5 ms·

> With forrest fires, unless there is burial and no regrowth, we are very much looking at the surface carbon cycle; trees grow (capturing carbon), burn (releasi

> With forrest fires, unless there is burial and no regrowth, we are very much looking at the surface carbon cycle; trees grow (capturing carbon), burn (releasing carbon), cycle, repeat. The point is that this cycle isn't anywhere close to 100% efficient and takes orders of magnitude more time to reverse than the time it took to burn it. On top of that, atmospheric CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere and is incredibly difficult and grotesquely inefficient to remove. As I mention in another comment, here in SoCal we recently had a fire --one of many-- that took out over 5000 acres in a matter of two to four days. The recovery of that land, the regrowth, will likely take twenty years (how long does a mature tree take to grow?). The CO2 released in that short event will take orders of magnitude more time to be re-captured. It doesn't hang around over the burn area waiting to be absorbed. The natural rate of change for atmospheric CO2 concentration reduction is in the order of 1 ppm per 1000 years. That figure comes out of ice core sample data, which is very accurate. Anything that claims a significant improvement to that rate of change must come with equally significant proof. We have people claiming we can drop atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm in twenty years. Put a different way, they are saying they can do what nature does in 100K years in just 20. This is a rate of change with a slope 5000 times faster than the natural rate...and nobody seems interested in questioning it. It's one thing to achieve this in a lab experiment. Quite another at a planetary scale. And so, my point, with regards to forest fires, is two fold: The net effect is the same, meaning, CO2 in the atmosphere. Second, the CO2 generated per unit time isn't recovered at the same rate. It is recovered orders of magnitude slower. Therefore, forest fires are likely just as damaging (in terms of atmospheric CO2 accumulation) as burning any other fuel.

defrost 4y ago
I'm more or less with you until: >> Therefore, forest fires are likely just as damaging (in terms of atmospheric CO2 accumulation) as burning any other fuel. On a natural scale (100 years as a base unit) they are distinct from the carbon dragged up and released from where it was buried millions++ of years ago. As far as human activity goes we as a global race do need to put back forest growth we've clear felled, drop our ongoing and ever increasing emmissions, and claw back through capture the excess we have emitted in the past century. This will take both time and significant mindset change; the myth of unlimited growth as 'good capitalis' needs to die. On the matter of time scales, here's a nice bit of work revealing a 14 million year wet woodland mass emerging from a receding sea: Research reveals secrets hidden in Nullarbor’s not-so-featureless plains https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-09-08/nullarbor-plain-ancient-reef-discovered-3d-satellite-data/101412192 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-09-08/nullarbor-pla... https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.5459 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.5459
- robomartin 4y ago
  No, I think we agree. > On a natural scale (100 years as a base unit) they are distinct from the carbon dragged up and released from where it was buried millions++ of years ago. Of course. Where they are no different from each other is that, once in the atmosphere, it makes no difference which one you have, you are growing a blanket over the planet. This is why I say it is just as damaging. CO2, regardless of source, "sticks" to the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. Same effect. > As far as human activity goes we as a global race do need to put back forest growth we've clear felled Definitely > drop our ongoing and ever increasing emmissions Agreed > and claw back through capture the excess we have emitted in the past century That would be nice. I have yet to see any evidence that we can really do this at a planetary scale. In the lab? Sure. Planet? At this stage, I don't see any evidence of that being possible. Lots of purported solutions; none seem to pass the planetary scale physics test. > This will take both time and significant mindset change The part where I hyperventilate is the time element. We actually have politicians pushing the idea of saving the planet in a few dozen years. That is preposterous. In a rational environment these people would be laughed off the stage. You simply can't change something like this, of planetary scale, in a few years, and likely not in even in a few centuries. This is the paper [0] that, years ago, really got me interested in understanding what was going on; to try to separate facts from fiction. It hit me like a bucket of cold water. I was all in on renewables and everything we were being told would reverse climate change. I built a beautiful 13 kW solar array on my property (soon to expand to 20 kW). Soon after that, as I gained experience with my system and started to analyzed the performance and data, I realized we were being sold a bunch of nonsense about solar. And then I read this paper. It was a shocking revelation that launched me into research and questioning absolutely everything for about a year. This work and experience is where my position on this general topic comes from. I see a lot of hand waving and a lot of claims. I have yet to see anything that passes the physics test at a scale that is even a reasonable fraction of the planetary scale of this problem. Note that none of this is about denying what is happening. When I get into conversations with people one of the first attacks I am subjected to is an accusation of being a denier. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is real. What I am saying isn't real is what we are being told about what we can actually do about it. And yet, I must clarify. This does not mean we should not clean-up our act. I agree with what you said about what we must do. My objection is that the political and money-grabbing forces behind the climate change industry are connecting one to the other as if it were a magical solution. These are lies. Nobody has shown this can be done. For obvious reasons, I would be more than happy to be proven wrong on this. We are all on the same boat. All I want is honest conversation and for the powerful political forces to not force or otherwise compel our scientists into sticking with the chosen narrative. This paper is very unique. A university research team would commit suicide if they published something like this. Grants would evaporate and careers would be ruined. That, sadly, is the reality we live in. One that really bugs me to no end. [0] https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/43326.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-...

defrost 4y ago

I'm more or less with you until: >> Therefore, forest fires are likely just as damaging (in terms of atmospheric CO2 accumulation) as burning any other fuel. On a natural scale (100 years as a base unit) they are distinct from the carbon dragged up and released from where it was buried millions++ of years ago. As far as human activity goes we as a global race do need to put back forest growth we've clear felled, drop our ongoing and ever increasing emmissions, and claw back through capture the excess we have emitted in the past century. This will take both time and significant mindset change; the myth of unlimited growth as 'good capitalis' needs to die. On the matter of time scales, here's a nice bit of work revealing a 14 million year wet woodland mass emerging from a receding sea: Research reveals secrets hidden in Nullarbor’s not-so-featureless plains https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-09-08/nullarbor-plain-ancient-reef-discovered-3d-satellite-data/101412192 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-09-08/nullarbor-pla... https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.5459 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.5459

robomartin 4y ago
No, I think we agree. > On a natural scale (100 years as a base unit) they are distinct from the carbon dragged up and released from where it was buried millions++ of years ago. Of course. Where they are no different from each other is that, once in the atmosphere, it makes no difference which one you have, you are growing a blanket over the planet. This is why I say it is just as damaging. CO2, regardless of source, "sticks" to the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. Same effect. > As far as human activity goes we as a global race do need to put back forest growth we've clear felled Definitely > drop our ongoing and ever increasing emmissions Agreed > and claw back through capture the excess we have emitted in the past century That would be nice. I have yet to see any evidence that we can really do this at a planetary scale. In the lab? Sure. Planet? At this stage, I don't see any evidence of that being possible. Lots of purported solutions; none seem to pass the planetary scale physics test. > This will take both time and significant mindset change The part where I hyperventilate is the time element. We actually have politicians pushing the idea of saving the planet in a few dozen years. That is preposterous. In a rational environment these people would be laughed off the stage. You simply can't change something like this, of planetary scale, in a few years, and likely not in even in a few centuries. This is the paper [0] that, years ago, really got me interested in understanding what was going on; to try to separate facts from fiction. It hit me like a bucket of cold water. I was all in on renewables and everything we were being told would reverse climate change. I built a beautiful 13 kW solar array on my property (soon to expand to 20 kW). Soon after that, as I gained experience with my system and started to analyzed the performance and data, I realized we were being sold a bunch of nonsense about solar. And then I read this paper. It was a shocking revelation that launched me into research and questioning absolutely everything for about a year. This work and experience is where my position on this general topic comes from. I see a lot of hand waving and a lot of claims. I have yet to see anything that passes the physics test at a scale that is even a reasonable fraction of the planetary scale of this problem. Note that none of this is about denying what is happening. When I get into conversations with people one of the first attacks I am subjected to is an accusation of being a denier. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is real. What I am saying isn't real is what we are being told about what we can actually do about it. And yet, I must clarify. This does not mean we should not clean-up our act. I agree with what you said about what we must do. My objection is that the political and money-grabbing forces behind the climate change industry are connecting one to the other as if it were a magical solution. These are lies. Nobody has shown this can be done. For obvious reasons, I would be more than happy to be proven wrong on this. We are all on the same boat. All I want is honest conversation and for the powerful political forces to not force or otherwise compel our scientists into sticking with the chosen narrative. This paper is very unique. A university research team would commit suicide if they published something like this. Grants would evaporate and careers would be ruined. That, sadly, is the reality we live in. One that really bugs me to no end. [0] https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/43326.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-...