Careful Where You Put That Tree

Ant writes "Wired News is reporting that according to Stanford University's atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira, forests in the wrong location can actually make the Earth hotter. From the article: 'Plants absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, so scientists and policy makers have long assumed new forest growth helps combat global warming. At an American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco earlier this month, however, Caldeira rolled out a provocative new finding: Trees may be good at capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but their dark leaves are also very efficient at soaking up sunlight, which is later released as heat. At certain latitudes, the net effect of these two processes is warming, rather than cooling.'"

Comments

right but..

[Danzigism]

Of course, but cutting down trees certainly won't save the environment either.. Trees do not deplete our ozone.. they simply freshen the air, and clear up part of the atmosphere where smog, and other air pollution rests..

a big part of their argument is that the smog acts almost as if its sunblock.. ultimately making the temperature on earth cooler.. but you can't honestly say, that we need to pollute more, just so we can have our sunblock on ;-) we need to be thinking LONGTERM which is the most important factor.. yes, if we slowly decrease our use of gas-guzzlin' bitches, it will get hotter on earth.. if we plant trees, it will clean up the polluted air which acts as our sunblock, making the earth much hotter.. but hey, we better start now, because it'll be twice as hot, if we wait too long..

That's interesting.

[RoffleTheWaffle]

That makes a lot of sense, but I have to wonder if other dark things we tend to place in the sun aren't in fact contributing a great deal to the global warming problem, in addition to other factors such as greenhouse gases... I wonder how much more heat is retained in areas with tar roofs and black-top streets and parking lots, as opposed to areas with gravel and dirt roads and shingled/fiberglass roofs.

That aside, this is a very interesting finding. There's no doubt in my mind that the logging industry will use this as an excuse to ramp up production in the face of opposition from environmentalists, but it could also be useful in helping us understand how to control our own climate naturally. Maybe certain kinds of trees and plants reflect more heat than others. Maybe certain arrangements and placements of trees and plants are cooler or hotter than others. Landscaping for climate control, anyone?

Bottom line

[Stan Vassilev]

Black cars and clothes are the reason for global warming. There we go.

But, honestly, even though it may be true, and if it's a lie, then in every lie there's a bit of truth... it just sounds more like an excuse for ecoligal negligence more than anything.

"Hey check it out, SOME trees COULD be bad, so feel free to cut 'em all".