MORE ON CO2 IN SOIL

The following alarmist story seems to have got a lot of publicity. It is related to an experiment I mentioned yesterday about release of CO2 from soil but offers apparently much higher quality data. I will leave it to people expert in the field to do a serious critique of it but a few preliminary notes anyway: 1). The most important I think is that the permanent sequestration (trapping) or not of CO2 in the soil is not a major concern anyway. The principal effect of higher CO2 should be greater growth in plants of all sorts ABOVE ground. And forests in many places in the developed world have in fact expanded in recent years. 2). Additionally, a large part of the takeup of CO2 is in the oceans so is not addressed by the study below. 3). As the great increase in atmospheric methane that I mentioned yesterday has not led to runaway global warming, it is unlikely that a relatively unimportant greenhouse gas like CO2 would have much effect even if levels did substantially rise -- which they have not done so far (particularly when compared with methane).

"Present forecasts of climate change could be seriously underestimated because of huge amounts of carbon pouring out of the earth. A unique soil study in Britain produced results that came as a shock to scientists, who said the effect was probably happening in other parts of the world, especially in temperate regions with wet, peaty soils.

Experts had assumed that about 25 per cent of total human carbon emissions were mopped up by vegetation which then dies, locking the carbon into the soil. But they had not reckoned on the extent to which soil bacteria work on compost, and release the carbon back into the atmosphere. The new research indicates that the amount of carbon being released from soil is enough to cancel out all the carbon dioxide emission reductions achieved by Britain between 1990 and 2002.

The study found that in England and Wales the soil lost carbon at a rate of 0.6 per cent a year between 1978 and 2003. Extrapolated to the whole of Britain it amounted to annual carbon losses of 13 million tonnes - equivalent to 8 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions from British industry in 1990.

Guy Kirk, from Cranfield University in Bedfordshire, said: "Our findings suggest that the soil part of the equation is scarier than had been thought. If the 25 per cent is going to go, it means we've got 25 per cent more carbon to worry about. We should be concerned, for sure . If we don't do something about it, global warming will accelerate and the consequences will be disaster."

The findings, published in the journal Nature, were presented yesterday at the BA Festival of Science at Trinity College, Dublin. The National Soil Inventory survey involved taking and analysing soil samples from 5600 sites in England and Wales. Samples were checked for their carbon content in 1978 and again in 2003. Soils with a higher carbon content were found to be losing their carbon at a higher rate. Most of the carbon escaped as carbon dioxide. It was recognised that in about 50 years the amount of carbon coming out of the soil would catch up with the amount going in.

There was little that could be done to tackle the problem without addressing the fundamental question of human carbon dioxide emissions, Professor Kirk said. "If you were prepared to turn the whole of arable England back to trees that would work, but it's not practical," he said. German experts Ernest Detlef Schulze and Annette Freibauer, from the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, wrote in an accompanying commentary in Nature that the scientific and political implications of the new findings were considerable. "If we intend to stabilise the climate, such areas require much more serious consideration," they wrote.

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Pascal's Blunder: Miscalculating the Threat of Global Warming

Prominent religious voices in America, especially among evangelical Christians, are increasingly being heard in the debate over global warming. More often than not, evangelicals - many of whom could easily be described as political and cultural conservatives - see climate change as a man-made problem. The National Association of Evangelicals, a coalition representing 52 member denominations, called on policymakers in October to pay more attention to the problem of "environmental degradation" in its landmark statement, "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility." In a recent presentation to the NAE, Sir John Houghton, Britain's leading climatologist, said, "The rise in global average temperature (and the rate of rise) that has occurred during the 20th century is well outside the range of known natural variability."

Identifying human society as the culprit behind global warming is fast approaching the level of accepted dogma in evangelical circles, as a recent article by Andy Crouch in Christianity Today confirms. Crouch argues that global warming theory, "is taken for granted by nearly every scientist working in the field," and that there is "no serious disagreement among scientists that human beings are playing a major role in global warming." Crouch criticizes the Bush administration's "indifference" on the issue, noting the basis for caution in the questions of "a few vocal skeptics."

It's ironic that Crouch finds the source of evangelical distrust of scientific global warming dogma in the contemporary creation/evolution debates. If there's any group that should know about the difficulty of breaking through the groupthink of mainstream science, it ought to be the proponents of Intelligent Design.

Crouch goes on to compare the global warming debate to Pascal's wager, the famous theological contention that to "believe in God though he does not exist" is to "lose nothing in the end. Fail to believe when he does in fact exist, and you lose everything." In the place of God in Crouch's version of the wager, however, is global warming.

The problem with this analogy is that Pascal's wager is only valid when placed within the context of the eternal and the ultimate. When it is applied to everyday issues, it quickly loses its persuasive power. Crouch's contention that "we have little to lose" if we exaggerate the threat of global warming displays no recognition of the reality of the future impact of unduly restrictive political policies and environmental regulations.

Vernon L. Smith, a Nobel laureate and professor of economics and law at George Mason University, recognizes the economic concerns that are often overlooked. He writes, "If we ignore this rule of optimality and begin abatement now for damages caused by emissions after 100 years, we leave our descendants with fewer resources - 100 years of return on the abatement costs not incurred - to devote to subsequent damage control. The critical oversight here is the failure to respect opportunity cost. Each generation must be responsible for the future effect of that generation's emission damage. Earlier generations have the responsibility of leaving subsequent generations a capital stock that has not been diminished by incurring premature abatement costs."

Thomas C. Schelling, a professor at the University of Maryland, agrees, "Future generations will be much richer than current ones, and it thus makes no sense to make current generations `pay' for the problems of future generations." Smith and Schelling participated in what is known as the Copenhagen Consensus of 2004, convened by environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg. This process helped to prioritize ten of the most critical global challenges. The threat of global warming was consistently ranked last or second-to-last by each of the experts, while concerns like communicable diseases (control of HIV/AIDS), malnutrition and hunger (providing micronutrients), and subsidies and trade (trade liberalization), topped the list.

Smith's analysis exposes the critical flaw in Crouch's argument: the false dilemma of action now or cataclysm later. What we do know for sure is that if we commit resources now to fight global warming that could otherwise be spent on programs of immediate need, millions will suffer and die needlessly. I can think of no better way of reckoning with Christ's admonition, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:34 NIV).

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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