Green myths (part 3)

I bet you still try to wrap your head around the first 2 parts of the green myths. I also hope that you did your research and found sources about the things I talk about here. I'd love to put them up here but I want the people to learn to research and not be biased to what I say and the links I will provide.

I bet you 'd research those...

 

Next time someone tells you that we need to start growing more trees (more than the ones we already have??) tell him this: Forests in the tropical belt around the equator benefit the planet. They absorb CO2­, in a process called carbon sequestering, which helps lower temperatures. It's the forests outside of the tropics that may have little or no impact on climate change. Wait what? Since school everyone told you how forests help... They lied?

The farther away from the equator forests are, the more likely they are to trap heat in their dense canopies, raising temperatures. This is known as the albedo effect. In a study conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Institution and Université Montpellier II, scientists found that forests in mid-to-high latitudes could increase temperatures by up to 10 degrees F (5.5 degrees C) in the next 100 years than if those forests were not there. I bet you hate me already...

So since we are treehugging let's go to our very favorite forest of myths! Yes the Amazon! Amazon forests are disappearing right? This is what everyone says... Actually only a 12.5% of the original Forest is deforested. And 1/3rd to 1/2nd o that is fallow or regenerating... Meaning that we are left with a whooping 94%. Now I don't know about you but still this isn't how terrible they present it on TV eco news.

Forest acreage is actually increasing. In 1920 U.S. forest covered 732 million acres and today it covers 737 million acres. In Europe forests expanded from 361 million acres in 1950 to 482 million in 1990.

Also they say that Amazon forests are the lungs of the earth. Not true. Only the fast growing young trees that take up CO2 and releasing oxygen. When a tree falls the chemical reaction is: Wood + oxygen = CO2. And this is a major problem with the forests there.I don't say we should go and make em paper but still things aren't as many want them to appear.

Not that Amazon dummy...

Also everyone talks about CO2 being a pollutant and the enemy of all humanity... This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is.  CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included  CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it. 

Now don't tell me that we should make more factories to increase it. As it is now, it's OK I assume. Either way it is less than 3% of the total atmosphere "cocktail".

Now as for the ozone layer and how we destroy it... On October 1, 1999, CNN reported that "the latest NASA images of the ozone layer shows that a hole in the atmospheric layer that protects Earth from the sun's harmful radiation is shrinking. This year's ozone hole is smaller than last year's, (but) scientists say it will be a while before the hole disappears completely -- 2060 at the earliest." Really? I thought every chicken little said that it will eventually grow till we are all under water and the sun's radiation will kill us all...

Another recent report either ignored or rejected out of hand by environmental activists came from Beijing in June of this year. A professor of geological sciences named Yang Xuexiang wrote in the May Chinese edition of the Scientific American magazine that solar wind is the root cause of the ozone hole, rather than the use of freon.

Yang makes the argument that solar wind has made the atmosphere at the South Pole thinner, and that the eruption of volcanoes in the southern hemisphere has released large amounts harmful gas, contributing to the hole. Another factor is that the solar high-energy particle currents consume ozone both at the South Pole and the North Pole when they enter the earth's atmosphere.

Yang makes the point that the northern hemisphere is where the use of freon is most prevalent and so if the freon theory is correct, the ozone hole should have appeared above the North Pole instead of the South Pole.

So my final point to close these green myths is that use your brain, make research and of course don't through your trash all over the place. We already have a huge problem in space not just earth. Imagine we take so much space with our trash... where... in friggin space! Finally question why there is such a huge movement called green. It is green for another reason than you think:

As much as I believe in the good in people, I doubt corporations do anything without earning a buck or two or millions... Food for thought...