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European forests near carbon saturation point

Rainman05

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European forests near carbon saturation point | euronews, Europe

A new study has warned that Europe’s forests are showing signs of reaching saturation point in their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

It means one of the continent’s main defences against global warming is under threat.

A declining volume of trees, deforestation and the impact of natural disturbances are to blame.

Forests currently soak up about 10 percent of Europe’s emissions, but woodlands from Spain to Sweden are getting older and are packed with trees that are less efficient at soaking them up.

Calculations suggest saturation point could be reached by around 2030 unless governments take action.

The information comes in a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“These regrowing forests have shown to be a persistent carbon sink, projected to continue for decades, however, there are early signs of saturation. Forest policies and management strategies need revision if we want to sustain the sink,” the report said.

This is really bad. We need to drastically reduce our oil consumption and promote green energy, as well as further promote sylvicultural activities.
 
European forests near carbon saturation point | euronews, Europe



This is really bad. We need to drastically reduce our oil consumption and promote green energy, as well as further promote sylvicultural activities.

You want to reduce oil consumption? Increase the price. If you charge 10 Euros a liter? They'll slow consuming. The economically efficient method would be over CO2 certificates. That reduces heating, warm water and power use. Tell the folks what it means honestly. Put it to the vote.

Good we talked about it.
 
Why don't they plant new trees?
 
You want to reduce oil consumption? Increase the price. If you charge 10 Euros a liter? They'll slow consuming. The economically efficient method would be over CO2 certificates. That reduces heating, warm water and power use. Tell the folks what it means honestly. Put it to the vote.

Good we talked about it.

I'm actually thinking about this. Electric cars.

Kick-starting Europe's electric vehicle industry

So far the only major companies that have working electric cars are in the the USA and Canada. The only thing coming out of European countries in this regard is this

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/News/S...VW-unveils-electric-e-Up-2013-first-pictures/
 
I'm actually thinking about this. Electric cars.

Kick-starting Europe's electric vehicle industry

So far the only major companies that have working electric cars are in the the USA and Canada. The only thing coming out of European countries in this regard is this

VW unveils electric e-Up (2013) first pictures | Automotive & Motoring News | Car Magazine Online


Let's face it. Most of Europe is all bluster and well trodden paths. There is no real innovation there. The society at least in the European countries I know is geared against change. That is why they do change so horribly poorly, when they talk themselves into a corner and have to. Just look at the way Germany is going about its new energy policy or reforming its military.
 
Let's face it. Most of Europe is all bluster and well trodden paths. There is no real innovation there. The society at least in the European countries I know is geared against change. That is why they do change so horribly poorly, when they talk themselves into a corner and have to. Just look at the way Germany is going about its new energy policy or reforming its military.

LOL then you dont know Europe... no real innovation.. get real. Europe is light years ahead of the US on many points (and on others it is not). If anyone is against change the it is the US.. look at your whole debate about healthcare over to abortion to gay rights.. same old 16th century views.
 
I'm actually thinking about this. Electric cars.

Kick-starting Europe's electric vehicle industry

So far the only major companies that have working electric cars are in the the USA and Canada. The only thing coming out of European countries in this regard is this

VW unveils electric e-Up (2013) first pictures | Automotive & Motoring News | Car Magazine Online

Actually that is not entirely true. The electric car business started early in Europe.. as in the 1980s, but went quickly bust due to low gas prices and anti-electric car marketing from the oil and car industry. I remember a British and Danish company in the 1980s-90s trying to push for an electric car. There was a famous crash of one of the cars at its presentation.

But regardless, European car manufactures along with Japanese lead in innovation when it comes to km per litre, which is why on average an European car goes almost double the km than that of a US car.

As for the OP issue.. it has been an issue for decades .. I remember reading about this in the 1980s. Overall Europe has brought down its production of CO2.. unlike other parts of the world.

One solution btw, is to plant more trees, to spread the burden.. which Europe does constantly.
 
European forests near carbon saturation point | euronews, Europe



This is really bad. We need to drastically reduce our oil consumption and promote green energy, as well as further promote sylvicultural activities.

It also doesn't make much sense. As long as photosynthesis is taking place, carbon is being sequestered. Cellulose, sugar and starch, all consume carbon dioxide in their production . In other words, if the forest is growing, it's consuming CO2. If growth and decay have reached equilibrium, then the obvious solution is massive timber harvest and the planting of new trees.

Prompting "green energy," whatever that is, will be about as effective as the search for a perpetual motion machine, just with less profitable results.
 
Let's face it. Most of Europe is all bluster and well trodden paths. There is no real innovation there. The society at least in the European countries I know is geared against change. That is why they do change so horribly poorly, when they talk themselves into a corner and have to. Just look at the way Germany is going about its new energy policy or reforming its military.

Actually, you're pretty wrong on all counts.

It also doesn't make much sense. As long as photosynthesis is taking place, carbon is being sequestered. Cellulose, sugar and starch, all consume carbon dioxide in their production . In other words, if the forest is growing, it's consuming CO2. If growth and decay have reached equilibrium, then the obvious solution is massive timber harvest and the planting of new trees.

Prompting "green energy," whatever that is, will be about as effective as the search for a perpetual motion machine, just with less profitable results.

Smarter people than you and I who study these sort of thing said that they are reaching carbon saturation levels.

Green energy is the way of the future. We need to phase out, slowly but surely, anything that need outrageous amounts of fuel. Cars first.

Actually that is not entirely true. The electric car business started early in Europe.. as in the 1980s, but went quickly bust due to low gas prices and anti-electric car marketing from the oil and car industry. I remember a British and Danish company in the 1980s-90s trying to push for an electric car. There was a famous crash of one of the cars at its presentation.

But regardless, European car manufactures along with Japanese lead in innovation when it comes to km per litre, which is why on average an European car goes almost double the km than that of a US car.

As for the OP issue.. it has been an issue for decades .. I remember reading about this in the 1980s. Overall Europe has brought down its production of CO2.. unlike other parts of the world.

One solution btw, is to plant more trees, to spread the burden.. which Europe does constantly.

Maybe it did start in the 1980s, but it didn't impose itself due to the reasons you mentioned and others I'm sure. But today, the electric cars design made by European companies are not much to look at. The US and Canada have a leg up on this one with actual working designs.

Fuel efficiency is a good thing. I'm not doubting that. But we need to phase out combustion cars. I for one would like the next car i own to be an electric one that I'm not afraid to drive in city and outside the city too.
 
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Was the study in the OP commissioned by the European Timber Workers Union?

Just curious because it sounds like "If you don't let us clear cut all the old timber to make way for new timber then we are all going to die!!!"
 
Smarter people than you and I who study these sort of thing said that they are reaching carbon saturation levels.

Green energy is the way of the future. We need to phase out, slowly but surely, anything that need outrageous amounts of fuel. Cars first.



Maybe it did start in the 1980s, but it didn't impose itself due to the reasons you mentioned and others I'm sure. But today, the electric cars design made by European companies are not much to look at. The US and Canada have a leg up on this one with actual working designs.

Fuel efficiency is a good thing. I'm not doubting that. But we need to phase out combustion cars. I for one would like the next car i own to be an electric one that I'm not afraid to drive in city and outside the city too.

Cars need energy to move. How that energy is generated, stored, and applied to moving the car,
is what is important.
Organic hydrocarbons have issues, but mostly that they are finite.
An electric car may not be any cleaner than a fuel car, if the source for the
electricity is a coal plant.
Energy density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The best battery on the list is at 1.8 MJ/Kg, Gasoline is about 46 MJ/Kg.
So a cars petrol tank holds 40 liters that's 1840 MJ of energy of which
Mr Carnot allows us to extract 460 MJ (Aprox 25%).
So 460 MJ divided by 1.8 MJ/Kg= 255 Kg
A car would need to carry 255 Kg of Batteries to equal 40 Kg of petrol.

As to the forest, as the temperatures increase, the plant zones will change,
and the forest will expand.
Where forest could not grow in 1900 because of temperature , should already be expanding.
Hardiness Zone Changes at arborday.org
 
Why don't they plant new trees?

If we're to believe we have extremely high levels of atmospheric CO2 now in place, the plants of the world ought to be showing increased growth rates.

(I do understand that the older trees don't need as much when they age)
 
Cars need energy to move. How that energy is generated, stored, and applied to moving the car,
is what is important.
Organic hydrocarbons have issues, but mostly that they are finite.
An electric car may not be any cleaner than a fuel car, if the source for the
electricity is a coal plant.
Energy density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The best battery on the list is at 1.8 MJ/Kg, Gasoline is about 46 MJ/Kg.
So a cars petrol tank holds 40 liters that's 1840 MJ of energy of which
Mr Carnot allows us to extract 460 MJ (Aprox 25%).
So 460 MJ divided by 1.8 MJ/Kg= 255 Kg
A car would need to carry 255 Kg of Batteries to equal 40 Kg of petrol.

Thank you for the lesson in physics, I happen to be an engineer and I understand most things regarding energy and electricity rather well.

Though I am not a specialist in car technology I am knowledgeable in cell phone technology and why smart phones need to be big and thin, because companies are trying to get the most per square cm of lithium battery. And when the efficiency is at its max, you increase the size of the battery to have more.

Energy doesn't have to come from a coal plant. You're just making that assumption. Clean energy means moving away from fossil fuel in the production are too. Higher efficiency hidro plants, solar and wind farms, geothermal energy (a lot of European countries have great geothermal potential) and others can be the production sources for the energy.
 
LOL then you dont know Europe... no real innovation.. get real. Europe is light years ahead of the US on many points (and on others it is not). If anyone is against change the it is the US.. look at your whole debate about healthcare over to abortion to gay rights.. same old 16th century views.

Funny you would see it that way. Abortion and gay rights are very thin ice for you to want to argue progress on. They are examples in an emotional social experiment, we are conducting. Whether they constitute progress or not we will know in a couple for generations.
 
Funny you would see it that way. Abortion and gay rights are very thin ice for you to want to argue progress on. They are examples in an emotional social experiment, we are conducting. Whether they constitute progress or not we will know in a couple for generations.

Progress does not have to be technological and even there, there is a lot of innovation in Europe, especially in the wireless internet (non mobile).., solar and wind power.. car motors (your Chevy Volt engine came from Germany), big pharma, and so on and so on. Just dismissing Europe as an innovation black hole is a big mistake...
 
LOL then you dont know Europe... no real innovation.. get real. Europe is light years ahead of the US on many points (and on others it is not). If anyone is against change the it is the US.. look at your whole debate about healthcare over to abortion to gay rights.. same old 16th century views.

La Manif Pour Tous?
 
LOL then you dont know Europe... no real innovation.. get real. Europe is light years ahead of the US on many points (and on others it is not). If anyone is against change the it is the US.. look at your whole debate about healthcare over to abortion to gay rights.. same old 16th century views.

I'd get myself a gas mask if I were you. You know, after work today I think I'll go outside for some new fresh American air. :mrgreen:
 
Actually, you're pretty wrong on all counts.


But I can pretty well understand innovation in my area and in medicine through a friend who runs the largest university clinic in the country. In these two areas there is no question. Germany is a backwater with practically no exceptions. The innovations come from outside, are marginally improved and adapted to an image for sales. Herein the Germans have excelled.
 
Progress does not have to be technological and even there, there is a lot of innovation in Europe, especially in the wireless internet (non mobile).., solar and wind power.. car motors (your Chevy Volt engine came from Germany), big pharma, and so on and so on. Just dismissing Europe as an innovation black hole is a big mistake...

You are right. Absolutely. Progress usually requires new or at least adapted behavior. This is why the Germans go for marginal adaptation and its innovation. They make exceedingly appetizing cars for instance, because they have adapted them step by tiny step to please. No question you live well doing that. (Actually there is an economic question mark behind that last statement). But there are no major developments. This is what you see in Germany and, as far as I can see, in a number of other continental countries. Those, however, I cannot judge as well.

The examples you chose actually underline my opinion. Just think of it. Large segments of the German population live by producing machines that exhaust huge quantities of the CO2 humanity throws out into the atmosphere. Now don't tell me that someone else would produce them, if Germans did not. The fact is they do and have not replaced their atmosphere killing (if you believe in these things) behavior. As it is a major issue in Germany and German politicians and media regularly take other countries to task for CO2 polluting, it seems rather quaint to mention car as an area Germany does well (good?).
 
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I'm actually thinking about this. Electric cars.
Electric cars produce more CO2 than economical cars with combustion engines.

My car drives with 4 ltr/100km gasoline (59 miles per gallon).
10% of the gasoline is ethanol, and it can be 25%.


Electricity must be produced with coal. The Batteries cost much energy by producing them.
 
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You are right. Absolutely. Progress usually requires new or at least adapted behavior. This is why the Germans go for marginal adaptation and its innovation. They make exceedingly appetizing cars for instance, because they have adapted them step by tiny step to please. No question you live well doing that. (Actually there is an economic question mark behind that last statement). But there are no major developments. This is what you see in Germany and, as far as I can see, in a number of other continental countries. Those, however, I cannot judge as well.

The examples you chose actually underline my opinion. Just think of it. Large segments of the German population live by producing machines that exhaust huge quantities of the CO2 humanity throws out into the atmosphere. Now don't tell me that someone else would produce them, if Germans did not. The fact is they do and have not replaced their atmosphere killing (if you believe in these things) behavior. As it is a major issue in Germany and German politicians and media regularly take other countries to task for CO2 polluting, it seems rather quaint to mention car as an area Germany does well (good?).

Yes, but one problem.. most of the car innovation comes from France not Germany. In fact it is German car makers that put the most pressure on politicians in the EU to NOT increase the km standards, because German cars are built like tanks and hence have a much harder time meeting the standards than their counterparts in France and Italy and overseas competition.

If you look at a new French car, they are really space age, at the cutting edge of technology... for even the cheaper models. It is the Swedes and French and Italians (and Ford ironically enough) who can make modern engines that go damn far on the KM, where as it is more than often not the Germans (especially the luxury car makers). In fact if you take out the Porsche, BMWs and Mercedes because of their luxury brands, that leaves VW and Opel. Opel is failing and VW is doing okay, but mostly due to its acquisition of other brands like SEAT and Skoda, who produce great cars and more attractive cars than VW brands like the Golf and Polo. And the one that is kicking everyone's ass is FIAT and if you want cars that go massively amount of KM on one litre.. then go Volvo... something like 70+ km per litre .. thats what.. 164 miles per gallon?

And it is not only in the car industry you see this. The Germans are some what conservative yes, but innovation and being conservative do not mix well. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did not make their empires because they were conservative .. they made them because they were willing to take risks and willing to fail. That is not being conservative.

And that brings us back to the OP issue.. over-saturation of the forests in Europe. It is not like European countries are not counteracting it. Portugal and Spain produce a huge amount of their energy needs from renewable's.. hell Portugal had 1 day a year or so ago, where all energy needs was met by renewable's. Even conservative Germany is perusing renewable's by thinking of building a massive solar plant in North Africa.. which has been shot down and ridiculed by American conservatives I might add. That is innovation. Almost all northern European and most of Southern European's have massive conservation programs in place for everything from energy to water. I remember when I was in the US, a conservation toilet (uses less water) was a novelty in the areas I was in (LA and Hawaii).. it is a requirement here and has been for decades. It is Philips and other European companies that lead the world in new less energy lighting and so on.

Dismissing innovation in Europe because of alleged history or propaganda from the American right (who tend to exagerate the US and downplay if not out right make fun off everyone else) is a fool's errand.

Lets put it this way... we would not be discussing this, if it was not for European innovation and the founding of the WWW standard, or the servers running Linux (most likely) and so on. If it was not for European innovation then America would never have made it to the moon, or gotten nuclear weapons and so on and so on.
 
Electric cars produce more CO2 than economical cars with combustion engines.

Depends..

Electricity must be produced with coal.

Yes, but considering most of the electrical power tanking station here in Spain are driven by solar.. then no. It all depends on how you design the system.

The Batteries cost much energy by producing them.

Everything costs energy to produce, and that cost goes down over time. Cars cost a hell of a lot of energy to produce once.. now days a bit less.
 
Yes, but considering most of the electrical power tanking station here in Spain are driven by solar.. then no. It all depends on how you design the system.
What is better: To drive a car with solar electricity and to need coal-made-electricity for washing-machines or to drive a car with coal-made-electricity an use solar electricity for the washing-maschine?

As long as we need coal-made-electricity it is not very eco-friendly to use solar electricity for driving cars.

My car with combustion engine produce in normal use 107g CO2 per km (it´s a Citroen C1). In tests a Toyota Prius Hybrid produce in normal use 160g CO2 per km...
The problem by Toyota Prius is, that 56g CO2 per km is theoretical. Electicity is calculated with 0g CO2. In winter the batteries are not very useable and so it drives in winter more with the combustion engine. And in fact of this all it produce more CO2 than normal combustion motor cars in reality.

In Summer an electrical Citroen C1 need about 15 KW/h per 100 km. That´s cheap.
But in winter it need about 40 KW/h per 100 km, cause the batteries loose energy, and that is not cheap.
 
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