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Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

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Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#21
post #4
post #2

This is why I don't buy into cap and trade and other expensive systems for the US to reduce its emissions. Compared to emerging economies, our emissions are already dramatically lower. It's the 2nd and 3rd world that needs to get in line (China most of all).

Yes, it would be terrible if we did all that work to improve the atmosphere for nothing. http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg

This is a weak argument. No one is saying that smog in cities is desirable. But rather that there is insufficient evidence to show certain interventions are necessary/economical/effective.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#22
post #15

Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so…

Sort of. It would be nice if we could sequester the carbon already in the air in trees. The benefit is two fold: More trees, and removal of carbon that is already in the air from burning fossil fuels.

You cannot just infinitely accumulate trees. In a steady state, forests neither sequester nor release carbon.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, US just burns off some crazy amount of natural gas that is released as the byproduct of oil drilling/fracking. It's not captured because it's too cheap to be worth it. 10 billion cubic feet in a month[1], just because it's "not worth it". So maybe,actually, US needs more caps and expensive systems to curb such behaviour? [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/north-dakotas-latest-fracking-pr...

Agreed. Methane is way worse than CO2 as well. It is really shocking that companies inside the US borders are allowed to do this.

The methane burns off so it's "just" CO2.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#25

Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so…

[deleted]

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#26

Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so…

that's true if they let the trees re-grow to maturity and let the deep layers of peat reform (which AFAIK takes a really long time).

for better or worse these stands of older trees are a finite resource, and once they've burned them all the problem stops getting worse. But by then the CO2 is released and unlikely to be re-sequestered in Indonesia anytime soon

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#27

Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so…

This is not the point, nor the problem....

1. Tropical peatland is not just trees. Its also got peat - a pile of vegetation that isn't exactly rotting - but rather storing carbon. In fact peat is a fuel source in many parts of the world - not coal or oil, but similar to those in releasing otherwise stored carbon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_peat

2. The process in this area also releases a lot of methane, which rotting doesn't always release, and certainly doesn't release this quickly.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#28

Burning trees doesn't actually change the atmospheric balance at all. Every tree releases its carbon, either by being burned or when it dies by rotting. It's effectively a non-trapped part of the atmospheres circulatory system. Remember trees breath the stuff in and eventually they exhale. The problems only crop up when you extract trapped hydrocarbons from underground and burn those. Oil and Coal bad, Tree's not so…

Semi-permanently eliminating forested regions for alternate use shifts the environmental carbon balance - doesn't it?

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#29
post #16

And, though environmental groups are loathe to discuss it[1], animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from ALL transportation[2]. [1] http://www.cowspiracy.com/ [2] http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM

All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural" state. It's irrelevant in the long term view.

Re: Indonesia's palm oil fires emitted more greenhouse gases in a day than the U.S.

#30
post #4
post #2

This is why I don't buy into cap and trade and other expensive systems for the US to reduce its emissions. Compared to emerging economies, our emissions are already dramatically lower. It's the 2nd and 3rd world that needs to get in line (China most of all).

Yes, it would be terrible if we did all that work to improve the atmosphere for nothing. http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg

Come on, that's incredibly disingenuous.

Of course it's not terrible to improve the atmosphere. But you're making it sound like all methods are equivalent; when there are limited resources to address the problem, they need to be allocated accordingly.

It's a similar situation to water in California -- yes, everyone should cut down on consumption. But the single-family mega-mansions using as much as 90 normal residences [1] cutting 10% of their water usage has a much bigger impact than an average residence cutting 10%.

Edited:

If a billion dollars spent in the US reduces US emissions by 5%, and US emissions and emissions from these fires are equivalent, and it costs less to incentivize Indonesian / Malaysian palm oil producers to stop burning peat forest and reduce emissions by 5%, we should be doing that instead.

[1] https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air...

Original before edit: If the US could spend a billion dollars to reduce our carbon emissions by 5%, or could spend a billion dollars paying Indonesia & Malaysia to stop setting palm oil on fire and reduce THEIR emissions, the results are not equivalent. The latter is 200x more effective. [the 200x was from a misreading of the article]

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