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Columnists
Sustainability
and Sustainable Development
Nicholas
R. Hild, PhD Professor ASU
Polytechnic
Nicholas
R. Hild, PhD., Professor, Environmental Technology Management, Arizona
State University College of Technology and Innovation, has extensive
experience in Environmental Management in the southwestern U.S. Dr. Hild
can be reached at 480-727-1309 and by email at DrNick@asu.edu.
PART
II *TOPSY
(Not by Cozy Cole)
*If you are old enough to remember who/what this was, send me an email)
Feb/March
2008
In
Part I in the last Journal issue, it was pointed out that a lot of lip
service is being directed at greenhouse gas reduction by people who don’t
have a clue about what it is they are saying. I’ve retitled Part II,
therefore, as "Topsy" because that is what this whole
subject is to the lay-public who are bombarded daily with ‘facts’ and
‘stats’ that support or refute each other.
Recently,
for example, one of the favorite tactics being promoted by the ‘experts’
(i.e. Hollywood stars and Rock & Rollers), is planting trees to
"offset" our personal greenhouse gas emitting habits. The
assumption that trees absorb carbon, is of course, quite correct, but its
not as simple as just "buying" a few offsets from
one of the NGO’s that "sell" credits and plant trees to handle
your car’s emissions, —(or your portion of that commercial air flight
you needed to appear for the Academy Awards night in LA)—
According
to a 2007 report by Transnational Institute’s Carbon Trade Watch, there
is another reality about the ‘offset’ mentality:
"…the
sale of offset indulgences is a dead-end detour off the path of action
required in the face of climate change."
And,
further, the Carbon Trade Watch group sums it up more succinctly, saying—
"…carbon
offsets are like the medieval practice of selling indulgences to wash
away sins: It may feel good, but it doesn’t solve much."
Offset
promoters use averages to estimate how much carbon a given tree or
forested acre can capture. Some, like the non-profit Conservation Fund,
figure each tree planted sequesters a little less than a ton and a half over
a hundred year lifetime, although few trees actually live that long.
Using that equation, even a 50 year old tree has absorbed just a little
less than one metric ton of carbon in the photosynthesis process during
its lifetime. But all trees will release carbon in the decaying or dying
process when it recombines with oxygen once more in making CO2 again.
And,
by the way, all that oxygen produced during a tree’s lifespan gets
reclaimed during the dying process, too, even if the dying takes place
over 50 years of use as lumber in a structure—Its mother nature’s way
of keeping everything in balance—so remember:
"…Nature
always bats last and, by the way, also owns the stadium!"
Patrick
J. Michaels, who is one of the scientists who helped compile the Fourth
Assessment Report, published results from a study of satellite data in Science
in October, 2006, showing that Greenland was losing less than
25 cubic miles of ice per year. That
equates to about 0.4 percent of Greenland’s ice per century.
Somehow that information didn’t make it into the Report summary
but it is noted in the body of the actual report which the most vocal of
critics seem to have avoided reading.
Michaels
also noted that temperatures in the most recent decade are not at all warm
compared with the 50 years between 1915 and 1965. His point is, if
Greenland ice melting didn’t raise sea level appreciably during that
long period, why will it suddenly do so now? —More ‘Topsy-Part II…’—-
Adding
fuel to the ‘Topsy’ fire is this news from the EU—On October
2nd of 2007, the European Union British High Court ruled that Gore’s
movie is too "partisan" and "political"
and riddled with misleading exaggerations and factual errors that it can
no longer be shown in EU public schools without disclaimers—The court
said they feared that "children forced to view the doomsday film
would be traumatize and feel guilty for not being able to control their
own futures."
That
is unfortunate for several reasons, the most obvious being that the
attendant publicity from his film and presentations have heightened and
sensitized the general public’s concerns about the issue of climate
change. Without his film and tireless promotion, these issues might not
have been addressed for several more years—so despite the fact that Inconvenient
Truth has little supporting documentation, we owe Al Gore a debt
of gratitude for bringing this issue into the political and public policy
arenas—we do need to address this issue now!
And,
most importantly, we don’t want to have to answer the questions about
why we procrastinated so long, when, in the not-too-distant future, we
have to defend today’s climate change strategies to our future children’s,
children’s, children.
2008/1234
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