Recently on LinkedIn:
First, it’s a premise of sustainable, alternative fuels that their production actually draws down atmospheric carbon–the carbon comes out of the atmosphere to make the fuel. The carbon is released again when the fuel is burned. By (albeit partial and imperfect so far) application of that principle, vastly lower net emissions (on the basis of life cycle analysis) are now possible.
I understand all abot life-cycle assessment. Yes, true, biofuel crops do take CO2 out of the air.
But not if brazilian rainforest has to be cut down to make way for new plantation crops — because the native forest already does a way better job of taking CO2 out of the air than a crop with less biodiversity ever will.
So my question is: where are we going to grow all of the new crops that will be needed for this additional biofuel?
It’s no good saying that new sustainable crops will reduce the CO2 from the air if you harvest the whole thing every year and burn it again. That only releases the same carbon that was absorbed by the crop in the first place… so no net CO2 increase. (well that is probably an over-simplification, because some carbon dioxide no doubt goes in to the soil)
But I think what climate scientists are saying is that the best case scenario would be if we could absorb all of the additional CO2 that is now in the air from all of the carbon dioxide that was released from burning gigatonnes of fossil fuels over the last century.
Remeber all of that fuel everyone has been putting in their cars, trucks and motorcycles over their whole lifetime? What are we doing about all of that additional CO2 that has already been released? In other words, to *reduce* the current CO2 level by ~150ppm. That should all still be underground, not in the air.
In case people haven’t noticed, the carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere is still going up! It hasn’t even peaked yet!! How long before we can even get it to level off? Let alone get it back to what it was before (probably that won’t ever happen)?
So the analogy is that an extra ‘blanket’ has already been placed on the Earth. And we are doing *nothing* to take it off. On the contrary. We are clearing land (native forest) all over the place, such as in QLD… that is the equivalent of turning up the thermostat in the room, while still keeping the extra blanket on as well! That is why I think they (climate scientists) are now saying that it is a “climate emergency”. Would it help if scientists said it like this:
Warning! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!!
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