This month, WIRED magazine offers 10 green heresies, such as the suggestion to buy conventionally grown foods over organic ones and to embrace nuclear power, to save the planet. I certainly support their efforts to bring attention to some fallacies of the green-marketing movement (the authors suggest, for instance, buying used cars over hybrid vehicles) but I also realize, once again, that one needs a Ph.D. in ethical consumption to be a proper environmentalist these days. Furthermore, many of their suggestions focus superficially on energy/carbon issue while ignoring other issues, such as the preservation of habitat and wildlife (like the idea that we should farm old growth forests). Overall, their effort creates more confusion than awareness or anything else...
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Does that mean that you're not going to sort it out for us?
I've been wondering about the net environmental impact of used vs. new cars for a while now. It takes a lot of gas to run most old cars---especially since suburban assault vehicles became so common---but it also takes tons of resources (and polluting) to make a new car, even a green one.
Any hints where to look for a trustworthy analysis?
I didn't think that was so confusing, I thought it was a great article. I completely cringed at the old growth topic, and I suspect that they may even be wrong about that based on other research comparing the productivity of diverse ecosystems to farmed forests, paired with data on soil carbon reserves associated with productive habitats. Other than that though look at some of the points they make: urban living is insanely more efficient than suburban/rural living, I don't even see how anyone could argue otherwise. I also think most people know already that turning on the AC in a car is better than opening the windows due to efficiency lost to air friction, so how much of a stretch is it to think that AC could be better in other places too? And just a few months ago I was part of a running discussion in the comments at Deep Sea News how organic is more marketing than green. A lot of the points they make are uncomfortable to people who associate more with a green living "style" than with any actual evidence that what they're doing is good. And maybe that's part of the problem, that we use the term "green" when we should really be talking about efficiency. I hardly think you need a Ph.D. in order to think beyond a colorful term...
Yeah, mostly confusing. Wired is good for info on gadgets, not meaningful analysis on topics like this one.
Erik, Orion Grassroots Network
Even the Economist (not usually a treehugging mag) took a sceptical look at the forest study last year, see: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8998216
excerpts:
"Overall, Dr Bala's model suggests that complete deforestation would cause an additional 1.3°C temperature rise compared with business as usual, because of the higher carbon-dioxide levels that would result. However, the additional reflectivity of the planet would cause 1.6°C of cooling. A treeless world would thus, as he reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, be 0.3°C cooler than otherwise.
No one, of course, would consider chopping down the world's forests to keep the planet cool. But having made their point, Dr Bala and his colleagues then went on to look at the nuances of forest growth and loss at different latitudes.
In Russia and Canada, cutting trees down led mostly to local cooling. The carbon dioxide this released into the atmosphere, though, warmed the world all over. Around the equator, by contrast, warming acted locally (as well as globally), so a tropical country would experience warming that it, itself, created by cutting down trees.
Whether that will be enough to entice those countries to prefer rainforests to ranches is another matter. One thing that might persuade them would be if rich people with a fondness for burning things started paying them to do so. Carbon-offset outfits should take note of Dr Bala's paper. Planting trees in convenient places such as Europe and North America may actually be counterproductive. Instead, in an environmental two-for-one, it is the rainforests that need bolstering."
Sorry, shot off too fast. The Economist examined a different study it seems. But it's still no reason to apply findings from temperate boreal forests to all forests worldwide, and as you noted, it's not just all about carbon. Where ecology and biodiversity is concerned, not too many techies, sadly, get it...
These "one-size-fits-all" lists are always fun to breeze through if for no other reason than to examine them from one's own perspective, but really, anyone clueless enough to take 'em seriously without thinking shouldn't be surprised to find that they've been duped. Any examination of history will find that many widely held concepts change in surprising ways with new discovery. Indeed, the essence of science is the expansion of understanding whereas the essence of politics is the limitation of that understanding in order to achieve expressed agreed-upon goals.
I would like to add another heresy: It is called Carbon Capture and Storage. Every carbon control study I have read describes this technology in a lot of detail with very nice diagrams and the projected benefits once it comes into effect (expected somewhere between 2018 and 2025). This technology has not been tested or even developed yet!!! Nobody knows what are the side-effects (perhaps a carbon gas leak that could destroy life above it). Can you imagine every fossil-fueled power plant in the world sitting on an underground carbon reservoir? On the other hand, China does not care about these or any other Inconvenient Truths: They are building a coal-fired power plant every single day.