Look A Little Further?

Mrs. Weer’d sent me this story on the HORRORS of “Global Warming”.

Vast stores of carbon in U.S. forest soils could be released by rising global temperatures, according to a study by UC Irvine and other researchers in today’s online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

The scientists found that heating soil in Wisconsin and North Carolina woodlands by 10 and 20 degrees increased the release of carbon dioxide by up to eight times. They showed for the first time that most carbon in topsoil is vulnerable to this warming effect.

“We found that decades-old carbon in surface soils is released to the atmosphere faster when temperatures become warmer,” said lead author Francesca Hopkins, a doctoral researcher in UCI’s Earth system science department. “This suggests that soils could accelerate global warming through a vicious cycle in which man-made warming releases carbon from soils to the atmosphere, which, in turn, would warm the planet more.”

Of course what they don’t note that plants growing in said soil are building their mass with this very carbon. This “Carbon” in the soil is simply dead organic matter. Warm and wet conditions breaks down that matter further to the stable form of CO2. There’s a lot of controversy on how much this carbon dioxide has on overall climate, but what they’re missing is how nature swings like a pendulum.

The best example is a Bactria culture. It grows exponentially until its waste products overwhelm the resources, then it starts to die off. A large enough culture plate with means to clear the wastes, and the cycle can start again. Add a species that can use the waste products to produce useful resources and suddenly we have an ecosystem. Another great example are those plants in bell jars. My Grandmother had one for YEARS that I think my Aunt made in High School, and when she went off to college and got her own place, the plant stayed. Its an easy fix, you put it in a sunny window and the sealed jar (in this case it was a 2 Liter soda bottle with the cap sealed) the plant got energy from the sunlight, and plants are able to consume their own wastes, and water would be excreted from the plant, and eventually condense on the jar and runs back into the soil. Eventually the plant will outgrow the container, and die, but the cycle will last for YEARS, if not longer.

Another great example is the rabbits in my town. When we first moved in we had TONS of them. There is an open field near my house, and near sunset you could easily see 20-30 of them, and anywhere you looked there would be a rabbit. Then the hawks showed up. You’d see a few hawks at the top of the tall trees, and occasionally see take down a rabbit. It didn’t take long before seeing a rabbit was a rarity. Now the rabbits are back, and it’ll only be a matter of time before the Hawks return. Rinse and repeat.

I just think nature is far to complicated than to simplify it so much. Of course simple statements like that are good for grant money, so we’ll keep seeing more of them.