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U.N.: Nature Best at Handling Climate Change
Associated Press
AMSTERDAM — Nature’s way is best for controlling the gases responsible for climate change, the U.N. Environment Program said in a report Friday.
The report said better management of forests, more careful agricultural practices and the restoration of peatlands could soak up significant amounts of carbon dioxide, the most common of the gases blamed for global warming.
“We need to move toward a comprehensive policy framework for addressing ecosystems,” said co-author Barney Dickson, releasing the report at the U.N. climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany. The event was Webcast worldwide.
Millions of dollars are being invested in research on capturing and burying carbon emissions from power stations, but investing in ecosystems could achieve cheaper results, the report said.
It also would have the added effects of preserving biodiversity, improving water supplies and boosting livelihoods.
Halving deforestation by mid-century and maintaining that lower rate for another 50 years would save the equivalent of five years of carbon emissions at the current level, said Dickson, the agency’s head of climate change and biodiversity.
The loss of peatlands, mainly drained for palm oil and pulp wood plantations in Southeast Asia, contributes 8 percent of global carbon emissions. China could capture about 5 percent of its carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels by returning straw to croplands, it said.
Agriculture has the largest potential for storing carbon if farmers use better techniques, such as avoiding turning over the soil and using natural compost and manure rather than chemical fertilizers, it said.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
At least this would do no harm, unlike the crazy Cap-n-Tax insanity.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Amazing, what have we been trying to tell these people… And yet it takes thousands of Elite Academics years to come to the same conclusion any hunter, fisherman, or classical liberal thinker could have told them many years ago. Witout having wasted millions to pay these stuffed shirts and millions more for the high priced equipment they use to conduct their PSUDO SCIENCE REASEARCH!!! Which is based in this kind of green $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
General Electric and the boys at work $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
June 9th, 2009 at 5:39 am
While I agree that better agriculture techniques would benefit ecological concerns, the UN would be my last choice as an “agent of change”. Enough said.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Here are two quick questions:
How can CO2 be considered a pollutant when it’s a required trace gas to sustain all carbon based life on this planet?
And
If CO2 is a pollutant, what happens when it is taken out of the equation for photosynthesis?
June 10th, 2009 at 3:11 am
This is a great idea. I am afraid of how governments will use the “Cap and Trade” or “Cap and Tax” method which will empower and enrich a few people and companies and leave the rest of us paying the huge bill. Using nature, common sense and encouraging biodiversity is not only cheaper, It is more fair to everyone on the Earth.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Well, if really want to sequester carbon create charcoal. This fixs carbon from items like dead wood, straw and other burnable biomass into charcoal. Start doing this now and voila carbon sequestration in mass. The seas will shrink, we won’t go poof and all will be well in the world.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:31 am
In my area of California there are alot of people clearing and disking way too many acres. I quit disking for fire protection many years ago because it destroys the soil. Since I started mowing only what is needed for reasonable fire protection, and started trying to build the soil by planting clover and using wheat straw laid on the surface as a mulch/compost, the results are unbelievable. All trees, fruit trees as well as natural trees, are responding to my efforts. The clover and wheat as well as natural grasses and plants are increasing in size. I learned this type of soil management from a guy who wrote a book on “How to Grow World Record Tomatoes”.
Mowing leaves the roots to hold the soil while the straw left behind turns into compost of a sort. Working with Nature instead of against her. These guys are onto something. It’s time to start “CARING”, and take some responsibility for our actions and not go overboard………
June 11th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
The problem is that nature is no longer able to regenerate itself quickly enough to cope with all the problems that man has produced for the environment.
It is true that global warming is not just a recent phenomenon; however, in the history of the earth, it is the first time it is occurring while human life exists on earth. In all previous global warming periods experienced by the earth, there were no factories causing polution, before human life, there were no caves to be heated and no houses, schools, hospitals, churches and other buildings to be heated, and there were no paved roads etc., to be dealt with.
Without a doubt, man has made a significant contribution to the degradation of the environment. We have already witnessed the disappearance of the snows of mount Kilimanjaro and currently, we are experiencing the breaking up of ice bergs and the melting of snow in places such as Greenland, and we are aware of flooding from rising seas in certain islands.
Yes under normal situations, nature would have been able to take care of the problem itself, but thanks to man’s assistance, we have rendered nature to be incapable of adjusting sufficiently in a timely manner to deal with the situation. One thing is certain, we cannot reverse the degradation of the icebergs.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Wow. Ya think?!? Ummmm duh. The reason there is a surplus in CO2 is because the plants that breath it are less. And the UN releases something that will not be popular with the eco-zealot community? Whats the world coming to?
June 11th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
This is great news. It also says something against The Al Gore hysteria.
Replanting and restoring is the best way to help nature. All growing plants,trees and the oceans thrive on Co2.
June 12th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Cue the denying Limbots in 3-2-1…
June 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
THE GREED RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEFORESTATION OF EARTH’S RAIN FORESTS IS THE MAIN CAUSE FOR THE FAILURE OF NATURE TO ABSORB GREEN HOUSE ADMISSIONS ALONG WITH THE AUTO INDUSTRIES CRAZE TO PRODUCE GAS GUZZLERS SUCH AS GM, FORD, AND CHRYSLER GAS HOGS, DAKOTAS, EXHIBITIONS, DENALIS, ETC. THE NEED FOR GAS HOG MONSTERS IS A HUGE MISTAKE. BUT AMERICANS BUY WHATEVER THEY WANT BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT INFORMED ON WHAT THE SONSEQUENCES TO THE ENVIORNMENT MAY BE.
June 13th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Global Warming, Man Made Climate Change, is such a hoax, it is less than a theory and more of a religion. The religion believes fake or incorrect numbers draws illogical conclusions to the actual facts on the ground and also the effects of the Sun on our climate cycle.
I think we need a lie detector in Washington to see how many people really believe in man made global warming and the people who are just using this to make money from it.
Sort of like controlling Cigs. everyone knows it will kill you but now the government wants to take over to kill you slower. Or making econo box cars that can not stand up to an accident. Either the government wants to kill us slower or faster we will see when they start rationing medical care.
Get back to the consitution and let Congress regulate like they were voted in to do, fire all the czars! Stop spending money and reduce the tax rate or we will export every good job in the US to foreign tax havens.
June 13th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Ban windmills!
Wind needs energy to bring rain inland where there are now huge areas without vegetation.
If we can let those areas go green again, we won’t have to worry about CO2.
June 14th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
It is about time that someone made this connection. My background is in biology and forestry and I am appalled that our governments are contemplating disrupting our economy when there alternatives like those stated in this article. Plant trees and create jobs instead of destroying them.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Can we at least go back to the debate we never had about whether global warming is even happening, let alone man caused? I just read an AP story that said, “Iceberg grows in spite of global warming.” I think most 3rd graders could figure out the problem with this story. Disappearing ice means global warming and growing ice means global warming. Huh? Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t warming. I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Nature has taken care of climate change for billions of years. It will do so again WITHOUT human intervention.