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

bringing my kid to one

[falkryn]

I've been using linux for a few years now, and am a sys admin in likewise at a uni. That said, apart from trying to co-found one at the college I went to (didn't really pan out to much while I was there), I'd never been to a LUG.

Just recently however I started attending the one in my city, to bring my oldest there (7 years old). It's really wonderful, gives us some nice time together, and exposes him to linux and part of linux culture. After the first time (which was an installfest, where some fellow there let him play a bunch of linux games on his box) my son asks about going ahead of time and looks forward to it. If something less than interesting for a seven year old is being discussed, I just bring my lappie with free games on it anyhow to keep him entertained (loves wesnoth). That and the the free food of course ;-)