Thread:Proxima Centauri/@comment-26279493-20150524071704

As I've watched you edit entries about trees and fossil fuels over the last week or so, I've noticed a bit of a trend. When thinking about global warming it's very easy to get confused.

You see, some years back, petroleum companies started funding environmental concerns. It may seem strange that this would be the case, but it should be remembered that many of the materials we use can be produced either from naturally growing plants, or from fossil fuels. Much effort has been devoted to quantifying the "global warming" effects of deforestation.

While it's true that both biological and geological carbon compounds can add atmospheric carbon, a couple facts should be remembered. Living things grow and die. In the case of a tree, it grows by biological processes of taking elements from the soil and air, and with the use of energy combining them into semi-stable organic compounds. The tree keeps adding these compounds to it's body throughout it's life. Throughout it's lifetime it is subject to attack by animals, fungi, and natural disasters like fire. Like all living things, the tree eventually loses it's battle and dies. Ultimately, the tree decomposes. During it's decomposition, or it's natural destruction by fire, all the atmospheric carbon it had sequestered is reemitted.

Over millions of years, a tiny part of the carbon based compounds of plants and animals can become trapped within the earth and form stable geologic organic compounds. That's where coal, petroleum, and natural gasses come from.

The point of this rant is to bring up the point that all the research on the "pollution" of logging or cow farts is just another distraction, one of many that have appeared as geo-carbon interests have realized their responsibility, and have tried to shift the blame. Yes, it may be true that animal husbandry is an inefficient way to produce food, but the only carbon added to the biosphere in farming is the carbon from the use of fossil fuel. Carbon in the life cycle of an organism is a zero sum equation. Organisms neither create nor destroy carbon in the biosphere, they just change it's state. All the new carbon in the system has been released by man's use of geologically stable sequestered carbon, or has come from some other geologic source.  