🚀 go-pugleaf

I think that this all came about because of the suggestion that planting forests
could be a way of overcoming global warming.

There is a press release all about it.

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov2000/2000L-11-09-11.html

Two Sections from it are I think significant:

'Relying on forest plantations to store carbon pollution from the atmosphere and
combat climate change could accelerate the destruction of old growth native
forest around the world, according to a report commissioned by Greenpeace and
Worldwide Fund for Nature. ' - Because old growth would be cleared and faster
growing species planted instead.


'A second research paper shows that planting new forests will not slow global
warming as much as expected. The Kyoto Protocol allows countries to plant forests
in order to offset some of their CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. But
forests are generally darker than the underlying terrain, and hence absorb more
of the sun's heat. '
"This is particularly true in snowy conditions when grass and soil are covered by
snow but trees remain exposed," said the paper. The extra absorption of sunlight
causes the world's northern forests to have a warming effect, which would offset
part of the cooling effect of CO2 uptake.'
'In some areas of Canada and Siberia, the paper suggests this warming effect is
actually greater than the relative cooling afforded by CO2 uptake. Planting
forests in these areas would therefore increase warming rather than decrease it
as intended. '
"Natural forests are key for maintaining biodiversity and rainfall patterns, but
in colder regions, growing new forests may not be as useful as expected for
reducing climate warming," said the author Dr. Richard Betts. "In some areas it
could even be counterproductive."

Note that this was all anounced before the conference in the Hague, at which very
little was achieved.  My perception is that this was due to intransigence by the
USA delegates in still insisting that all would be well if they just planted
forests.


Pete Selby
Southampton UK