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

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

[Marin David Condic]

This is all drifting way off topic and into the realm of political opinions.

Let me ask this though (now that I have marked the subject line as off
topic):

If the Kyoto treaty is such a wonderful thing, why don't the Europeans just
go ahead and sign it themselves? Why do they need us to sign it for them?
Why shouldn't the US make its own decisions about what is in the best
interest of the US and all the rest of the world can do the same? If France,
Germany, England, et alia, all *love* this treaty so much and think it is in
their best interest, well, let them put their John Handcock on the bottom
line.

Or is this some version of the "Misery Loves Company" rule?

BTW: I like the observation about "solutions" - It seems that if one
disagrees with a solution proposed by certain groups then there is some sort
of automatic condemnation as being against the *goals* of that group. Maybe
I disagree with a *lot* of opinions about how to cure crime, poverty,
unemployment, disease and ignorance. But that doesn't mean that by that same
fact, I must be in *favor* of crime, poverty, unemployment, disease and
ignorance.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3B9795E1.54B12E70@worldnet.att.net...
>
> I think you have been listening to too much propaganda and drivel
> on the news.
>
> The current US government cares deeply about the environment. It
> simply does not agree with certain international political "solutions".
>
> The US abandonment of the Kyoto treaty is not actually far from the
> EU position. In the EU politicians give verbal support for the
> Kyoto treaty but somehow fail to provide the funding necessary for
> its implementation. In the US we simply state that the Kyoto treaty is
> fundamentally flawed and will not be ratified.
>
> Any agreement to save our environment must be based upon scientific
> evidence and scientifically sound environmental management programs.
> Unfortuntely, treaties such as the one developed at the Kyoto
> conference are more about political attempts to control first world
> economies than about sound scientific efforts.
>
> President Bush has made it clear that he is willing to work for the
> improvement of the environment, so long as agreements are based
> upon a sound scientific foundation.
>

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

[chris.danx]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:9n882d$rsh$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> This is all drifting way off topic and into the realm of political
opinions.
>
> Let me ask this though (now that I have marked the subject line as off
> topic):
>
> If the Kyoto treaty is such a wonderful thing, why don't the Europeans
just
> go ahead and sign it themselves? Why do they need us to sign it for them?
> Why shouldn't the US make its own decisions about what is in the best
> interest of the US and all the rest of the world can do the same? If
France,
> Germany, England, et alia, all *love* this treaty so much and think it is
in
> their best interest, well, let them put their John Handcock on the bottom
> line.

Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.
If the US doesn't support it and Japan doesn't either then Kyoto is a dead
duck.  IMO Kyoto is pants and there are better ways of dealing with lowering
emissions like the emission credits system but no one in power really gives
a crap and arguing about it is pointless (emission reduction a vote winner,
and that's all).  The main idea is the same but the consequences of not
finding a way to implement the idea (emission reduction) could be dire...


The recent train of thought is that we have 40 to 100 years before the
Amazon sink begins releasing it's C02.  When that happens the biggest sink
of them all, the oceans, will release it's store (of something who's name
eludes me, but it decomposes to methane when the pressure drops i.e. as it
rises from the ocean floor, and oil rigs sometimes disturb a deposit) and
all hell breaks loose.  A rapid jump in temperature will occur (around 2 to
5 degrees in a few years), and the oceans will burn due to the methane
igniting which isn't good news for anyone.  This is thought to have happened
before so many million years ago and took 200,000 years to get into balance
again and sparked an extinction event.

Maybe this will happen, maybe not but recent evidence and experiments seem
to support it.  Like all science though it's not a certainty.

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

[Darren New]

> Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
> Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.

Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

> Maybe this will happen, maybe not but recent evidence and experiments seem
> to support it.  Like all science though it's not a certainty.

I think it's closer to say "some evidence seems to support it." There's
a lot that doesn't. That's the problem.



-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.

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

[Ted Dennison]

In article <iOOl7.11306$592.607182@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx
says...
>Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
>Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.

About 17% by the US, and slowly declining (our output is increasing, but not as
much as everyone else's. See the graph at the bottom of
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov98/1998L-11-17-02.html ).

>If the US doesn't support it and Japan doesn't either then Kyoto is a dead
>duck.  IMO Kyoto is pants and there are better ways of dealing with lowering

You are absolutely right. Its a dead duck. Without the US it will be as useless
as the League of Nations, and it won't have the US. The only reason it happened
at all was that our VP at the time liked to think of himself as an
envirionmentalist, and thought a worldwide agreement would be his crowning
glory. The American electorate sure wasn't impressed. Talking emmision reduction
in this country is a vote *loser*.

>The recent train of thought is that we have 40 to 100 years before the
(tale of woe deleted)

No one is really sure what will happen. I've heard some scientists speculate
that it could actually touch off another ice age instead of warming things (we
are probably overdue for one anyway). The only thing I'd be willing to bet on is
that things don't stay the same, but historicly that wouldn't be a good bet
anyway. Earth's climate has always changed wildly over time.

The problem is that we don't really understand the global environmental system
yet. Given that, trying to fix a percieved "bug" in it isn't likely to be
productive (although staying the course is likely to be disasterous as well). 

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

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

[chris.danx]

"Darren New" <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3B97C5D4.2AFBAEDF@san.rr.com...
> > Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
> > Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern
America.
>
> Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

It was in the new sci. i think, perhaps it wasn't just CO2 though (I could
check but New Sci. is weekly and it was months and months ago).

Ted reckons it's 17% now which would be good had there been an 8% drop in
emissions, but that's not the case.  Everyone else has just had a bigger
increase in output :-(


> > Maybe this will happen, maybe not but recent evidence and experiments
seem
> > to support it.  Like all science though it's not a certainty.
>
> I think it's closer to say "some evidence seems to support it."

Probably.  Science is highly driven by ppls' particular prejudices so it's
unlikely that research into this is going to be objective.  They either
believe it's not happening or it is, and they can't really decide on what
the outcomes going to be if they think it is happening.  The doom and gloom
scenario mentioned was probably prejudiced since it was shown here
(Britain).  Our weather system has supposedly got weirder with more floods,
however they tend to forget our government used to let builders build on
flood plains and that has only recently been rectified.

> There's
> a lot that doesn't. That's the problem.

Yes, evidence for either camp is used by politicians to further there
political aims.  It's a shame!  If there was consensus among scientists
politicians would find it harder to go against the grain, but that's not
going to happen anytime soon.

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

[Ted Dennison]

In article <1eQl7.11748$592.809913@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx
says...
>
>
>> > Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
>> > Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern
..
>Ted reckons it's 17% now which would be good had there been an 8% drop in
>emissions, but that's not the case.  Everyone else has just had a bigger
>increase in output :-(

Well, remember that my figure was for the US alone, whereas you were talking all
of North America (which generally includes Mexico and Canada, along with some
other smaller countries). Also, what I had was a projection from 1998 trends.
The numbers are in the right ballpark though.

You are right in your assesment that the US's role is unfortuantely becomming
less important through no efforts of our own. :-(

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

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

[Preben Randhol]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 18:52:07 GMT, Darren New wrote:
> Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
turned into?

Preben Randhol

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

[Darren New]

> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.

> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
> turned into?

Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?

I.e., our emissions (i've read) are so relatively clean and we have
industrialized such relatively high amounts of open space that we (i.e.,
north america, including all inhabitants mammilian and otherwise) are
turning CO2 into plants faster than burning plants is releasing the CO2
back again.

Hmmm... Now, where *should* followups be redirected?

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.

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

[Preben Randhol]

On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 21:46:47 GMT, Darren New wrote:
>> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
>> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.
> 
>> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
>> turned into?
> 
> Uh, forests? And it turns into wood?  Krebs cycle, anyone?  Where do you
> think the CO2 in petrochemicals came from in the first place?

:-) no no no no if it only was that simple.

> I.e., our emissions (i've read) are so relatively clean and we have
> industrialized such relatively high amounts of open space that we (i.e.,
> north america, including all inhabitants mammilian and otherwise) are
> turning CO2 into plants faster than burning plants is releasing the CO2
> back again.

This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not. 

That emmissions are dropping in the US can perhaps be because the price
of petrol has increased.

Preben Randhol

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

[Jeff Creem]

"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrn9pg4ep.35r.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 21:46:47 GMT, Darren New wrote:
>
> This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
> there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
> cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
> the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
> then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not.
>


Umm..No.. We do not have our own atmosphere over here. There is a large
quantity of CO2 in
the air for plants to draw on even if we stopped adding new CO2 plus there
is plenty of
CO2 still being created by decaying material and Europe. The North American
Continent has
been reforesting faster than anyplace else in the world.

See  http://www.hooverdigest.org/011/huber.html
search for the word sink in the document.

Note this is not the only source of this data but it was the first I found.

Again, if the reduction of gases is so important than other countries should
just go ahead an
do it. We have been told that this sort of thing does not negatively impact
the economy so
what do you have to lose?


Just to bring things back a little closer to a the purpose of this group...I
suspect most
of the climate models that are predicting global warming effects are written
in C (with some
FORTRAN in the mix).. It will be great when we find out that the whole thing
was caused by running
of the end of some array :)

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

[James Rogers]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
> there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
> cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
> the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
> then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not.
> 
> That emmissions are dropping in the US can perhaps be because the price
> of petrol has increased.

No. Not even a chance this is a factor. The recent increase in price
of petrochemicals has NOT reduced miles driven in the US. 

It is also good to remember that we do not currently have an 
accurate global climate model. We do not know all the influences of
water vapor, CO2, O3, O2, N2, particulates, NOx, CO, S2O4, etc.

It is clear that CO2, in the absence of other factors, does lead to
increased temperatures. It is not clear just how water vapor 
interacts with CO2 levels. Some models simply assume no interaction.
Those models are clearly over simplified. Some models show that
water vapor and CO2 work to balance the temperature of the Earth.
As CO2 levels increase they cause more evaporation from the oceans.
This in turn results in more clouds, rain, and severe storms, which
tend to cool the atmosphere. The increased rains also tend to dissolve
large quantities of CO2 as carbonates. Those carbonates react with
rocks and soils, creating carbonate salts, which removes CO2 from
the atmosphere.

Scientists are only beginning to understand the role of lightening
on the climate. It now appears that lightening is one of the primary
forces in the atmosphere. It is apparently responsible for many
previously unexpected chemical changes in the atmosphere. It also
acts as an energy safety valve for the climate.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

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

[Preben Randhol]

On Fri, 07 Sep 2001 00:28:53 GMT, Jeff Creem wrote:
> Again, if the reduction of gases is so important than other countries should
> just go ahead an
> do it. We have been told that this sort of thing does not negatively impact
> the economy so
> what do you have to lose?

We are. Some has to take responsibility in this world.

> Just to bring things back a little closer to a the purpose of this group...I
> suspect most
> of the climate models that are predicting global warming effects are written
> in C (with some
> FORTRAN in the mix).. It will be great when we find out that the whole thing
> was caused by running
> of the end of some array :)

He he he

Preben Randhol

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

[Preben Randhol]

On Fri, 07 Sep 2001 01:27:07 GMT, James Rogers wrote:
> It is clear that CO2, in the absence of other factors, does lead to
> increased temperatures. It is not clear just how water vapor 
> interacts with CO2 levels. Some models simply assume no interaction.

Also the sun seems to be contributing more energy to the earth now.

> Those models are clearly over simplified. Some models show that
> water vapor and CO2 work to balance the temperature of the Earth.
> As CO2 levels increase they cause more evaporation from the oceans.
> This in turn results in more clouds, rain, and severe storms, which
> tend to cool the atmosphere. The increased rains also tend to dissolve
> large quantities of CO2 as carbonates. Those carbonates react with
> rocks and soils, creating carbonate salts, which removes CO2 from
> the atmosphere.

Yes, you get H2CO3, HCO3- and CO32-. The latter can react with say Mg2+,
Ca2+, Sr2+ etc to form carbonate salts. The more basic the solution is
the more CO32- you have. The more CO2 you have in your water the more
acidic it is (so less CO32-). Anyhow this will not be a big effect on CO2.

Another problem is that a huge amount of CO2 is dissolved the ocean. If
one gets a hotter earth the tempereature in the sea would rise and CO2
will be released (as water dissolves more gas at lower temperatures)
into the atmosphere.

But this if off topic. I'll stop now.

What I would rather see is that they make a good climat model in Ada
than Ada in NMD :-)

Preben Randhol

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

[Marin David Condic]

Basically, if its green and grows in dirt, it inhales CO2 and exhales
oxygen. So if there is lots of CO2 around, plant life ought to flourish
quite well - consuming the excess until it once again reaches a balance
point. (Oxygen is obviously poisonous to plants so we're kind of doing them
a favor by making CO2. So get out there and drive that SUV and do your part
to restore the rain forests, the spotted owl habitats, the wetlands and all
that other good stuff. :-) There's probably a whole slew of bacteria and
other living things out there that breathe CO2 as well, so they'll be having
a field day.

MDC

--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrn9pg2l9.35r.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
> On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 18:52:07 GMT, Darren New wrote:
> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.
>
> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
> turned into?
>
> Preben Randhol

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

[Marin David Condic]

That seems to be a misunderstanding of how living organisms work. If there's
a CO2-rich environment, plants will flourish and make Oxygen until they
start poisoning themselves back with their own excriment. Then we'll have an
Oxygen-rich environment which will be good for some other life form (The
SUV?) that makes CO2.

Living organisms on this planet adapt to the conditions around them. What
may be bad for one creature is good for another. You can't stop life. You
can't kill this planet. It *will* adapt.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrn9pg4ep.35r.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no...
>
> This means that you will soon run out of CO2 in your atmosphere over
> there. Where did you read this? Rememember all living animals/humans,
> cars, coal/gas power plants, etc... produce CO2. If all this is used by
> the plants in USA it means that if you tomorrow stopped emmitting CO2
> then all your plants/woods would start dying. I think not.
>

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

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B97EEC5.B9109D9F@san.rr.com>, Darren New says...
>
>> > Err, do you have a cite for this? Everything I've read shows north
>> > america as being a net consumer of CO2, not a producer.
>
>> You must be joking, right?  What is it that consumes CO2 and what is it
>> turned into?
>
>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. It
turns out that its quite debatable whether this is true or not (later studies
say not). However, its also quite beside the point. When we first came to this
continent it was covered with forests, except for the Great Plains in the
middle, which was covered with bison. Forests covered the entire eastern
seaboard, which is now just one big city from Boston to DC. At the time, the
forests were just cleaing up all the CO2 the bison were putting out. We replaced
the bison with domesticated cattle, so there's no net gain there. We cut down a
lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are cutting, so
there's no net gain there. Then we industrialized and started pumping out
*extra* CO2 by the ton. Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around) before we
ever got here is just plain silly.

Of course it may be true that they will grow faster and pick up the slack as CO2
levels rise. It may even be true that blue-green alge in the oceans will expand
to consume all the CO2 we could possibly pump out. But if our arguement is that
there is *no* problem, then we should just come out and say that, rather than
trying to hide behind this forest sillyness.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

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

[Darren New]

> >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?

> It turns out that its quite debatable whether this is true or not (later studies
> say not).

I'd *love* to see a study that says plants don't consume CO2.

>  Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
> when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around) before we
> ever got here is just plain silly.

Well, has anyone *measured* it? That's my point. I don't believe folks
that stand up and say "It's silly that the world would work this way. We
could measure it, but then we'd have actual facts."

Folks who keep making these assertions without any evidence is the
problem.

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
    Those who work hard with few results always 
           value hard work over getting results.

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

[James Rogers]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> That seems to be a misunderstanding of how living organisms work. If there's
> a CO2-rich environment, plants will flourish and make Oxygen until they
> start poisoning themselves back with their own excriment. Then we'll have an
> Oxygen-rich environment which will be good for some other life form (The
> SUV?) that makes CO2.
> 
> Living organisms on this planet adapt to the conditions around them. What
> may be bad for one creature is good for another. You can't stop life. You
> can't kill this planet. It *will* adapt.

If you are interested in where the CO2 is on Earth, download the paper
at http://www.sfu.ca/chemcai/pdf/c3carb.pdf
(requires Adobe Acrobat reader).

Note that plants do take in a large amount of CO2, but act only as a
temporary reservoir. On the other hand, you may also note that most
of the CO2 in on Earth (Atmosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere) is
contained by the oceans.

Contrary to an assertion previously made on this subject, CO2 solubility
in water (fresh and seawater) increases with increased temperature.
In fact, CO2 follows Henry's law very well up to a partial pressure of
5 atm. Henry's law is summarized as P(i) = X(i)KT. This is interpreted
as:

"The mole fraction X(i) of a species "i" that dissolves in a solvent
 at a temperature T is proportional to the partial pressure P(i)."

This relationship indicates that the oceans will dissolve more CO2
as the partial pressure of CO2 increases in the atmosphere. 
It would appear that Henry's law predicts a lower mole fraction of
CO2 in water as the temperature increases. In fact this does not
happen because K is not a constant. K actually decreases as T
increases. The overall result is that solubility in water increases
as the water temperature increases.

This does not imply that the oceans can rapidly dissolve all excess
CO2 in the atmosphere. It does, however debunk the concept that 
increased atmospheric temperatures will trigger a release of
dissolved CO2 in the oceans.

Regarding the reforestation of North America. Although the forests in
North America are regenerating, they are not regenerating fast enough
to replace the desctruction of tropical forests. I believe the loss
of tropical forests may be more important to climate balance than CO2
production. This is one of the flaws I see in the Kyoto treaty.
It exempted the countries destroying tropical forests.

Atmospheric CO2 dumping does need to be controlled and even reduced.
There are a number of well known chemical processes that can be used
to scrub exhausts from contained combustion sources. At the same time
we need to stop the destruction of forests. Forest product are still
important in the world economy. Forest management techniques are
also well known. The Swiss, for instance, have practiced sound
forest management techniques for hundreds of years. 

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

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

[Beard, Frank]

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Dennison [mailto:dennison@telepath.com]

> We cut down a
> lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are cutting,
> so there's no net gain there.

While it's true we harvest a lot trees, the rest of the statement
is a little skewed.  Having relatives in both the forestry and paper
industries, and having read an article from the National Forestry
Service several years ago (don't have the article handy, but if you
peruse their site you can probably track it down), I get some insight
into our forestry management.  

According to the National Forestry Service, we have more national 
forest than ever before in our recorded history of forestry management.
Mainly due to increases in technology in fire control.  We were losing
more forest to forest fires, primarily caused by lightening, than
we were cutting down.  But then they found out that the giant redwoods,
and some others, need fires to help them reproduce, so now they have
controlled fires to perpetuate the species.

As for the paper industry (and Christmas tree industry), they have very
advance land/tree management technology.  Trees are basically grown as
crops.  They have special nurseries where they can get three years 
growth in something like six months by cycling light conditions on and
off in a controlled environment.  Then after a period of time the trees
are planted in the field.  Then there are also the hybrid pines that
were "engineered" to produce taller, straighter, faster growing, and 
less limbed trees.

Granted some hardwoods have been replaced with pines, but then those
areas are harvested and replanted over and over, which is better than
continually removing hardwoods.

The only numbers I haven't seen are the ones related to forest loss
relative to various forms of construction, industrialization, etc.
But, I wouldn't use "Forests covered the entire eastern seaboard,
which is now just one big city from Boston to DC." as a convincing
argument.  There are still many beautiful forested areas on the eastern
side.  And the further west you travel, the less convincing the
argument.  Take a look at some place like the Blue Ridge mountains
in West Virginia.  It was converted from logging into a national 
forest.  Now it's a beautiful heavily forested area.

There is so much more information, on this an other environmental
issues, but I just don't have the time right now to go into them.
Back to CAT3 certification.

Frank

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

[Larry Elmore]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <iOOl7.11306$592.607182@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx
> says...
> >Perhaps it's because Northern America is one of the biggest polluters.
> >Something like 25% of all CO2 emissions are produced by Northern America.
> 
> About 17% by the US, and slowly declining (our output is increasing, but not as
> much as everyone else's. See the graph at the bottom of
> http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov98/1998L-11-17-02.html ).

One should also realize that _all_ man-made CO2 emissions add up to only
a tiny percentage of total CO2 production. Even if _all_ human CO2
production ceased this very instant (including respiration, if you want
to go so far as the kooks who think the only way to "save the planet" is
voluntary extinction of the human species -- there's a couple of web
sites on the subject), it's possible that CO2 levels would still be
climbing. Increased CO2 _might_ be a result of warming, not a cause. We
simply don't know enough yet. It appears from some studies that on a
geologic time scale, CO2 levels are currently rising from an _all-time
low_ over the past couple of million years (the Ice Ages may be
related).

> >If the US doesn't support it and Japan doesn't either then Kyoto is a dead
> >duck.  IMO Kyoto is pants and there are better ways of dealing with lowering
> 
> You are absolutely right. Its a dead duck. Without the US it will be as useless
> as the League of Nations, and it won't have the US. The only reason it happened
> at all was that our VP at the time liked to think of himself as an
> envirionmentalist, and thought a worldwide agreement would be his crowning
> glory. The American electorate sure wasn't impressed. Talking emmision reduction
> in this country is a vote *loser*.

Although when energy usage (and pollution created) is compared with GDP,
the US is one of the most efficient nations on Earth. It's the Third
World where things are getting dire. Poor people can't _afford_ to worry
overly much about the environment, and it shows.
 
> >The recent train of thought is that we have 40 to 100 years before the
> (tale of woe deleted)
> 
> No one is really sure what will happen. I've heard some scientists speculate
> that it could actually touch off another ice age instead of warming things (we
> are probably overdue for one anyway). The only thing I'd be willing to bet on is
> that things don't stay the same, but historicly that wouldn't be a good bet
> anyway. Earth's climate has always changed wildly over time.

Yes, it's a demonstrable fact that climate has changed more (sometimes
in a few decades, maybe only a couple decades) in the far past (in human
terms, not geologic) than even the most dire current predictions of
global warming forecast over the next century. I have no doubt at all
that had the professional Chicken Littles of the world would also have
been carrying on just as loudly if they'd lived 12,000 years ago as the
current Great Warming began. Of course, the disasters that befell the
world (the larger part of the icecaps melting off, sea level rising 100
meters, etc) led directly to what we consider "normal". Warming is
happening now, but whether or not humans have _appreciably_ influenced
it is an open question. What caused the Little Ice Age of the
1600-1800's? And what brought it to an end? I think solar variability
has _much_ more impact than human activity has had, and one really good
volcanic eruption like Tambora, Thera, or the truly monstrous one of
Krakatoa in the far past that split Java from Sumatra would make the sum
total of human influence look puny indeed.
 
> The problem is that we don't really understand the global environmental system
> yet. Given that, trying to fix a percieved "bug" in it isn't likely to be
> productive (although staying the course is likely to be disasterous as well).

Luckily, we're _not_ staying the course (not on a decadal scale).
Technology is improving rapidly, and in the industrialized world, things
are mostly getting better. Some "improvements" are just lying with
statistics, but then so are _some_ of the "dire" events that get highly
publicized. I've read that Germany's claimed reduction in greenhouse
emissions since 1990 is only real when all of current Germany is used as
the basis for comparison. The western part actually went up slightly,
while the economic collapse of the dirty, inefficient heavy industry in
the old eastern part is what brought the sum total down.

Larry

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

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Darren New et al.
You are referring to the carbon fixation subsequent to photosynthesis. The
CO2 is transformed into sugars and then primarily into cellulose.

There has been mention of the possibility that some of the software used in
the climatic change calculations could have errors. This is probably true
given the manufacturing technologies used and quality. This certainly is a
failure of the National Science Foundation. However, I do believe that in
general that the arguments against global warming are correct. The simple
fact that the USA is running low on petroleum is sufficient argument to stop
wasting fossil fuels. Our present automobile based transportation system is
obscenely inefficient. The efficiency of employing a 5,000 lb SUV to
transport a 150 lb human (3% payload) is a disgrace.

One of the major impediments to the use of nuclear power is the publics'
lack of trust in the reliability of these reactors. I certainly would not
want to live near a nuclear power station programmed with Microsoft, Sun, or
IBM technology. Software written at CMU level 5 in Ada with a careful
inspection by hazard experts would at least alleviate my fears concerning
the software part of the technology.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Darren New
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 9:07 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Off Topic: NMD/Environment was: (Re: Ada and the NMD)


> >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?

> It turns out that its quite debatable whether this is true or not (later
studies
> say not).

I'd *love* to see a study that says plants don't consume CO2.

>  Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
> when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around)
before we
> ever got here is just plain silly.

Well, has anyone *measured* it? That's my point. I don't believe folks
that stand up and say "It's silly that the world would work this way. We
could measure it, but then we'd have actual facts."

Folks who keep making these assertions without any evidence is the
problem.

--
Darren New
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
    Those who work hard with few results always
           value hard work over getting results.

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

[Larry Elmore]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> ... When we first came to this
> continent it was covered with forests, except for the Great Plains in the
> middle, which was covered with bison. Forests covered the entire eastern
> seaboard, which is now just one big city from Boston to DC. At the time, the
> forests were just cleaing up all the CO2 the bison were putting out. We replaced
> the bison with domesticated cattle, so there's no net gain there. We cut down a
> lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are cutting, so
> there's no net gain there. Then we industrialized and started pumping out
> *extra* CO2 by the ton. Saying that these forests are cleaing up our new CO2,
> when they were cleaning up other CO2 sources (that are still around) before we
> ever got here is just plain silly.

The fact is, there is a great deal more land under forest in America now
than there was 100 years ago. Nor was much of the continent a primeval
forest when the first Europeans landed, though as the plagues reduced
Indian populations by upwards of 90%, much of the land under their care
did rapidly revert to heavily forested wilderness. America was not a
virgin land, but a widowed one.

see:
	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/landscapes.htm
	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/AmIndian.htm

There's quite a lot more about the subject available, but these are good
introductions.

Larry

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

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B9A4CA7.A3231B1F@home.com>, Larry Elmore says...
>
>The fact is, there is a great deal more land under forest in America now
>than there was 100 years ago. Nor was much of the continent a primeval

>see:
>	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/landscapes.htm
>	http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/AmIndian.htm

Neither of these links say that. They do make the point that we have a lot more
dense undergrowth now that people (read-non indians who now control the land)
aren't doing regular burns, and that some places that were savannahs are now
forest. Both are valid points. But neither addresses in any quantative sense are
our current state of forest cover vs. what was here.

But again, its all a red herring anyway. Whatever there is or was has *nothing*
to do with our CO2 output. It was all here (a bit more or less) happily
converting CO2 long before the fist US factory was built. 

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

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

[Ted Dennison]

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...

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

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

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

[ XFUT sci.environment ]

James:

[ solubility of CO2 in water ]

> This does not imply that the oceans can rapidly dissolve all excess
> CO2 in the atmosphere. It does, however debunk the concept that
> increased atmospheric temperatures will trigger a release of
> dissolved CO2 in the oceans.

I think somebody may have misunderstood something regarding
release of greenhouse gasses from the oceans due to
increasing temperature.

It is suspected (I am not aware of any reasonably certain
proofs) that there are large amounts of methane ice stored
below the ocean seafloor. The short-term effect of global
heating should be increased precipitation in the arctic
areas, which means _lower_ sea-levels, and thus lower
pressure at the seafloor. The pressure might thus become too
low for keeping methane in frozen form in some of the
reservoirs, which would result in release of methane into
the atmosphere. (definitely lots of if's)

Jacob
-- 
"There are only two types of data:
                         Data which has been backed up
                         Data which has not been lost - yet"

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

[Leif Roar Moldskred]

Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote:

[SNIP]

> 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?

[SNIP]

> I'd *love* to see a study that says plants don't consume CO2.

In this context, for all intent and purposes they don't. A living
plant converts CO2 into O2 and carbon, but when it dies and rots (or
when it's eaten by an animal, or thrown on a fire) the carbon in the
wood is combined with 02 back into C02. So over its entire life-cycle,
a plant does not consume CO2. So that a forest in equilibrium releases
back into the atmosphere as much CO2 as it consumes.

In other words, the image of the world's forests being "lungs" is
wrong.

A _growing_ forest consumes (a net worth of) CO2, while a forest in
equilibrium _stores_ a non-trivial amount of carbon as cellulose,
effectively keeping it out of the system, and unable to contribute to
global warming.

On of the issues at Kyoto was if planting new forests,
i.e. effectively increasing the total amount of cellulose / carbon,
should count as a reduction in net release of CO2 or not.


-- 
Leif Roar Moldskred
not a biologist, nor do I play one on TV.

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

[Larry Elmore]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <3B9A4CA7.A3231B1F@home.com>, Larry Elmore says...
> >
> >The fact is, there is a great deal more land under forest in America now
> >than there was 100 years ago. Nor was much of the continent a primeval
> 
> >see:
> >       http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/landscapes.htm
> >       http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/usfscoll/AmIndian.htm
> 
> Neither of these links say that. They do make the point that we have a lot more
> dense undergrowth now that people (read-non indians who now control the land)
> aren't doing regular burns, and that some places that were savannahs are now
> forest. Both are valid points. But neither addresses in any quantative sense are
> our current state of forest cover vs. what was here.

These photos record dramatic increases in the understory 
density and overstory biomass volume of forest vegetation over the last
century, 
and a decrease or complete elimination of both the aspen component and
in the 
herbaceous understory in conifer stands.  In addition, grasslands have
become 
                                                      
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
woodlands and open woodlands have become dense forests.  Other
non-photographic 
^^^^^^^^^
studies strongly corroborate the existence of such changes (Covington &
Moore 
1994, Sampson et al. 1993).

If you want quantitative data, the UN's FAO at http://www.fao.org has
quite a bit. They're unavailable at the moment, so I can't be more
precise.

From "Lightening the Tread of Population on the Land: American Examples"
at http://phe.rockefeller.edu/:

	"The declining intensity of lumber use helped American forests expand.
The abandonment of farmland returned relatively productive sites to
forest. The control of fires, restocking, plantations, and imports
helped as well. Mills lost less wood, converting former wastes into pulp
for paper, composites such as plywood which Americans substituted for
solid lumber, and heat and electricity; by 1980 American mills converted
more than 96 percent of the wood entering their doors into useful
products and energy (US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment 1984).
Together, these changes caused an expansion of American forests
commencing in the early 1920s. The trend continues: by 1992 the
inventory of growing stock in US forests was 27 percent larger than in
1952, the first year of comprehensive data collection (Sedjo 1991;
Smith, Faulkner, and Powell 1994). 


> But again, its all a red herring anyway. Whatever there is or was has *nothing*
> to do with our CO2 output. It was all here (a bit more or less) happily
> converting CO2 long before the fist US factory was built.

Then why bring the subject up? I was correcting an error in data you
introduced.

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> ... When we first came to this
> continent it was covered with forests, except for the Great
Plains in the
> middle, which was covered with bison. Forests covered the
entire eastern
> seaboard, which is now just one big city from Boston to DC. At
the time, the
> forests were just cleaing up all the CO2 the bison were putting
out. We replaced
> the bison with domesticated cattle, so there's no net gain
there. We cut down a
> lot of the forests, and are still not planting more than we are
cutting, so
> there's no net gain there.

BTW, in the USA, we're only cutting 65% of annual new growth.

Larry