Replies to post #203034 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[tlc]

If you go down to the woods today...
There is no easy fix for climate change.

Adam Ma’anit,
New Internationalist

When British physicist Freeman Dyson wrote in 1972 of his dream of the ‘greening of the galaxy’ – in which humans would populate the stars by means of massive genetically engineered trees planted on comets – few took him seriously. Likewise when he advocated triggering nuclear explosions underneath space probes as a means of propulsion, most gave the idea a bemused miss. Dyson is, however, a tenacious character. When in 1977 he advocated using trees to soak up excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, people took notice. Third time lucky. ..

But what some call ‘failure’, the offset industry calls ‘learning by doing’ – and it has been ‘learning by doing’ ever since. What could have been regarded as another one of Dyson’s more wacky notions is now part of a multi-billion dollar market that involves everyone from the world’s largest transnationals, governments, the World Bank and the UN, down to ‘boutique’ merchant banks, mom-and-pop offset companies, consultancies, and NGOs. The World Bank estimated the global carbon market, of which tree-planting is just one part, to be worth $11 billion at the end of 2005 – 10 times the value of the previous year. ..

The solution to climate change is social change. Tall order? Yes. Pipe dream? Perhaps. But it is ultimately what’s needed – and at least, seen from this perspective, we have a lot of friends and allies. After all, if Freeman Dyson can strike lucky with his wacky ideas, why can’t we?
(July 2006)
This edition of the NI has two other accessible articles on carbon offsets and their imapcts,
10 things you should know about carbon offsets
and Forest Fever.
http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/keynote/

[stockhound101]

Here's one sorry for the delay.
Yes I'm all for alternative energy, but it seems we won't be independent of oil for a long time.

Organic Vapors from Trees Produce Cloud Condensation Nuclei
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Reference
O'Dowd, C.D., Aalto, P., Hameri, K., Kulmala, M. and Hoffmann, T. 2002. Atmospheric particles from organic vapours. Nature 416: 497-498.
What was done
Aerosol electrical-mobility size-distribution measurements were made before and during the initial stage of an atmospheric nucleation event over a boreal forest in Finland on 2 May 2000. Simultaneously, organic vapor growth rate measurements were made of particles that nucleated into organic cloud-droplets in the flow-tube cloud chamber of a modified condensation-particle counter.

What was learned
The authors demonstrated, for what they call "the first time," that newly-formed aerosol particles over forested areas "are composed primarily of organic species, such as cis-pinonic acid and pinic acid, produced by oxidation of terpenes in organic vapours released from the canopy."

What it means
The authors note that "aerosol particles produced over forested areas may affect climate by acting as nuclei for cloud condensation," but they say there remain numerous uncertainties involving complex feedback processes "that must be determined if we are to predict future changes in global climate." This being the case, we wonder how anyone can presume to decide what should or should not be done about anthropogenic CO2 emissions; for if we can't predict future changes in global climate without the knowledge just specified, how do we know if we even need to be worried about the matter?