"Not sure. Humans run on food calories; their conversion efficiency is lower than that of car engines."

So, are you suggesting that human-powered agriculture is impossible because humans and their draft animals consume more food energy than they can grow?

I'm glad all the world's farmers that profitably produced food for the thousands of years before mechanization hadn't concluded that.

PatriotisVeritas

While each CFL does not save that much, they do save money AND energy. Even if you keep a light on 4 hours per day, that means (45 watts X 4 hours X 365 days/year)/1000 watthrs/kWhr = 65 kWhrs/year X $0.10 /kWhr = $6.5 saved which more than pays for the bulb. Since that bulb will last at least 6 more years, it will save another $40, not counting the additional cost of the 10 incandescent bulbs you would need to buy.

Now if each person replaces 4 bulbs X 100,000,000 people This leads to a savings of 400,000,000 X 65 kWhrs/year = 26,000,000,000 kWhrs saved, which means 26 million tons less CO2. Certainly this is a significant amount.

While these bulbs would contain 14,000 pounds of mercury, that is less than half of the mercury that coal plants would emit, and this mercury would not be as available to do damage.

I was actually referring to the fact that we can, instead of using all of the resources we poured into our army to secure oil in a foreign country, use those same resources to build a clean energy infrastructure in the United States (wind, water, solar, geothermal). It won't take as many resources or as much time or as many lives as Iraq has.

Then again, maybe the beast demands that blood be spilled and power be centralized, although this internet thing seems to spread knowledge and ideas pretty fast.

Search and you will find.

But isn't it interesting that the snow always lasts longer in the woods than it does in the fields?

The Global Warming catastrophe hasn't really very much to do with science, the globe might be getting warmer, but the sun's cycles have a lot more to do with that than we do.

Yes, we should stop polluting our air when burning fossil fuels.
Yes, we should switch over to new technology which produces electricity without overtaxing limited resources.
Yes, it will cost us dearly to change our energy system. Yes, we will have to work hard, making sacrifices along the way in order to build the necessary infrastructure.
Yes, we should try to build a decentralized energy grid. Yes, we should start driving electric cars.
Yes, we should demand that energy companies stop gouging us and make them give up their monopolies on power.

This has a lot more to do with freedom, independence and democratic principles than it has to do with the temperature of the earth.

When we finally decentralize energy production, then and only then will we truly see what freedom is.

No, we shouldn't get hysterical. This is not the end of the world, in fact, I think it might just be the dawn.

If we can put so many resources and young people to war, trying to take over a country for its energy resources, we sure can bring them home and use the same resources to build a clean, green and fruitful future instead.

Clean Construction, not dirty destruction.

So go ahead and plant as many trees as you like.

Trees may not reflect as much light as sand or snow but it is always cooler in the forest. It seems to me that the processing of that non-reflected energy may be missing in this equation. This report needs more study but no doubt the corporatists will use it for their own anti-environmental purposes.

I am concerned with the growing consensus for energy efficient light bulbs--they are hazardous wastes as they all contain mercury. Has anyone thought through the real consequences of encouraging the general population to buy them and assume they will all be disposed of properly? This has all the ring of becoming one of those unintended consequences not too far down the road.

longingforsanity

The small amount of mercury is less than the mercury emitted from coal fired powerplants. Also, this mercury, even if placed in a landfill, will not travel very far.

See the following web page

http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf

Also, CFLs will reduce other pollutants from coal and other powerplants, and from making 10 incandescent lamps instead of one CFL.

The light-bulb thing is especially funny considering the electricity for one normal 60 Watt light-bulb costs at the most 30 dollars per year!

I mean, what is the deal here, really? You do the math. 365 days a year, 24 hours in a day, times 60 Watts. Take away 3 decimal places and multiply what you pay per kWh. And that is if you keep the light on, ALL THE TIME...

And if these energy efficient light bulbs contain hazardous wastes, we are again poisoning our environment for no reason. We can produce that amount of energy every year to keep our lights on. We are wasting a lot more energy by not keeping the electricity grid up to date and in good shape.

Probably paying too much in PR about changing our light bulbs too.

I do think we should work with energy conservation, although a bigger help may be to look at alternative air-conditioning solutions, (they do exist, and if you can't find them, open your windows, you will surely find them there).

"Captain, any action we take will affect the balance of power."-Tovek

"Replacing CO2-producing energy with human energy technologies"

Not sure. Humans run on food calories; their conversion efficiency is lower than that of car engines.
In the West, a food calory is produced at the expense of several (up to 10) CO2-producing fossil fuel calories...

...at any rate tne next thing is LED lighting - an order of magnitude more efficient than even CF's - and no mercury.

PJD said,"So, are you suggesting that human-powered agriculture is impossible because humans and their draft animals consume more food energy than they can grow?"

It takes about 4 acres to feed a horse. If we switch back to animal power we need to cut out people.

Without oil, or an equivalent replacement, the world can only support between 100 million and 2 billion people.

Unles someone invents effective fusion power, the human race MUST shrink in size! This is NOT an option.

PatriotisVeritas

You have the right idea, but in the interim, we need to use what we have.

I think someone said "We face the energy and environmental problems with the infrastructure we have, not the infrastructure we wish we had." ;>)

There are so many things each one of us can do to save energy thus produce less CO2 etc.
We talk about snow refecting heat back into space. How many people actually have White roofs? How many people just throw away all the packaging without tearing it it up first?
Come on you know you do not recycle even though you tell everyone you do. Just the act of shredding all your pasper products can save you the cost of many trash bags a year.
I have gone and use 1 small store shopping bag for one weeks trash, just by tearing it up into small pieces and taking all the air out of those hard to get rid of plastic containers.Other things you can do ? have less lawn and more garden. If you have shade trees around you home keep them. They will save you energy. oh and things like a Tree windbreak which have been around forever STILL WORK./Them old canvas Awnings we use to put abovve our windows to block out the sun actually create a cool breeze because of the shade and your open window. No it iisn't Air conditioning Bigtime but it will do its bit on a hot day.Oh and anyone remember Rain Barrels? A way you can water your garden.
And how about winding down you car window when driving on a hot day?It works and you do not feel as bad when you leave you car as you do if you use air conditioning.
another thing FRONT PORCHES. Nobody builds them anymore,but they work much like those Awnings do. And you get the benefit of sitting out and seeing and talking to your neighbors yet. Come on now you try and think of more things we can all do to save Energy?
A tip most of them will save you money, so you can save that to pay for you Medical insurance.Remember we can do our part causing less CO2 to release. For instance the only electric I am using now is that of my refrigerater ,very smaall water heater and for this computer. Even my clocks all run bby battery. Look around in your home what all electric things do you have online this instant?Cut them back and you started saving as simple as that.
as far as trees? I got several robins that kind of want to use my three oak trees this spring.A few Grey Squirrels would be highly upset if those accorns were missing next year.
Trees anywhere lower my Blood Pressure which probably save this planet a few extra litres of my co2

The warming effect of trees in temperate zones is grim news. But what about the tremendous offsets of replanting forests: the increased water retention combatting drought, the increased soil fertility, the greater supply of wood for buildings and artifacts? No, I doubt that the answer we want is to let temperate forests disappear.

ejmurphy,

I don't find the temperate forest argument convincing. The forests have always been there, at least in interglacial epochs, and so are a constant in the equation. This is radically different from the burning of fossil fuels, in which carbon that has not participated in the Earth's climate in recent epochs is injected into the atmosphere. Furthermore, the forests absorb carbon dioxide. This is also something of a constant, but is a factor that offsets the heating effect caused by the lower albeido of forested areas. Finally, if anything, there is less temperate forest now than in past millenia, yet the temperature continues to climb, showing that the increasing carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere dominates as a warming factor.

I think my trees can rest easy -- at least until we've sucked down all the oil and crisped al the coal. After that, we might be needing some firewood.

Webster defines tundra as "treeless plains of the arctic region" for good reason; the ground is permafrost and will not support tree growth. Dr. Bala's suggestion that planting trees above 50 degrees latitude will cover tundra is one of many details upon which his research erred or simply ignored. Other research has shown that variations of flora and topography have be a greater influence than color.

Although computer modelling is a first step in conducting this research, extensive field work is required to address the many variables and draw meaningful conclusions. Hopefully the National Academy of Scientists labelled this work as PRELIMINARY FINDINGS (underlined in bold capitals)to assure readers that no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from it.

Irrespective of the effects of this article on the carbon-offset game, lets hope that tree planting continues.

This really makes me curious as to how they created this model. College botany tells me that plants convert sunlight to sugar, not heat. Ever felt a hot leaf?????

Some one earlier mentioned how the neanderthals will latch on to this one for their arguments; can't wait to hear the spin!!!!

jonesie

The model involves the albedo (refletivity) of the Earth. A tree absorbs more light than sand or grass. Only a small portion of the light (less than 3%) is used in photosynthesis. The rest turns into heat. The leaf does not feel warm because some moisture evaporates and the leave has a large surface area so it heats the air.

Dr. Bala is concerned with global warming only. That sort of short-sightedness ignores the vital gas exchange between plants and animals that allows Earth to support life itself. Long before we suffer the big melt, we will suffocate from an ever-changing atmosphere and a lack of oxygen. New forests will produce more cloud cover and more rain, and that will off-set a worldwide temperature increase.

John Thomas Ellis

I wonder what grant he was applying for when he wrote that sceanerio.
Give Me A Break

Trees leaves absorb the sun's rays, leaving the ground below them cool. In the winter time, when the trees loose their leaves their trunks and branches alone create enough shade to prevent the snow from melting weeks and even monthes longer than a vacant lot.
More than two decades ago, Ronald Reagan was quoted as saying, "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles". The majority of the world at that time laughed at his logic, yet now it is fast becoming the mantra of global warming science. Promoting this utiliarian logic through science relieves the guilt of the consumer/public and gives a great excuse to the industrialist who more than likely funded the work of Dr. Balas. It encourages people to invest in products like CFLs, and windpower (which by the way are atop treeless mountains and fields), and forgets any purpse for life other than buying and selling products. Afterall, trees just aren't that profitable.

Much of the sunlight absorbed by tree leaves is converted to chemical energy for the tree's bio-machinery and processes. The remainder absorbed becomes heat, yet much of that is converted to mechanical in transpiration. The amount remaining to heat up the environment is not much, as we can sense by the temperature in the woods. Maybe the extra water vapor transpired by trees increases the greenhouse effect.

In the meadows, most of which were cleared by humans, temperatures are significantly hotter than in the woods. That's because the grass is a far better conductor of heat to the ground, which holds heat, and because the grass transpires far less moisture. Reflection is probably much less relevant than conduction and transpiration. Trees absorb far more carbon than grass, and convert it to tons of wood.

So it seems that trees do much more than grass to mitigate global warming. Even if trees do less, they still have huge benefits over grass. Trees build soil, and regulate temps, humidity, wind, and light. Trees support ecosystems of many more species than grass. Trees are far more productive than small plants, and trees mitigate the urban heat island effect.

Industrial agriculture consumes gargantuan amounts of fossil fuel, materials, chemicals, complex industrial processes, research and production labor, and transport/processing systems and infrastructure, and much more, only to achieve 1/3 of tree yields per acre, and only 1/30 (rough guess) of tree yields per unit of total inputs. This amounts to a mind-boggling waste of resources. A truly advanced civilization fully utilizes trees. Check with the indigenous tribes worldwide.

I read these comments and fear for the future. What a pathetic discourse. People who know very little about science speculate as a means of dismissing this research rather than considering the implications if it proves to be accurate. And then a lengthy exchange about the ecological value of fluorescent bulbs when lighting represents a minor fraction of our energy consumption.

If progressives can't do any better than this, I'm voting Republican in the next Presidential election...and buying a Hummer to drive around town.

Good posts all. Am I alone in thinking that much of the reporting on environmental issues coming out of GB is even whackier and more sensationalist than here in the U.S.?

Yes the report should have large cautionary disclaimers and I also wonder at the incompleteness of the modelling.

The only point not brought out by the other posts that I could think of is this: assuming that this one effect considered in isolation is true, the problem with CO2 is its heat capacity; less CO2 in the atmosphere should(?) allow more of the heat generated at the canopy during the daytime to dissipate more effectively at night.

It's time for those busy-body scientists to invent whiter trees.

IT DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU LIVE. Burning trash with trees all around is better than using landfills. Septic tanks at the beach are no good. Trees below fifty degrees north latitude are preferable to an acre of grass with a cow on it. The more trees in the tropics the better.

I think you are reading more into this than was intended. They were just trying to throw some cold water on the idea of buying "carbon offsets" in the form of tree planting to allow a continued guilt-free American lifestyle.

But, in the W. Pennsylvania where I live, I've never seen this effect of snow staying around longer in (mostly deciduous) woodlands than fields; if anything bare ground appears faster under trees compared to rolling grassy hills, since non-wooded, south facing hillsides get some additional snowpack from drifting. The higher wooded ridges or plateau-land stay white longer because more snow falls higher up.

Also, I have been following the N. American snow cover on the real-time GOES weather satellite images you can get here:

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/east/latest_eastvis.gif

With a little practice it is usually easy to distinguish winter snow cover from cloud cover. And, yes, the whiteness of the snow covered earths surface is dramatically greater in non-wooded areas compared to between wooded areas. That represents a lot of energy getting reflected into space. If it is still clear tomorrow morning, open this site and you will notice the quite-snowy Adirondacks and Tug Hill plateau as a dark circular blobs against the surrounding snow covered non-wooded areas in upper NY State. And the N. Ontario/Quebec north woods are quit dark. Only the white flecks from the lakes showing the obvious presence of snow cover.

But, many middle latitude areas aren't continuously snow covered for more than a few weeks out of the year, so the effect can be small. Nobody is asking you to chop down any trees! But, those that are thinking they can offset their obscene vehicle usage by planting trees should consider getting rid of the vehicle instead.

Who paid for this study, the logging industry? I don't buy their conclusion that trees cause more warming. They insulate the ground from the extremes of direct sunlight and only the top canopy is actually heated by the sun. Of course they may retain a certain amount of warmth overnight, but bare ground, pavement and masonry radiate a higher amount of heat for a longer period. And the humidity determines how much is retained at the lower levels too.
I agree we should all be concerned about any contaminants that get thrown into landfills. And if people really wanted to, it wouldn't take much effort for them to recycle these products. But billions of fluorescent tubes and other forms have already been discarded in landfills over the past 70 years. So as for worrying about the mercury in the new fluorescent lamps, the benefits in saved energy and money to the consumer is now worth the investment.
I just replaced all of my lighting with these bulbs and they're said to last 9-10 years, and that's three times longer than my tubes last. At less than $2 per bulb they use about 1/4 the energy of incandescents. When they burn out, I'll do the same thing I've been doing with my fluorescent tubes. I recycle them.
Maybe if we offer a redemption fee for turning bulbs like they do with bottles it could help to cut down on this problem.

I am convinced this study is fraught with caveats. Trees COMBAT Global Warming by sequestering carbon and combatting heat island effect through shade and transpiration.

When I saw the headlines for this story, I thought someone peeled the scab off of the Max Planck tree canopy methane story. Without initially revealing the entire story - that the green house gas effect of the methane is compensated hundreds of times over by CO2 sequestration - neocon pundits jumped all over the possibility that trees might contribute to global warming. They were wrong, of course, because they don't read much beyond the headlines, but then neither do most other people.

It seems to me that a lot of people are putting words in the authors' mouths. My understanding is that they're not, in any way, saying that any existing trees are bad, or contribute to global warming. They're not condemning trees or their preservation, but simply the attempt to reduce the impact of our fossil fuel consumption indirectly through the planting of trees (outside of specified latitudes), as opposed to directly through modification of our behaviors.

It's redundant to address comments directly with the excerpts from the text commented upon, but the authors' words say it best.

John Thomas Ellis stated:
"Dr. Bala is concerned with global warming only. That sort of short-sightedness ignores the vital gas exchange between plants and animals that allows Earth to support life itself. Long before we suffer the big melt, we will suffocate from an ever-changing atmosphere and a lack of oxygen. New forests will produce more cloud cover and more rain, and that will off-set a worldwide temperature increase."

and

ejmurphy414 stated:
"The warming effect of trees in temperate zones is grim news. But what about the tremendous offsets of replanting forests: the increased water retention combatting drought, the increased soil fertility, the greater supply of wood for buildings and artifacts? No, I doubt that the answer we want is to let temperate forests disappear."

- apparently ignoring that:
'Dr Bala added: "Apart from their role in altering the planet's climate, forests are valuable in many other aspects. Forests provide natural habitat to plants and animals, preserve the biodiversity, produce economically valuable timber and firewood, protect watersheds and indirectly prevent ocean acidification."'

The idea that these guys have vested interests in cutting down forests ("Who paid for this study, the logging industry?") is also adequately addressed in the text:

"Dr Caldeira warned that chopping down trees outside the tropics was not a good idea. "Preservation of ecosystems is a primary goal of preventing global warming, and the destruction of ecosystems to prevent global warming would be a counterproductive and perverse strategy."

Our cynicism is highly selective. We're willing to accept, on faith alone, conclusions that fit with our opinions and hopes. It is nearly impossible, however, to convince us of anything counter to our impressions.

I'm very skeptical about this report. It goes against the historical record. According to the book 1491, in 1491 there were more North Americans than Europeans. After accidentally introduced pathogens wiped out 98% of the indigenous population (who managed the land by burning), the land was overgrown with vegetation, and, maybe not coincidentally, the world was plunged into a mini-Ice Age.

Not until the descendants of Europeans re-cleared out the landscape did the world's temperature return to normal.

Are we talking conifers (evergreens) or deciduous trees here? Deciduous trees don't absorb much sun in winter, allowing the snow cover below to reflect sunlight. In summer, when their leaves are out, the same trees provide shade, keeping the ground cool. But really folks, who let this article get on this website? Haven't you read about how the CIA plants stories in the press?

Love genaman's comments. I do really recycle tho.
This article really caught my eye, which is the whole purpose, I suppose.
I live in So Cal, and have a canyon in the back yard. While the trees are non-native, they provide a lot of cooling shade in the summer. I don't have air conditioning, and have just bought energy efficient windows said to reduce radiation heat to almost nothing. I will put in a couple more ceiling fans, but no AC.
Out here, the alternative to planting trees would be planting no trees. And there are a lot of people who would like to see all the trees in the neighborhood cut down, because they're a fire hazard, albeit uncommon in densely populated areas.
Besides the additional radiant heat in treeless areas, erosion is always a serious problem out here.
Obviously you can spin facts together to produce any kind of fantastic conclusion you want. I think this Dr Bala may simply be looking for publicity.

I would like to add my 2 cents. No one seems to really know where half of all the worlds carbon has gone. I recall reading that estimates of the worlds air content of CO2 should be almost double. Is it possibly trapped in soft drinks and beer. Please, somebody help me get published. If I can get some grants, I'd then like to write about sequestering carbon through growing yeast.

Yen, I know more than you think

This is one study folks! Yet everyone in the Blog-o-sphere is running with it like it the final word on the subject.

A recent report from M J Bradley and Associates found serious flaws in the Livermore Report and the conclusions being draw.

On a common sense level it is silly to think that reconstituting our forests will have a negative effect on our climate.

From M J Bradley:

he authors then compared these results with another consequence of growing forests: the fact that trees sequester CO2, thereby reducing the greenhouse or warming effect of the gas. By itself, the lower CO2 levels resulting from tree growth would lead to cooling-by 3.5° C globally, with the replacement of all grassland and croplands by trees. However, as the authors have concluded, the albedo effect of forestation (net of evapotranspiration) leads to warming. So this leaves the question as to whether the change in albedo or the effect of sequestering CO2 would dominate.

The study concludes that the answer depends on the time frame. Over the short term (i.e., decades), planting forests is likely to have a cooling effect on the climate, as the trees sequester atmospheric CO2 and reduce the warming effect of the gas. This cooling overcomes the warming attributable to the decreased albedo (again, net of evapotranspiration) that results from the forest growth-but for only so long. According to the authors, although the albedo effect is permanent, atmospheric CO2 concentrations equilibrate over time (in part because of the interaction of ocean and atmosphere), so that after about 80 years global forestation would produce net warming.

The authors suggest that this study has important policy implications, "since incentives for tree plantations in mid- and high latitudes [i.e., temperate and boreal regions], may, on long time-scales, produce the opposite effect to that desired." Yet although the study raises questions about the efficacy of planting trees as a strategy to address climate change, it is worth keeping at least three items in mind.

First, as the authors themselves observe, the simulations conducted in this study are entirely unrealistic. They write:

Our goal here is not to reproduce the observed pattern of land cover change, nor to realistically simulate possible future scenarios, but rather to bracket the magnitude of temperature change that is possible in the climate system due to changes in land cover.

Second, the study reaches significantly different conclusions as to tree planting in the boreal and temperate zones. The albedo effect appears to result in much more significant warming in the far North than in the temperate zones. The authors recommend further study to evaluate whether forestation in the mid-latitudes can actually mitigate climate change.

Third, the study, like some previous ones, suggests that forestation in tropical zones would lead to cooling because, unlike in temperate zones, evapotranspiration dominates over albedo in these areas, even in the long run. Therefore, even if it turns out that forests in temperate and boreal regions cause warming in the long term, that may not be the case in the tropics.

On going discussion of the topic at:

http://ecopreservationsociety.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/does-reforestation-contribute-to-global-warming-part-1/

http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?t=2407&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Lots of useful opinion there. As the director of an offset treeplanting company(Treeflights)that plants mostly in temperate latitudes,I can say that this research has had a profound and negative effect upon our project. However,having read the research I believe that in general terms it will be borne out by further investigation so we need to take it seriously.

There are any number of oversimplifications, areas of inaccuracy and other errors in the original work but it is likely that planting in the tropics will have the strongest cooling effect so we should concentrate on planting there. This is not to say that we shouldn't plant in temperate regions but that if we do, we have to be a bit more careful than we have been in the past.

If you are planting out of the tropics plant 'High Albedo' varieties such as ash and birch that dont have leaf at all for most of the year and dont create a dense dark canopy, leave plenty of open space between the trees for 'albedo cooling',plant a wide variety of species thus ensuring that they mature at different times and dont create the closed canopy that is described in the research as being the source of the warming.

Finally and most importantly, if you are planting offset trees in high latitudes make sure that you are choosing deciduous hardwood varieties that on harvest can be converted to timber thereby locking up their absorbed carbon for the very long term.If you do this and harvest the trees when they approach maturity i.e. just BEFORE they create the dense foliage of a closed canopy then you will be removing them just before they become warming.

We CAN have our cake and eat it too. Temperate treeplanting can be cooling if it is done with sensitivity and reference to our evolving understanding of how forests affect climate. Lots more on this subject here: http://www.treeflights.com/faqs.html#section16