Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <3B98F09F.EE2F4B54@san.rr.com>, Darren New says...
>
>> >Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
>> >think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?
>> 
>> We made that embarassingly silly argument at one of the later Kyoto meetings. 
>
>Sorry? The embarrassingly silly argument that forests consume CO2 and
>produce O2? Or the embarrassingly silly argument that petrochemicals
>came from plants, and animals that ate plants, and animals that ate
>animals that ate plants?

No, the embarrassingly silly argument that plants that were here consuming CO2
long before the first factory was ever built somehow now excuse all the *new*
CO2 we are creating (heck, we've even got CO2 soaking to burn. Humvies for
everyone! I think I'll get a coal-burning stove!). Sure forests do that (as do
grasslands), but they were allready fully tasked keeping CO2 at pre-1800 levels
back when humans here were all farming and ranching (or the nomadic equivalent).

If we want to believe that there's no problem and thus we don't have to do
anything, then we should be grownups about it and do so. This forest biz is a
transparent attempt to find something, anything, that excuses our behaviour. It
just makes us look like irresponsible guilty kids. Its like when my son breaks
something, I tell him it costs money to replace, and he claims that's OK,
because I (dad) will go to work and make money. I'm *already* doing that, damit.
I wanted to use that money to buy a new 3D card...

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