small part of the equation, which I think is useful when wanting to understand the whole picture. Therefore I do take your point that we shouldn’t dismiss trees.

I unfortunately don’t understand enough about global warming to talk about all of these subjects in great depth, but that’s why I started Environmental Graffiti, so I could learn more!

By: davidconnell

davidconnell — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:59:10 +0000

This is an interesting piece, but I think the title is a little too reactionary. Certainly trees are not the answer, but there’s little question that they are not part of the answer. There is scientific consensus that deforestation causes up 20 percent of human-caused climate change, and that deforestation in tropical rainforests is a big driver of climate change. So let’s not dismiss trees out of hand as part of the solution.