Well, now, happy Monday to all. The start of a new week, a time to be productive, a time to be involved. How ’bout a beer?
For all those who believe that carbon offsets, which usually involve buying the promise of planted tree’s, to offset their hedonistic lifestyles, which they will not give up no matter how my of a climahysteric they are, there is a little problem with that. Be prepared to use the same language in the video
The plan to use trees as a way to suck up and store the extra carbon dioxide emitted into Earth’s atmosphere to combat global warming isn’t such a hot idea, new research indicates.
Scientists at Duke University bathed plots of North Carolina pine trees in extra carbon dioxide every day for 10 years and found that while the trees grew more tissue, only the trees that received the most water and nutrients stored enough carbon dioxide to offset the effects of global warming.
Uh oh. As the rest of the article points out, there would be a need to fertilize massive amounts of areas, and make sure they get all the water and nutrients. Also, only the hard wood holds the CO2 for long times. Leaves give it up quickly.
What it means is that these companies who are planting lots of trees in your name are really only accomplishing one thing: making you feel good. Unless they are watering them and putting nutrients in the soil, like you would do with some of the special trees on your property, won’t really make any difference. And, they won’t be. No one is going to do that with large groves of trees.
But, carbon offests make you feel good about driving your SUV, flying in planes, and running your A/C, all the while complaining about the dangers of man made climate change, eh?
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