...than dreamed of in your philosophy.

Not long ago, a tree was planted not to capture carbon dioxide, but to restore an integral component of earth's ecology, to provide a home to an endangered species or two, to provide a bulwark against desertification, and to provide a shady place to sit, or a place for a kid to climb in (or your cat to get stuck in).

Now, it appears, global warming has some even questioning trees. Okay, so we shouldn't plant a tree in Peoria, thinking we've done our part to reverse anthropogenic warming. But there are many good reasons yet to plant a tree. So don't stop.

JR's analysis of urban tree-planting is particularly depressing and blindered.

But of course it should be clear that what we individuals do with, say, our week-end flights to the Bahamas (do you hear that, Mayor Michael Bloomberg?), passengers on planes that would fly anyway, should not at all be compared with what the puff-puff-hugely-puffing captains of industry are desired to do.

The moral seems to be -- and I agree entirely -- that individuals should never be discouraged from paying for the planting of trees -- so long as those individuals are not deceived into thinking that that automatically and simply "justifies" and "neutralizes" their earlier carbon-emission episode.

Thanks to Sammie, for more wisdom.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

JR's analysis of urban tree-planting is particularly depressing and blindered.

But of course it should be clear that what we individuals do with, say, our week-end flights to the Bahamas (do you hear that, Mayor Michael Bloomberg?), passengers on planes that would fly anyway, should not at all be compared with what the puff-puff-hugely-puffing captains of industry are desired to do.

The moral seems to be -- and I agree entirely -- that individuals should never be discouraged from paying for the planting of trees -- so long as those individuals are not deceived into thinking that that automatically and simply "justifies" and "neutralizes" their earlier carbon-emission episode.

Thanks to Sammie, for more wisdom.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Sorry.  A kind editor would cut the accidental reduplication from the thread, seeing that it is really the fault of the unforgiving posting program.

Also, more importantly, the message from Sam Wells to which I was referring is on the "first rule" thread.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

The whole concept is fatally flawed.

Carbon "indulgencies" is more accurate.  A faulty excuse to expand ones carbon footprint without guilt.

The tree examples serve to illustrate the problematic nature of this approach.  The profit motive built into the offset concept encourages scamming.

A much better plan is to divert subsidies from carbon enabling industries and use them to incentivize carbon reducing technologies.  Converting government energy use to lower the carbon footprint and tax breaks to consumers for the purchase of devices like plugin hybrids, solar and wind systems, and geothermal heating/cooling is a much better plan.

Carbon taxes, carbon cap and trade schemes, and offsets only turn the social and political urge to cure GHG climate disaster into excuses to continue the status quo of bottomline corporatist bribery of corrupt governance.  

Stop blathering on about this nonsense and get to the heart of the matter of this energy revolution.  Real change.  In government and corporate policy.

Mass production of all the hardware to make this happen needs to start yesterday.  Government orders similar to the orders placed for jeeps, tanks, planes, ships, and guns in WW 2 war production need to be placed now for plugin hybrids, solar, wind, geothermal heating/cooling, distributed energy generation and storage grid control systems, and fuel cell biogas systems.

That would bring costs down along with payback periods, making investments by consumers lower living costs and raise quality of living, while at the same time using less energy and emitting less GHG.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I agree, mostly, with Dr. X.  Taxing coal is a half measure, perhaps too passive.  I would rather make coal illegal.  Offsets are like "let them eat cake" and throwing gold coins while our coach runs over their children.

Further, I wonder if trees can be scaled to make a meaningful difference.  There are limits and carbon emissions far exceed anything we can do to sequesture carbon.  The time delay of scale up is everything.  A similar problem exists with new renewable technology.  Solar and wind can be half the consumer cost of coal but require many decades to scale enough to make a difference.  

It would help to eliminate all subsidies, and eliminate government funding of favorite sons and daughters.  Basic research - yes.  Choosing technologies for massive deployment - no.  

Natural gas can scale quickly enough to make coal illegal without shutting down "the American way of life".  Once coal is dead we can focus on gas which is much easier to curtail site by site.

The oil fires are self extinguishing.

...then most people are stuck in the dark.  And you might want to go over to energybulletin.net and theoildrum.com to read up on natural gas, which looks like it might be peaking.  What's wrong with a massive program of rolling out solar and wind power?  it's certainly mature enough and doesn't require research before using.

Good essay overall, but ..

First, we continue to malign the general while citing specifics.  No universal proof or argument is offered.  Indeed there is none, based on science that "forests are bad."

Second, we malign two broad categories as "rare exceptions."  How many millions of square miles are available within these "rare" niches?

Third, we assume that the science is done, and the only exceptions to our universal rule have been found by past discovery (Black Swan problem).  We do not invite better plans, better species or habitat selection.

Fourth, we argue that Party A planting trees is pointless if Party B is still cutting trees.  This despite the fact that Party B might be cutting trees no matter what we do as activists ... and Party A might really offer the best chance of making up the difference.

Making coal illegal is not living in the dark

There is enough gas to stop coal expansion, then to begin early retirement of existing coal power plants.  Cogeneration with gas at industrial process heat sites could be very cost effective.

Displacing the equivalent of 20MM bbl per day with solar power at $200/m2 (very cost effective) would cost $3 trillion and require decades of growth.

We have crossed the coal bridge, burn it.  Once we cross the gas bridge into fields of solar then we can burn the gas bridge too.

Today would be a good day to plant a tropical tree in a temperate zone.

I used high-intensity pv numbers.  $100/m2 tracking mirrors (heliostats or dishes) which, in average climates, supplies the oil energy equivalent of 0.5bbl/m2/year.  (Colorado sun is 1 bbl/m2/year.)  This oil energy equivalent could be used to generate electrical power or engine power.  

Add $100/m2 aperture for 40% efficient pv from Spectrolab (10cm2 at $10/cm2 and 1000 sun intensity).  

$200/m2 is $0.60/Watt(e), about 10 times cheaper than rooftop pv.  The scale and capital required is enormous, even though it is cost effective.  Time will be required for growth to occur.  And we haven't even started yet.  Bush "zeroed-out solar concentrators".

Of course I meant current DEforestation in the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph.

Joe -
Your first argument against reforestation, that if I plant 1,000 acres in Brazil but don't know what happens in the rest of Brazil, by drawing circles around entire countries or companies would rule out anyone doing anything, including energy efficiency and renewable energy, which you support. It is utterly defeatist and the logic does not carry.

Carbon offsetting in a country and world with no international limits on CO2, is about me taking responsibility for me.

If I replace a 1995 Ford Mustang with a 2007 Prius, I have reduced my emissions. If I offset my emissions by buying certified tropical forest offsets from Brazil, I am offsetting my emissions, regardless of what the rest of Brazil does.

By saying buying a Prius is no good because it enables Toyota to sell three SUVs creates an unworkable logic. If I buy a CFL but my neighbor adds a outdoor light, was it useless for me to do so. Should I not buy a CFL until everyone in my utility district buys CFLs and reduces their emissions. Should we do nothing until the other utilties, states or countries do something? That is an irresponsible approach which, luckily, the European and Kyoto countries are not doing.

The problem with the logic is that you draw an artificial circle of emissions and then say until this circle reduces its emissions (Toyota's, America's, etc.) no one should do anything.

The fact is: until we have national or global legislation, the only person I can draw a circle around is me. And when I do (buy a Prius or any car over 27MPG, or a CFL or solar panels for my roof) I am having a direct impact in reducing my CO2 emissions.

Certainly, Joe, you believe that energy efficiency and renewable energy reduces or offsets CO2. Yet, by your logic, as long as emissions are increasing globally no one should do anything.

Jake

Romm makes a couple of necessary acknowledgments in his second posting.  Its true that certification won't be that easy- setting up a new global market is never easy.  These programs will take time.  As numerous individuals have pointed out, deforestation is a large component of anthropogenic CO2 generation.  To ignore it is insanity.  The global warming/carbon offset component in tropical deforestation is just a part of an issue that includes poverty, desertification, biodiversity, soil and water conservation.

A program of carbon offsets would be a voluntary, market-based incentive.  Certification would only occur at the behest of the participating country (from what I hear, Brasil is not interested at this point- the soybean market is too good).  The process would have to be wall-to-wall, that is  to say, covering forest gain and loss across the entire country.  Successful studies have already quantified biomass and carbon sequestration using field sampling and existing remote sensing technology.  Expanding the these techniques to certify is not nearly as expensive or remote as Romm plays it out to be. This is simply an excuse to avoid paying for a service (carbon sequestration) that is in increasingly short supply.

A personal experience here: In the early '70s, my farm was located on a small creek that was surrounded by large, old growth timber. I got rain when noone else did! Personal observation. The land was sold that had the timber and the timber was clear cut. My rainy streaks were gone!
A personal observation of what to me is happening world wide. We are not taking care of our planet and it is fixing to throw a hissy fit on us!!! May we be able to correct things before it is to late. If we all do one small thing, it might make a difference. If we all do big things, it will make a difference. A tree is a good thing, no ifs, ands or buts about it. By the way, how much electricity are we wasting by keeping our computers turned on to discuss this?

Farmer in the Dell

Hey, all:

Farmer, you bring one especially good point: trees are not a forest.  The single age, single species plantation crap that has been so proudly waved around suggests no understanding at all of the complexity of a forest.  Also, the great value of forests to moderate and modify local climates and help create precipitation has been lost by some of the so-called 'environmental engineers', who are generally worth about a dime a dozen.  Also lost by them, assuming they ever knew, is the vast intangible value of forests and the ecosystems that they are part of--not seeing the biodiversity for the trees.  

Referring to trees, and assuming that means a forest, indicates a short-circuit in the learning process that renders everything that follows suspect.  And making up rules for which there is no consensus suggests a level of hubris beyond understanding.  

What alarms me most of all is the assumption that all the environmental features of the planet are here for the aggrandizement and pleasure of man.  It makes me wonder what they think the forests and all the other vast ecosystems did until humans arose.  Just sigh and wait?

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!