Fast-growing Trees Eat CO2

Plants are nature's oxygen machines. They keep our atmosphere breathable by taking out the carbon dioxide and putting back oxygen. That's why the killing of the world's forests is such a critical problem. That's also why the work of two scientists at Syracuse's State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry is so important.

At an ESF field in Tully, Dr. Edwin H. White and Dr. Lawrence P. Abrahamson have been making hydrib trees grow 10 to 20 times faster than their wild-growing cousins do. In the process, they are generating oxygen at a similarly accelerated rate.

Much has been written lately about the "greenhouse effect" - which many scientists belive will result in global warming that will melt polar ice caps and flood coastlines while turning many inland areas into deserts. Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, generated primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, will trap the sun's heat and not allow the earth to cool properly, so the theory goes.

As humanity is not likely to curb its use of fossil fules in the near future, the most promising strategy in battling the greenhouse effects is to cultivate plants to eat up the excess carbon dioxide. (If you will remember your high-school biology, you know that photosynthesis is the process by which plants extract carbon dioxide from the air, use the carbon to build tissue and return the oxygen to the air.)

The world is just now starting to heed alarms about the destruction of its forests - primarily in Asia and South America (30 million acres a year in the Amazon basin alone). This is a tragedy for the areas involved as wildlife species, deprived of their habitat, are dying out. It's also of grave concern for all humanity as carbon-dioxide builds up in the atmosphere faster than the world's plants can absorb it.

The work of White and Abrahamson and scientists like them may be part of the answer. Besides generating oxygen, their super-trees also provide wood for fuel - which means leass coal and oil have to be burned. Thanks to their efforts, future generations may be able to breathe a little easier.

COMMENTARY: Another case of "Can't see the forest for the trees."

The idea of fast-growing trees, like faster cars, computers and returns on investment, sounds very clever - you know, racy. But both editor's and scientists' strategy lack common sense wisdom.

The very first sentence reveals the writer has gained little insight into Nature - by calling plants "machines" the writer reduces the Web of Life to mechanical objects in the industrial pipeline. Dying trees and ravaged forests are symptoms; the cause is our ignorant tampering with the Web of Nature. The solution is to reconcieve our understanding and relationship to Nature, not a license to engage in more tampering.

Nonetheless, it's noteworthy a local paper makes greenhouse effect an editorial concern - not for the first time. The writer may not see the Unity of the Natural World, yet the newspaper understands our complete reliance on a global ecosystem, and the acute threat to its stability. The writer assumes we can and will keep burning fossil fuels, and lays the burden squarely on tropical rainforests. Yet ocean biomass is an even greater CO2 sink, especially conversion of CO2 to carbonates in shells - and oceans are in deep trouble too. How long until there is the awareness we MUST stop our massive daily burning of fossil fuels, among other practices, to stop the climate "machine" from spinning out of control.

The writer is unaware of lessons learned in agriculture's Green Revolution of the dangers of manipulating and narrowing the genetic base through hybridization. Similarly the notion of fast growing trees burned as fuel to reduce coal and oil burning is simply incorrect. CO2 is CO2, whether it comes from wood, coal, oil, gas, bacteria, landfills, burnt limestone, termites, or radiactive decay.

And from our point of view, the present man-made defrost cycle in the planetary ecosystem is just another trigger for a polar deep freeze. Why are so many glaciers growing, not shrinking? Has anybody checked Antarctica?

The researchers have also neglected existing plants which fix carbon faster than most trees. The hemp plant is the most prolific photosaynthesizer in temperate climates, but illegal.

By the way, burning biomass instead of fossil fuel will reduce greenhouse levels. Yes, CO2 is CO2, but if using biomass you burn that much less fossil fuel. And all the CO2 released was already in the atmosphere prior to the photosynthetic process. If using hemp stalks for methanol the roots, leaves, and flowers are plowed back into the soil, returning almost all the nitrate and phosphate and some of the carbon.