So, the planet is warming up, fast. But no worries, right? Even the climate-change deniers and the carbon-spewing corporations who love them are on board now with the idea that we have to do something, right?
Except, well, they would rather that fixing the problem didn't cost anything. Better yet, they'd like a carbon cap-and-trade system that makes carbon emission credits really valuable, except that they get theirs for free, and other people give them money. Yeah. They'd be OK with that.
Incredible as it seems, this is actually the current level of the discussion about how we fix climate change in the United States at the moment. We appear to be in the delusional phase of dealing with the problem. There is a serious possibility that Obama's latest attempt to actually get something done is going to just kick the can down the road for another decade or so, blowing our last, best chance to prevent a catastrophic outcome (just to be clear here, we have already blown our last, best chance to prevent a serious outcome - we are now in damage control mode).
One of the ways to look good while doing nothing that you will be hearing a lot about in the coming months is the idea that we can just plant a lot of trees to fix the problem. This is actually a complicated issue, but the short version is that trees are good, more trees are better, and trees are not going to save us if we don't radically reduce our carbon emissions, soon.
A new report from the Collaborative Partnership on Forests lays out just how much trouble we are in:
The study notes the burning and destruction associated with deforestation is responsible for about 20 per cent of greenhouse gases.
"Forests absorb a quarter of all carbon emission, and as they begin to disappear or become net emitters, there will be a lot more carbon in the atmosphere," said Werner Kurz, senior research scientist for the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria.
-Vancouver Sun, April 17, 2009
Here's the money quote from the study:
Globally, forest ecosystems have difficulty adapting
to impacts from climate change according to
scenarios from cluster growth or fast growth, in
particular in submesic, semi-arid to arid climates,
where productivity may decline to an extent that
no longer supports forests or even trees. In such
cases forest systems will become grasslands, savannas,
or even deserts. In humid climates, forests
are projected to continue to grow or expand. The
overall balance is positive for scenarios at the
lower bounds, but tends towards a negative balance
for scenarios at the upper bounds of cluster
growth.
Several models project a significant risk
(>40%) of losing entirely current carbon-regulating
services, as land ecosystems turn globally into
a net source of carbon beyond a global warming of
3°C or more relative to pre-industrial levels. Such
effects are projected to be even more pronounced
in the next century, as development pathways from
the upper end of clusters growth and fast growth
are still far from having reached a new climate
equilibrium by ~2100.
Did you get that? Forests only work as net absorbers of carbon if they aren't sizzling like a sausage. On balance, if we heat up the planet as much as the mid-range forecast of the current projections in every scenario except the one where we start doing the right thing, right now, forests switch from being net carbon sinks to net carbon sources, accelerating runaway global warming.
Just in case you were thinking you could sit back and relax.