Story idea submitted by Alexander Werner via the new “Submit Story” feature on the header menu.
For years exponents of climate change theories have used images of deforestation to support their cause.
Here is a 2007 story in The Independent suggesting a causal link:
Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming
In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?
However, the density of forests and woodland across much of the world is actually increasing, according to a respected scientific study.
The change, which is being dubbed the ‘Great Reversal’, could be crucial in reducing atmospheric carbon, which is linked to climate change.
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See also this story on the press release in WUWT here.
Plus also: The Earth’s Biosphere is booming, data suggests CO2 to be the cause
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The natural state is green growth – forests, bushes, weeds, grasses, – wherever there is sufficient rain and fertile soil. Any farmer can tell you that. It is hard work, and expensive too, for a farmer to keep the weeds out of his fields. It has always amused me when eco-loons rant on and on about deforestation. Stand back and watch, I tell them, and see just how fast that forest grows back. Even after wildfires, which occur regularly in many places, green growth appears quickly. That green is absorbing CO2.
What eco-loons truly hate is to be told that Southern California (where I currently live) was a desert just 100 years ago but now has millions upon millions of trees, shrubs, and grassy lawns. Water from Northern California, Mono Lake, and the Colorado River is diverted to Southern California where a part of it is used to water the landscape. Which absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere. This is, of course, a huge man-made CO2 sink.
In addition, the California Central Valley (San Joaquin Valley) also is a huge CO2 sink due to the farming supported by irrigation.
in 1960-63 i worked for the united states forest service. part of the time i planted trees in clear cut areas (600 trees per day and about 30 days each year).
in 1995 those trees were harvested and used to build houses in bakersfield ca.
to those who scream about deforestation: YOU MOW YOUR LAWNS DON’T YOU.
C
Logging in tropical rainforest is condemned out of ignorance. The local people need to make a living and cutting and selling hardwoods is their best choice. These forests will naturally regenerate very quickly and within 10 years biodiversity will be as before. Given time the hardwood trees will grow to their former size.
Before the advent of humans all forests were at threat from natural events, flood, landslides, wildfires, disease, and have always recovered. The problem with tropical soils is that without the leaf fall which happens all year, fertility is poor so land recovered for agriculture is better farmed for a year and then left for the forest to take over. This is what indigenous tribes do all the time using slash and burn, growing a few crops and then moving on.
What is important to remember is that rainforest has been in existence for tens of millions of years and the life of a forest tree is perhaps 400 years or less. So many many generations have lived and died and the forests remain.
Let the forests be used for the local people to work and get money to enrich their lives. They are only cutting down a tree that may shortly die anyway.
Perhaps, but the denser the forest the bigger the forest fire.
The study was the entire front page of the Independent on Sunday (which is pro-green), yet not one mention was made of it in any newspaper review on the BBC on the Sunday morning news. I have still yet to see a mention in any single news item on any news show in the past week, I guess they only have limited editorial time to tell us Nemo is going deaf and food prices are going up due to climate affected drought in the future as a result of co2.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/forests-fight-back-all-over-the-world-2293215.html
The Indy should sue the DM for plagiarism seeing as they’ve ripped entire paragraphs word for word.
In response to the last commnet – yes, and i wish WUWT articles would stop citing the Daily mail for ANYTHING. By god in heaven please cite the original study or , failing that The Indpendent coverage (which, as previous poster points out DM plaigiarised anyway). Anything published by the DM is tainted here in the UK by their reputation of lazy journalism, plaigiariarism and downright lies. Nobody with an argument they want taken seriously should see the backing of the Daily Mail as helpful- its a case of who needs friends like these.
A bit off topic I know…
http://outdoors.caledonianmercury.com/2010/05/14/palm-trees-fall-victim-to-harsh-winter-and-spring/00832
A bit off topic I know…
http://outdoors.caledonianmercury.com/2010/05/14/palm-trees-fall-victim-to-harsh-winter-and-spring/00832
From the comments; “the balmy Costa Del Forth”