Now the trees are gassing us!

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Now the trees are gassing us!

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puffedpride

Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 300
Location: bristol

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 06 12:35 pm Post subject: Now the trees are gassing us!

New research shows that plants emit substantial amounts of methane - a potent greenhouse gas. Hence previously unexplained plumes of the stuff spotted over rainforests (by satellites apparently).

Article in the Guardian on Thursday.

Before you rush for your chain saw, apparently trees do still redeem themselves by gobbling up loads of CO2. But maybe there effectiveness as antidotes to global warming are not as great as believed until now.

Raises new questions about how the gas is produced.

Andy B

Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 3920
Location: Brum

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 06 2:31 pm Post subject:
Just goes to show how little they know about anything. Trees have been around a while, never caused anyone a problem, well apart from when they jump on someone and crush em. But nobody is perfect!

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 06 6:38 pm Post subject:

Andy B wrote:

Just goes to show how little they know about anything.

We know too much about some things and too little about others

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 06 1:09 pm Post subject:
As someone said on Radio 4 on Friday: "The trees are farting, the trees are farting..."

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 06 1:14 pm Post subject:
We must remember though that the planet was covered in trees long before us daft humans came along so any methane produced by them is balanced. By cutting them down over the years and having extra animals we've tilted the balance. It wouldn't surprise me if the figures are revised again, I would have thought the oceans would have produced more as well.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 06 11:24 am Post subject:
Indeed, on reflection, I can't see that it makes any difference. Trees have been doing this always, yet still we get global warming. Where's the difference? Us (or possibly other factors if you're a contrarian, but not the trees). It's only of any concern to those who thought that they could carry on as before, but just plant a few trees to off-set their actions, Peter.

Andy B

Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 3920
Location: Brum

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 06 11:31 am Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

Indeed, on reflection, I can't see that it makes any difference. Trees have been doing this always, yet still we get global warming. Where's the difference? Us (or possibly other factors if you're a contrarian, but not the trees).

It's only of any concern to those who thought that they could carry on as before, but just plant a few trees to off-set their actions,

Peter.

Unless some bright spark thinks its a good reason to chop even more down, get rid of the amazon rain forest, think of the methane reduction!

Marts

Joined: 06 Sep 2005
Posts: 352
Location: London

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 06 9:12 am Post subject: Re: Now the trees are gassing us!

puffedpride wrote:

New research shows that plants emit substantial amounts of methane

I've been hearing a lot of talk about this since the article in Nature and everyone says the same thing "substantial methane is released"

What I can't find (perhaps because studies have yet to be carried out?) is any indication of what substantial means. I know that methane is a worse contributor by volume to global heating than Co2 but to what degree? What is the net result of the released methane and the sequestered Co2? Do trees contribute more harm relasing methane than the good they do in locking up Carbon?

puffedpride

Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Posts: 300
Location: bristol

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 06 10:32 am Post subject:

Marts, in typical journalese the Guardian article was headlined 'Global warming:blame the forests'. However what does the article conclude? It quotes one Dr Mahli who says 'Putting a tree where there was no tree before locks up a lot of carbon and this (new research) perhaps reduces the overall benefit of that by a fraction.'

So basically, its not really a big deal after all, and deforestation is not the answer!!

Globally it is estimated that plants produce between 62 and 236 million tonnes of methane globally per annum (sounds like there must be a lot of guesswork?!!) The same article says 530 million tonnes globally is produced by all other sources combined.

Just noted that my thread title was also in typical journalese

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