Althouse: Why bury trees?

May 8, 2008

Why bury trees?

Carbon sequestration!

But wouldn't it be much better to bury paper — like all that newspaper and office paper that we've been wasting energy recycling?

47 comments:

Methadras said...: Seriously. Can we stop with the envirokook methods for trying to eliminate carbon dioxide? It isn't the enemy here folks? What is the enemy is the foolish notions we come up with to waste more energy in the effort of trying to save it or redirect our energy consumption somewhere else. I'd rather bury environmentalists instead and call it even.

Burying trees would require more energy than you will save. Put that in your carbon footprint and smoke it.; 5/8/08, 6:51 PM
Revenant said...: Yes, burying paper would work well, especially since we use more energy recycling paper than it takes to produce new paper.

Aluminum is worth recycling, though.; 5/8/08, 6:51 PM
rhhardin said...: Do something with diamonds.; 5/8/08, 6:52 PM
ricpic said...: There is no end to energy,
So do not fear to waste it;
The wheel of life rolls on and on,
It's narcissists can't face it.; 5/8/08, 7:07 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Yawn. Can we move on from global warming? I don't know about where you are, but it's fucking freezing in southern Illinois right now.; 5/8/08, 7:12 PM
Bob said...: I want to become a eco-friendly earth dweller so I'm aspiring to get my carbon footprint to simply equal Gore's. If I do that, have a large weight gain, and create a Powerpoint presentation then that should put me on the path to a Nobel and a Oscar.; 5/8/08, 7:13 PM
dbp said...: If the global warming folks had any sense, they would advocate for greatly expanded nuclear power. Then we wouldn't have to burn any coal to make our electricity.

Coal is already buried and it costs nothing to just leave it in the ground.; 5/8/08, 7:26 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Let's just bury the eco-nuts instead. Burying just Al Gore alone would probably save an entire forest from entombment.; 5/8/08, 7:28 PM
Unknown said...: Is recycling Bullshit?; 5/8/08, 7:29 PM
Unknown said...: That's a 29 minute Penn & Teller video I just linked to. I suppose I should warn y'all.; 5/8/08, 7:30 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Maybe we should build a giant cork to put into that volcano in Chile that is probably spewing more carbon dioxide than a zillion forests that we would bury. Huge airlift operation plug it up.

Bizarro world folks.; 5/8/08, 7:31 PM
IgnatzEsq said...: According to the study, the 'problem' isn't that trees are made of carbon (like paper), it's that they decompose naturally emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Burying paper would also work if decomposing paper created huge amounts of carbon that we could avoid (like burying trees). I have no clue if that is true or not, but it's not an easy jump from this study.

We do NEED more nuclear power. I wish President Bush actually delivered in his nuclear power ambitions. I wouldn't dislike Bush nearly as much if he managed to actually live up to his ideas on Energy, cutting Farm Subsidies, or Immigration. He's not come close to any of these, and those were the only major policies I really agreed with. Very disappointing for me.; 5/8/08, 8:00 PM
rhhardin said...: The always entertaining Mike Munger, podcast on recycling .

Key question : how do you know when something is garbage?; 5/8/08, 8:15 PM
Methadras said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/8/08, 8:16 PM
aberman said...: Unbelievably stupid. And when the forests lose their nutrients that are no longer coming from decomposing trees, what's going to happen to the world tree population?; 5/8/08, 8:17 PM
Methadras said...: I read this years ago and I've referred it to friends to read. What is funny is that they can't seem to rectify in their minds that recycling of any kind isn't worth it. The social stigma of being called a polluter is to great to take, but they only care that they don't get the finger pointed at them, not the fact that are actually doing more harm than good. It's really mind-blowing how leftist/environut kook causes have wrecked the national ability to reason and think properly. Another fine example of the bankrupt ideology and idiocy of the left and it's moronic causes.

Here for fresh reading:
http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=340

Hell even Sweden is a bastion of anti-recycling hate:
http://philosophy.gaia.com/blog/2008/2/the_recycling_myth

And a PDF on it:
www.perc.org/pdf/ps28.pdf

Interesting stuff. I never recycled so I really didn't miss out on anything and I'm happy about it.; 5/8/08, 8:25 PM
john said...: Well, I recycle and I feel good about it.Cause that what counts, right?

mcg, I didn't watch the P&T video because I fear it will work against that feel-good-feeling I have. However, I think they say that recycling bullshit is good.; 5/8/08, 8:40 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/8/08, 8:40 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: "And when the forests lose their nutrients that are no longer coming from decomposing trees, what's going to happen to the world tree population?"

Not to mention the rest of the biosphere that relies on the decomposing vegetable matter. Insects, birds that eat the insects and so on and so on. But...wait....it's all about us isn't it. Who cares about the chain of life as long as we get to sequester (like nuns in a convent I suppose) carbon.

The Mr. Magoo theory of government. Cant see beyond our own noses.; 5/8/08, 8:51 PM
Beth said...: Why bury or recycle paper when the Army Corps of Engineers can find creative new ways to re-use it, like stuffing it into levees needing repair in the New Orleans area?

Oh, yes, they did. The Bastards.

Those are the geniuses responsible for bridges, dams, levees and floodwalls where you live. Don't think they just like to f*ck with New Orleans. Give 'em some newspaper, some gum and a little spit and they'll fix you right up.; 5/8/08, 8:59 PM
SBVOR said...: Click the link and learn what peer reviewed science has to say:
================================
CO2 is Not a Problem
================================; 5/8/08, 9:03 PM
cooper said...: Why not just bury money? Go to the nearest university or non-profit environmental organization and take up a collection -- ask who wants to put their money where their mouth is.; 5/8/08, 9:52 PM
Revenant said...: I've been hearing people from Louisiana complain about the Corps of Engineers for a while. I have a question: why can't the people in Louisiana fix their own dang levees, if the federal government sucks at it so much? Louisiana already gets more federal tax money than it contributes.

I can tolerate, barely, that people are living in a flood zone and making me pay for it. But I draw the line at hearing them complain about the handouts they get.; 5/8/08, 11:29 PM
Beth said...: Revenant, I'm surprised you have time to stop and write, what with being so busy building and maintaining your own roads, putting out fires, personally carving a new president's head on Mount Rushmore, and printing your own money (that last one you really ought to leave to the feds.); 5/9/08, 12:08 AM
Anonymous said...: Beth-

said-

when the Army Corps of Engineers can find creative new ways to re-use it, like stuffing it into levees needing repair in the New Orleans area?

Oh, yes, they did. The Bastards.

Those are the geniuses responsible for bridges, dams, levees and floodwalls where you live. Don't think they just like to f*ck with New Orleans.

The Army Corps of Engineers did that?

All by themselves-no one else was responsible?

From the article that you link to-

But according to the contract obtained by Eyewitness News, that may not be the case. The contract calls for Ercon Corporation, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, to do the almost $2 million of work to raise and repair the floodwall under the Paris Road bridge.

So the Army Corps of Engineers pay a local contractor $2 million and it's their fault. They should have anticipated that a local Louisiana company would be that corrupt-in other words it's Ercon from Lafayette-that did you like that.

And, you can hurl all those dispersions on the Army Corp of Engineers for being naive and trusting you to do work that is worth $2 million.

I suppose if they brought in a foreign company or out of staters your representatives would scream to high hell.

You know you're a local-the most effective thing you could do is at the local level-go after Ecron.; 5/9/08, 12:12 AM
Beth said...: It's always a lot of fun to see how quickly conservatives turn into defenders of big government when it's their guys in charge.

When any governmental agency hires a contractor, they supervise and approve the work done by that contractor. How much do you think government does with its own workers, anyway? There'd be no Halliburton and Shaw Group if it wasn't for big government contracts. Does that mean the governmental agencies that let the contracts aren't responsible for overseeing the work done?

And when the contractor cheats or cuts corners, both agency and contractor should be held responsible. That's what this news story did, by shining the light on the Corps and the Lafayette company. The Corps has fixed the problem, so cheers for the news reporter.

The kind of arrogance and cutting corners we see happening here is not organic to Louisiana. It's the institutional mindset of the Corps, and it puts people and property at risk all over the U.S.; 5/9/08, 12:24 AM
Beth said...: Two days later the Corps claimed credit:

From an April 26 news conference:

"Corps officials said it used its own hired workers in 2006 to put in the newspaper filling, not a contractor."; 5/9/08, 12:42 AM
Anonymous said...: Nope you've got it exactly wrong.

It's why big government solutions stink. It's what is intrinsically wrong with layers and layers of bureaucracy.

It looks like from that article that youv'e got one guy from the Army Corps of Engineers blowing out his yamhole pretending that he knows what's going on and another guy who seems more on it.

And that is literally because when you get the big bureacratic nexus of DOD and the military and gawd knows what else you've got that many more people that many more miles away that literally don't know what the left hand of the same agency is doing. In efficiency at it's finest.

And another thing there will be a blame game and a bouncing around of-"not in my job description" we didn't do it for months.

But in all seriousness you know what it smells like?

Out and out fraud. and that is exactly why YOUR LOCAL politicians will ofescate and point back to the Army Corp of Engineers.

If you look at the local level and start from the bottom up-your most likely to uncover something they don't want you to.

Something like Ercon has been stuffing more than levees with newspapers.

They've been stuffing politican's pockets with Benjamins.

It's that simple.

You want to know why the US officer's corp votes almost over 80% fro Republicans?

It ain't 'cause they are a bunch of blood thirsty criminals that want to go shoot up people and the republicans are the only ones that'll let them-even though Dems have done more war than anybody-no.

It's because they deal with this over burdening big government inefficient red tape laden mumbo jumbo all the time.

Ya-overseeing but to the point of what?

Literally watching 24/7 and coming up with any and all ways that contractors and their hires can screw the people of New Orleans and the American taxpayer.

Sorry but I can see where thinking that something as gross as that would not happen.

What are they suppose to do?

Hire a guard for every worker? A guard for every guard.

That someone could do something that negligent is shockingly unbelievable.

That they didn't safeguard against it is a function of that.; 5/9/08, 12:45 AM
Beth said...: And just to be fair, I do applaud some of the Corps' accomplishments. The Bonnet Carre spillway, built by the ACOE in 1932, is a wonderful, elegantly simple piece of technology that diverts water from the Mississippi River into a spillway that leads to Lake Pontchartrain when the river gets past flood stage, as it has this year what with the very wet winter in the north and midwest. It's an awesome system, and we're grateful for it. As should be anyone who buys goods that enter our economy through the Gulf of Mexico, and are shipped up the river for distribution across the country, along with anyone who benefits from our country's export of goods shipped down the river to the Gulf, and across the seas to foreign customers.; 5/9/08, 12:48 AM
Anonymous said...: Beth Ya but who is saying that?

Why did the local who saw it with their own eyes lead the local news to Ercon?

I'm telling you-possibly the Army Corps could take the wrap for it-but why?

Could still be covering for some high jinks.

If it makes you more comfortable to believe that it's the Army Corps than so be it.

But there was that same conflict in the first story that you linked and that TV station -WWLTV said that they -

But according to the contract obtained by Eyewitness News [with Ercon]

Heh-one way to call their bluff is to dare Ercon to sue WWLTV for defamation-see what they do with it.

No harm no foul...?

Then who the heck did the Army Corps hire?

It's sounds like the game of ofuscation is a foot and the first story is already being de-contrstucted.; 5/9/08, 12:55 AM
Revenant said...: Revenant, I'm surprised you have time to stop and write, what with being so busy building and maintaining your own roads, putting out fires, personally carving a new president's head on Mount Rushmore, and printing your own money (that last one you really ought to leave to the feds.)

Well, Beth, I'm a Californian. We receive 81 cents in government benefits per dollar we pay in federal taxes. So we're not only paying for my roads, fire fighting, and money, but a good chunk of the roads, fire fighting, flood control, and pork barreling of the 30 other states, Louisiana among them, which receive more government benefits than they pay for.

Furthermore, my personal federal tax burden is above the mean, and far above the median. So not only is my state paying more than its share -- I am, too.

So either quit complaining or get your hand out of my pocket, because you don't get to take my money AND bitch about the quality of the work it buys for you.; 5/9/08, 12:59 AM
Anonymous said...: Beth-
The Bonnet Carre spillway, built by the ACOE in 1932

Ya that probably explains it-different era.

Somehow hopefully that mess that you are talking about doesn't get pinged about like a wiffle ball and swept under the rug.

That's usually what happens.

Too bad the local that saw it actually happen didn't film it.

What a mess-I'm sorry for all that has happened to you all down there.

And I know this is going to sound self gratuitious but I knew a lot of the military at Hurlburt, Eglin Biloxi and Maxwell.

They couldn't predict that damn thing and they were evacuating assets from one base to another -that really didn't help but no one wants to here that. It was a real mess for all of us-we are part of the community to.

Instead the media tells you that somehow it was because black people were dying that it took so long to get back in there.; 5/9/08, 1:09 AM
Mr. Forward said...: "Trends, Omens, and Weathermen, lend me your fears;
I come to bury Cedar, not to raise them.
The evil that trees do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cedar."

Bark Antony; 5/9/08, 5:12 AM
Anonymous said...: Shouldn't that be "the good is oft interred with their boles?

Beware the ides of Larch.; 5/9/08, 6:46 AM
Meade said...: Methadras nailed it at the top of the thread. Why not just bury lawnmowers and all two-cycle engines? Besides, how are the trees going to be buried - by people walking out into the forest with spades and shovels?

Organic turn-the-ground-over-with-a-plow farming creates far more greenhouse gases than does modern no-till farming. Quit de-sequestering all the carbon produced by the billions of microorganisms living in the soil.; 5/9/08, 8:05 AM
MadisonMan said...: Organic turn-the-ground-over-with-a-plow farming creates far more greenhouse gases than does modern no-till farming.

I'm not certain that this is a true statement. Modern no-till farming relies on the production and transport of both fertilizer and pesticides. And all the greenhouse gases that that emits. Organic farming? Not so much.; 5/9/08, 8:43 AM
MadisonMan said...: revenant: Wisconsin also sends way more to the Federal Treasury than it receives back. I believe it's a hallmark of 'blue' states that they subsidize the 'red' states. But I've never seen the actual discrepancy in writing. You cite 81 cents for CA -- is there a website that gives the amounts by state?; 5/9/08, 8:45 AM
howzerdo said...: The Tax Foundation (taxfoundation.org) publishes reports on "winner," "loser," and "break-even" states.; 5/9/08, 10:14 AM
Unknown said...: As a red state resident I'd be happy to see the imbalance rectified. You're our drug dealers, man, and we need to be cut off.; 5/9/08, 10:36 AM
SGT Ted said...: Sequestering CO2, which is like 1/10th of 1% of what are called greenhouse gasses, is a scam and a fraud. Like ethanol as an oxygenate for gasolene. And Al Gore. Fraud pure and simple.; 5/9/08, 1:08 PM
chuckR said...: Ten gigatons a year. Giga - such a nice sounding prefix. Your multi-gigahertz laptop computer is very manageable. But ten gigatons of wood - thats like 500 million full cords of wood. That in turn is about 1/2 cubic mile. Pretty big hole, don't you think? Another way to look at it - this is about 80 times the garbage thats landfilled in the US each year. Oops, be sure to dig it deep - if a termite finds it, she'll think shes died and gone to heaven. And unlike the sketchy evidence that man-made CO2 is a significant greenhouse gas, its agreed that methane is. Termites eat carbon based cellulose and fart methane.; 5/9/08, 1:37 PM
MadisonMan said...: Sequestering CO2, which is like 1/10th of 1% of what are called greenhouse gasses,

The relative concentrations of the various greenhouse gases are not relevant. The more important metric is their relative contribution to Earth's radiative budget; that is, how much outgoing longwave terrestrial radiation they absorb and re-emit.; 5/9/08, 2:42 PM
Henry said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/9/08, 3:19 PM
Henry said...: Actually we were burying paper -- for quite some time. When scientists take core samples of old landfills, mostly what the find are old, still readable newspapers.

Oddly enough, that didn't seem to stop global warming.

And before that, we weren't so much burying trees as sinking them. The Royal Navy stripped New England bare of tall pine trees to use as masts for sailing ships.

Of course, at the same time, all the short trees were being burned up for heat. It was the little ice-age after all.

Volcanos do a pretty good job of burying trees, but they have other side effects.

What we really need is a way to make clouds rain dirt.; 5/9/08, 3:31 PM
Beth said...: Revenant, sure, I'll happily take your money and ignore whether it's being put to good use. That makes a lot of sense. Revenant-style sense.

31 states receive more federal dollars than they put out. Get busy, man, you have a lot of finger-wagging to accomplish.; 5/9/08, 4:11 PM
Revenant said...: Revenant, sure, I'll happily take your money and ignore whether it's being put to good use. That makes a lot of sense.

I know it isn't being put to good use. It is being spent protecting Louisiana residents who live in an idiotic location from being flooded. That's a complete waste of my money.

My point is that if you're so dissatisfied with the job the federal government is doing with MY money, you and the other Louisianans can spend YOUR money to do it right. According to the article you linked, the reason for the substandard building is insufficient funding -- in other words, it would cost even more of my money to "do it right". To hell with that; I'm paying too much as it is.; 5/9/08, 5:20 PM
Beth said...: If you'd read both stories I linked you'd see several excuses were made; none blamed insufficient money, but one offered the excuse that federal money hadn't arrived yet. Another said the materials needed weren't available. Someone was skimming either time or money, evidently; the rest was bullshit.

It's my money, too, which you continue to ignore. My money also goes to support things I don't thing are good ideas; lots and lots of my money is being swallowed up in Iraq, and some of that is going to the trough where incompentent and corrupt contractors feed.

New Orleans is a vital port. That's why, 300 years ago, it was founded. It anchors the Gulf and Mississippi River. We thought it was vital enough to make sure the British didn't get their hands on it in 1814. And in 300 years, it hasn't washed away, despite episodes of flooding and hurricane activity. The levee system works; it fails only when shoddy engineering or construction methods are used. So keeping an eye on the engineers and contractors is smart, as is protecting that port area with levees and floodwalls.; 5/9/08, 9:24 PM