Charles we don't have time for this

Prince Charles is on the BBC: Charles urges forest logging halt.

The halting of logging in the world's rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said.

Apparently rain forest destruction accounts for 18% of total CO2 from Human sources.

I totally agree that we should be working at saving rainforests.

BUT we do not have time to tackle climate change one item at a time.

Suppose we stopped all rainforest destruction, maybe we went even further and and allowed some land to start a (long) process of returning to forest.

At best we could cut CO2 production by 18%, but no climatologist seems to thing that is anything like enough.

We have to start on 1001 different projects to cut CO2 production. Tackling the low lying fruit in 1001 areas is a much faster way to cut CO2 production by more than 18%.

So work on the rainforests but also work on sustainable transport, more efficient production, reduced consumption, more efficient energy sources, ...

This single item focus reminds me of another post I wrote recently: 42: Percentage Christianity.

Comments

[Peter Kirk]

Good post. But you miss the irony that felling and replanting sustainable forests, for timber and paper, is actually taking huge quantities of CO2 out of the atmosphere, and not putting it back unless the wood or paper is burned.

no climatologist seems to thing that is anything like enough

It is also ironic that both you and John Hobbins are making exaggerated claims about all climatologists, but saying more or less the opposite about them. As I took John to task, to be fair I will also take you to task. Since there are some climatologists (John claims all of them!) who don't think anthropogenic CO2 is a problem, it can hardly be true that all of them think that an 18% cut in emissions is inadequate. Both John's claim and yours would be much more convincing if you avoided hyperbole which is transparently untrue.

[Dave]

Peter,

Sustainable forests are good, but are not replacements for rainforests.

In my defence I have never exaggerated about anything at all.

The last International Conference thingy made it clear that that the chances of global warming not being connected to human activity are very small indeed. So while I accept that saying ALL is a slight exaggeration I do not think it is a very big one.