Does Respect The Mountain Campaign increase global warming?

A snowHead

Very interesting article in today's Daily Mail (I know, I know, the wife buys it, I just picked it up, honest). Evidently new research suggests that planting trees actually increases greenhouse gas. The problem isn't CO2 (as we all know, trees improve the CO2 situation), it's the vast amounts of methane that forests give off. The article suggests that trees are, on balance, worse for the overall level of greenhouse gas.

If this is true (and hey, it's in the DM so it must be) it means that the green wristbanded campaign to plant more trees may actually be contributing to global warming and rising freezing points.

Of course, we haven't yet factored in the emissions of the plastics factory that makes the things! wink

I'll go see if I can find the article online.

A snowHead

JohnHill, trees store up water as well, which is the major green house gas. Besides, I like them. wink

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

It has to be said that occasionally I get too intimately involved with them, on skis!

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laundryman, you tree-hugger, you wink

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The BBC have a report on the article here. The abstract for the original article in Nature. The abstract suggests they've done a lab and field study of plant biochemistry.

Nature and New Scientist both publish on a Thursday, and I imagine press releases go out before hand - Nature is peer-reviewed new science, New Scientist is more newsy and the articles are rather different in character.

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plants do use CO2 (carbon dioxide) during photosythesis, but you must remember that they also respire so they do churn out CO2 as well. I can't remember what the balance is though Puzzled

Ian Hopkinson, your link just points back to the BBC article?

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Dan, well spotted - I've corrected it...

After all it is free

cheers, interesting. It doesn't say when the research was, but the article was first submitted to Nature July 2005.

But how does that compare to the backside of a cow, doesn't one fart from a cow produce some ridculous amount of greenhouse gases Puzzled

Luckily the ice age is coming again so we'll actually need some more greenhouse gas to help make the temperatures slightly more pleasant and the snow quality spot on.

Anyone got a green wristband... apparently they make great brake retainers.

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Just for the record:

Tree planting financed from the environmental levy (50p) on Ski Club of Great Britain subscriptions, and funds allocated from the Respect the Mountain merchandise, is managed by The Woodland Trust.

The Woodland Trust, which is a long-established registered charity, makes no claim for CO2 reduction associated with tree planting. This is consistent with the analysis of Friends of the Earth and others, at present.

Two other more commercial tree-planting organisations were rejected by the SCGB for funding, specifically because they did make claims as to the CO2 'balancing' or reduction achieved.

I personally handled the screening of the above organisations and initial contact with the Woodland Trust on behalf of the SCGB, and I think the funds are going to an excellent organisation.

The Respect the Mountain scheme and its marketing is handled independently of the Club's Environmental Working Group, that I'm a member of, which wasn't involved in the scheme's origination.

Ian Hopkinson is quite right, above, to draw attention to the importance of peer review in the publication of scientific research. I've not read the Daily Mail article that JohnHill refers to, so an initial question is whether it's based on peer-reviewed science?

In my view, tree planting is an excellent thing for the skiing community to be involved in, for all kinds of reasons. Trees in the Alps provide essential protection from avalanches, and prevention of soil erosion. The Woodland Trust plants trees in many locations across the UK, and properly manages the woodlands concerned. I think it's an excellent charity.

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There was quite a bit on this on the radio last night. This is a quick summary of what I remember hearing.

1) Yes, it's a very surprising finding that methane production was detected from the plants under test, as previously it had been thought that methane was primarily produced under anaerobic conditions (more research money please to confirm the findings);
2) this study examined 9 plants, none of them trees (more research money please to extend to more plants);
3) extrapolating the result to a global scale would be completely irresponsible (at least without a lot more research money having been spent first);
4) the study did nothing about measuring how much CO2 was used in the process (anyone wand to fund a study to to a proper carbon balance study?).

I think the commentator felt that further research was merited Wink

I find point 4 pretty staggering actually. Just from simple logic I would expect the CO2 consumption to be much greater than the methane emission - as wood is largely carbon, that carbon has to come from somewhere, so unless the tree is absorbing a lot of organic matter through the roots, which (if my 'O'-level biology was not completely off target) it doesn't, so it has to come from the atmosphere - unless someone shows that trees are dab hands at nuclear synthesis too Wink

. So, unless CH4 is a much worse contributor to global warming than CO2, the tree still causes a net reduction of greenhouse gas (until it's chopped down and burned).

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You know it makes sense.

The difficulty that bona fide tree-planting bodies have, in giving absolute assurances of CO2 reduction, is partly based on the destiny of the tree. If left to rot, the tree will release its carbon back to the atmosphere. If burnt, likewise. If turned into building materials or furniture it may still, eventually, be burned or decompose.

As a fellow member of the Environmental Group said in a meeting, there's a finite amount of carbon on the planet. You can't create it, or destroy it. By extracting fossils fuels from underground - where they are effectively inert and harmless - and turning them into CO2 you have a hell of a problem in returning the carbon to a harmless form.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

coal for example is a huge 'bank' of carbon.. from millions of years ago.. we dig it up and burn it all in the blink of an eye (in geological terms) so you have to expect some king of reaction.....
what about the decomposition of the leaf mass from trees.. what gas would that give off?

A snowHead

'Leaf gas'

No, as far as I know - CO2.

There's a paradox here. We believe that felling rain forests is an eco disaster, but the Daily Mail now tells us (according to JH) that planting them is bad news too.

I understand that the Daily Mail is produced from felled trees. Maybe they have a vested interest in that side of the coin!

A snowHead

Leaves decomposing in a stagnant pond produce methane - aka will-o-the-wisp. Fond memories of boy scout camps trapping the bubbles in jam jars and igniting them after dark. This echos what was the 'conventional' wisdom - - that methane was an anaerobic product. Cow farts and the like. Until now......

The new reports that trees and plants can and do produce significant quantities of the stuff indicate to me just how little we really know about our biosphere.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

My guess would be that the Daily Mail and BBC News articles are based on the same press release produced by Nature.

I've read the full article (but it isn't my field), they don't appear to make any explicit mention of what goes on with CO2 - presumably since this would be well understood for those in the field. They do comment that the discovery helps explain some other observations (unexpectedly high methane levels above the Amazonian rainforest, for example) and that it consistent with at least some current models of methane fluxes.

Obviously they indicate areas for further research wink

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You're all barking up the wrong tree....

http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2005/april_01_05.htm

http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/causes04.jsp

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i guess they will be banning real ale soon then Shocked

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laundryman, if we cover those piles in snow we can have more inner city ski areas.

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Dave, the impression I got from the letter was that it hadn't been seen before because the flux of methane coming off a single plant was exceedingly small compared to the background levels of methane in the air and that there wasn't an known aerobic metabolic pathway that was known to produce methane.

laundryman, but they'd decompose and release their carbon as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere...

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Ian Hopkinson, my thought was to emulate the process by which fossil fuels were formed, so that we can return the distribution of carbon - between "harmless" fossils and "harmful" substances in the biosphere, such as CO2 and living organisms - to whatever David Goldsmith considers a natural state of affairs.

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laundryman, I wonder what the conversion ratios are like i.e. how much biomass is required to produce one tonne of oil and how much CO2/CH4 is generated in the process, regardless of that I can see some serious technical challenges wink

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

This latest article by George Monbiot makes very interesting and relevant reading for those interested in the relationship between tree planting and saving the planet ... and/or its snows:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1687979,00.html

A snowHead

The authors of the original Nature paper have issued a clarification none of the conclusions have changed but they make a small comment that the carbon sequestration effect of reforestation is far larger than the methane generation effect which they identified in their paper.

A snowHead

I think this is pretty scandalous to be honest.

In the clarification, the scientists blame the media for misrepresenting their original findings:

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

DavidS, I did think the opening paragraph was a bit disingeneous, particularly since they'd ommitted to make any comment on the carbon sequestration side of the equation. However, having been close to this sort of process in the past I can say that there can be quite substantial differences between what the scientist says, what the scientist's institution press officer says and what the newspaper prints!

I think the referees for the original paper should have picked up on the carbon sequestration question.

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You're right - probably not fair to blame the individuals, but it certainly makes sense to criticise the institutions.

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Does Respect The Mountain Campaign increase global warming?

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