Global Warming | Fact or Fiction?

[Jeremy Mason]

It's possible that hemp could replace trees in the manufacturing of paper.

I think at one fifth the amount of acreage of forests and one fifth the pollution.

Also it can replace certian petroleum products.

Like the petroleum that oil companies hemorrhage in our ecosystems.

I wouldn't say that hemp production would save the planet on its own but it certainly could have an impact.

A wonderful impact.

 

[Alceste]

I think at one fifth the amount of acreage of forests and one fifth the pollution.

Definitely interested in trying my hand at hemp farming if I have the chance. It's an amazing plant.

 

[work in progress]

Is that a problem with the idea of offsets or with the application.
Either way, it's going to take a lot of different tactics to get us to where we need to be. There isn't a single solution to the problem.

wa:do

But carbon offsets may not be doing anything more than allowing some companies to buy their way out of serious efforts to reduce their real carbon footprint. When it comes to tree-planting as an offset strategy, trees take years to fully grow and absorb any significant amount of carbon. There's no real guarantees that the newly planted trees will be protected from destruction years in the future, and again - there are the issues of conflicts with indigenous land rights and cutting down forests to plant monocultures of certain trees.

I see this as similar to trading carbon credits instead of just shifting the tax burden to taxing carbon directly. There are a number of banks and other corporations who see money-making opportunities in a carbon trading market. It's easy to see how these structures could just end up as new business ventures and end up doing little or nothing to achieve the intended goals.

 

[work in progress]

I think at one fifth the amount of acreage of forests and one fifth the pollution.



Like the petroleum that oil companies hemorrhage in our ecosystems.



A wonderful impact.

Don't know much about hemp, but if these numbers are real, I'm all for it!

 

[Thief]

Nope. Mostly I'm talking about timber grown for the paper industry. Pine grows fast and its harvested then replanted. The trees are turned into paper which holds the carbon. Some go into pine furniture. This is a cyclic system which is self sustaining.

As for old growth, I'm against logging it mostly because I love trees and a truly old forest is just too cool to cut. But when it comes to carbon, you would scrub more from the atmosphere if you cut the old growth and planted new. Old growth trees don't scrub near as much as new growth does. But as I said, I prefer to keep the old growth trees. As for the acres and acres of pines planted by the paper company, I say keep on cutting.

Did you get the part in my previous post?...
There is only one valley of old growth left.
It's part of public land and the loggers will eventually get their saws on it.

The replants won't mature until we are dead.

In the meantime fossil fuel, is soaking our air.

Paper?...it's takes the pulp of a full grown fir to make one Sunday tribune.
The bulk of the tree is lumber.
(we should be planting hemp for paper....the Declaration of Independence was wrote on such stuff)

Without the green stuff, the pollution will continue to outrun this planet's ability to recycle in a natural way.

Carbon emissions are not the only factor in global warming.

Once the glacier fresh water runs into the ocean the temperature changes there too.

The global rotation of water is even a greater factor than the atmosphere.

 

[Reverend Rick]

But carbon offsets may not be doing anything more than allowing some companies to buy their way out of serious efforts to reduce their real carbon footprint.

There are a number of banks and other corporations who see money-making opportunities in a carbon trading market. It's easy to see how these structures could just end up as new business ventures and end up doing little or nothing to achieve the intended goals.

The intended goals of trading carbon offsets would be to make money and little else. :sorry1:

The by-product would be feeling all warm and fuzzy when we rape the planet.

 

[painted wolf]

But carbon offsets may not be doing anything more than allowing some companies to buy their way out of serious efforts to reduce their real carbon footprint. When it comes to tree-planting as an offset strategy, trees take years to fully grow and absorb any significant amount of carbon. There's no real guarantees that the newly planted trees will be protected from destruction years in the future, and again - there are the issues of conflicts with indigenous land rights and cutting down forests to plant monocultures of certain trees.

Those monoculture forests aren't really for carbon offsets so much as for local economics.... as they are almost always oil palms... currently in vogue in the biofuel industry. Cutting forests in the name of cutting fossil fuel consumption.

I see this as similar to trading carbon credits instead of just shifting the tax burden to taxing carbon directly. There are a number of banks and other corporations who see money-making opportunities in a carbon trading market. It's easy to see how these structures could just end up as new business ventures and end up doing little or nothing to achieve the intended goals.

I agree. But the point remains that not every positive change is going to be radical or enough by itself.

wa:do

 

[Alceste]

The intended goals of trading carbon offsets would be to make money and little else. :sorry1:

The by-product would be feeling all warm and fuzzy when we rape the planet.

I actually agree that monetizing environmentalism and trying to solve the emissions problem with capitalism is a recipe for disaster.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

Maurice Strong ring any bells?

 

[painted wolf]

Maurice Strong ring any bells?

A good reason to be pessimistic and conclude governments will never be able to solve this problem.

Either local communities will or.... we have to face the possibility that we are in for as the Chinese proverb goes... "interesting times".

wa:do

 

[Jeremy Mason]

A good reason to be pessimistic and conclude governments will never be able to solve this problem.

Either local communities will or.... we have to face the possibility that we are in for as the Chinese proverb goes... "interesting times".

wa:do

Those wily Chinese. :yes:

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

we have to face the possibility that we are in for as the Chinese proverb goes... "interesting times".

wa:do

Proverb or curse, I think the times they are a changing.

(Hows that for Asian Western Fusion?)

 

[Jeremy Mason]

And Maurice Strong lives in China.

 

[work in progress]

Those monoculture forests aren't really for carbon offsets so much as for local economics.... as they are almost always oil palms... currently in vogue in the biofuel industry. Cutting forests in the name of cutting fossil fuel consumption.

I agree. But the point remains that not every positive change is going to be radical or enough by itself.

wa:do

The problem is that if an international carbon trading system allowed planting monoculture forests to be used in calculating a company's carbon footprint, then a carbon offsets strategy could end up with the same debacle as counting corn-based ethanol as a biofuel.

The problem is that the green capitalists' solutions are going to range from weak to outright worse than doing nothing! I see the do-gooder green capitalists, who believe that profit-incentives will solve all of our climate and environmental problems, as proposals that won't provide necessary benefits in time; and I believe there are many outright charlatans (like Goldman-Sachs) among that group who are trying to drive us towards carbon offset and cap and trade schemes that could end up making things worse.

 

[work in progress]

The intended goals of trading carbon offsets would be to make money and little else. :sorry1:

The by-product would be feeling all warm and fuzzy when we rape the planet.

That's why it's carbon tax or nothing! With the situation the world is in today, there's no excuse for allowing our waters and atmosphere to be used as a free garbage dump.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

That's why it's carbon tax or nothing! With the situation the world is in today, there's no excuse for allowing our waters and atmosphere to be used as a free garbage dump.

Are you for carbon tax?

 

[Alceste]

Are you for carbon tax?

I am. We tax smokers, don't we?

 

[Jeremy Mason]

I am. We tax smokers, don't we?

I like the idea, but carbon taxes are, eventually, just another tax on the poor.

Where would the tax money go? This is an international tax right?

 

[Alceste]

I like the idea, but carbon taxes are, eventually, just another tax on the poor.

Where would the tax money go? This is an international tax right?

I suppose, ideally, the world's governments would ratify a treaty setting a fixed carbon tax rate per tonne of carbon emissions. That would take care of the childish unwillingness to act unless others act first. The administration of the tax and resulting revenue should be left to individual nations and the tax should be levied at the point of production rather than consumption to maximize revenue and minimize the cost of administration. The revenue should be used to pay down national debt so we are not all serfs to the new feudal lords of Wall Street any more. If there is anything left over it should be spent on maintaining existing infrastructure (which is crumbling across North America), and to research zero carbon energy and transportation alternatives.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

I suppose, ideally, the world's governments would ratify a treaty setting a fixed carbon tax rate per tonne of carbon emissions. That would take care of the childish unwillingness to act unless others act first. The administration of the tax and resulting revenue should be left to individual nations and the tax should be levied at the point of production rather than consumption to maximize revenue and minimize the cost of administration. The revenue should be used to pay down national debt so we are not all serfs to the new feudal lords of Wall Street any more. If there is anything left over it should be spent on maintaining existing infrastructure (which is crumbling across North America), and to research zero carbon energy and transportation alternatives.

So each country would tax its own carbon and not a multinational agency?