GAIA

Good News - Bad news

The constant wailing and hand ringing by those in fear of Climate Change and man’s involvement need to take a deep breath and step back from the edge of the cliff.

Good News first: trees rejoice

The Globe and Mail carried an article entitled ”We are making the world Greener”, Aug 29, 2015 F2, which reported that 20 years of space microwave monitoring of biomass – i.e., living plant volume on Earth, found that after a decline between 1998 and 2002, between 2002 and 2012 “something surprising happened: The trees started growing back.”

Specifically, deforestation in the Amazon and Indonesia has rapidly declined while the vast forests of China and Russia are blooming, as well as the grasslands of Australia and Africa.

China alone has committed to replanting 400,000,000 hectares by 2050.  Germany has allotted $830,000,000 to help Brazil protect the Amazon and similar programs by other First World nationals and organizations have been very successful.

But the real key, according to the article and analysis, are two words anathema to tree huggers and those who glorify back to the land, labour intensive organic farming.

Yes, the two identified key factors are urbanization and replacement of small scale farming with agri-business.

Put simply, people in cities do not chop down forests and small scale farming -- using 1000 year old techniques -- is inefficient and wastes land.

Bad News: natural forest fires rage on

Annual summer forest fires are burning throughout the USA and Western Canada – nearly all having been attributed to lighting and natural forces.

Yes, campers and arsonists are not the culprits; but nature, GAIA, is doing what she often does on her own:  burn off old growth to make room for new growth that will regenerate in the open air and reach full height in 10 to 20 years.

Human efforts have been unable to stop these raging fires and we again must rely on GAIA to bring quenching and heavy rains.

Notice the pattern?

The human ant is too weak to stop what GAIA starts and only with her benevolence can the vast flames be stopped.

And during these forest fires – uncaused by humans – the amount of ‘stored carbon’ released from trees and shrubs and other plant matter is humungous!!! 

 

But is anyone, any environmentalists really counting this added air born carbon and combustion gases?

After all, like the constant and unending eruption of above ground and underwater volcanoes, no one bothers to track or calculate their carbon footprint.

When scientists seriously start to do so, the impact of the human ant – who is now blamed for all carbon in the atmosphere – will be returned to our real status of ants in the gigantic and resilient and ever cycling world that is the Earth or GAIA.

FYI:

According to http://www.livescience.com/1981-wildfires-release-cars.html

Another new study, detailed in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Nature, found that over the past 60 years, forest fires have had the greatest direct impact on carbon emissions from the boreal forests located in the higher latitudes of Canada, Alaska and Siberia, both by the amount of carbon released as the forests burn and the emission of carbon dioxide from the soil as the sun reaches through the empty branches and promotes faster decomposition.

Fires that become large enough can release huge pulses of the gas into the atmosphere very rapidly.

"A striking implication of very large wildfires is that a severe fire season lasting only one or two months can release as much carbon as the annual emissions from the entire transportation or energy sector of an individual state," the authors of the NCAR study wrote.

And according to https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htmt

        "Human additions of CO2 to the atmosphere must be taken into         perspective.

        Over the past 250 years, humans have added just one part of CO2 in         10,000 to the atmosphere. One volcanic cough can do this in a day."