House Republicans are searching for solutions to climate change without restricting American-produced energy that comes from burning oil, coal and gas.
Look, I’m all for reforestation efforts, and if Rs are willing to start a large environmental project like that, great. But, it’s really not a solution for climate change on a global scale. At best it’s a repair effort for the damage already done.
Even if they get the scale right, and somehow manage to plant and cultivate a trillion trees successfully, trees are more of a short-term carbon sink when you’re talking about a geological time scale. They die, they burn, they get chopped down. When that happens, the carbon is liberated again. Sure, you can plant more trees, but all you’re doing is changing the equilibrium point for atmospheric CO2. With each gallon of gas burned, more CO2 enters the cycle that would have otherwise remained in the ground long term. Trying to solve climate change by reforestation is like trying to fill a leaky bucket with water. No matter how much you pour in there, at some point you’ll have to stop the leak.
The answer to climate change is the same, yesterday, today, and forever: long term carbon sinks (fossil fuels and chemical weathering) cannot liberate CO2 at the rate we’re currently running. Reduction is the only real answer.
Look, I’m all for reforestation efforts, and if Rs are willing to start a large environmental project like that, great. But, it’s really not a solution for climate change on a global scale. At best it’s a repair effort for the damage already done.
Even if they get the scale right, and somehow manage to plant and cultivate a trillion trees successfully, trees are more of a short-term carbon sink when you’re talking about a geological time scale. They die, they burn, they get chopped down. When that happens, the carbon is liberated again. Sure, you can plant more trees, but all you’re doing is changing the equilibrium point for atmospheric CO2. With each gallon of gas burned, more CO2 enters the cycle that would have otherwise remained in the ground long term. Trying to solve climate change by reforestation is like trying to fill a leaky bucket with water. No matter how much you pour in there, at some point you’ll have to stop the leak.
The answer to climate change is the same, yesterday, today, and forever: long term carbon sinks (fossil fuels and chemical weathering) cannot liberate CO2 at the rate we’re currently running. Reduction is the only real answer.