Alex Singleton gets it spectacularly wrong

Alex Singleton of the Globalisation Institute is a sensible chap and resides very much on the side of the angels. Unfortunately in his article at the Graun today he gets it spectacularly wrong.

His thesis for the day is that green taxes won't work, and so we should introduce compulsory carbon offsetting.

We should scrap green taxes on flying and replace them with compulsory carbon offsetting. Like a tax, offsetting would add to the price of a journey. The difference would be that the money would go to actually improve the environment.

And he's quite definite about the kind of offsetting schemes he want to see.

It is certainly true that some carbon offsetting schemes are dubious. One involves discouraging the use of labour-saving diesel water pumps in developing countries and getting people to use back-breaking pedal-pumps, which were banned in British prisons a century ago. We should not allow some ill-conceived options to put us off more worthwhile schemes, such as planting trees.

Which is where he has got it wrong.

Anthropogenic global warming is alleged to be happening because carbon, which was formerly locked away in the form of oil, coal and gas, has been released into the atmosphere. Growing trees is going to have little or no effect on the situation,  because trees have a finite life cycle and when they die they just release carbon back into the atmosphere.

As Britain's great chronicler of trees and woodland, Oliver Rackham, has said of carbon offsetting:

Telling people to plant more trees is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea levels.

Comments

[Nigel Sedgwick]

Bishop Hill quotes this, seemingly with approval: "Telling people to plant more trees [to remove carbon from the atmosphere] is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea levels."

So where did all that coal come from? Is it not really a case of rate of sequestration in forests will not achieve anywhere near the objectives of the Green Lobby?

Growing more trees will sequestrate more carbon (from atmospheric CO2) for decades and, given suitable conditions, some proportion if it for much longer.

Drinking extra water, on the other hand, sequestrates the stuff for hours, which is less time (I strongly suspect) than it takes to process it through the water supply both before and after consumption.

The lack of effect, against GW, of planting trees is not that they will not sequestrate (some) carbon, but that CO2 increase is extremely unlikely to be a material contributor to GW, at anywhere near any sort of catastrophic level.

So is not labelling inadequacy of carbon sequestration by forests as no sequestration actually similar bad science to the whole CAGW issue, where an actual causation mechanism of minor effect is exaggerated such that its very existence is labelled catastrophic.

Now, I am firmly in the CAGW sceptical camp, as I feel sure is the Bishop. However, I don't think it helpful to the sceptics' case to use arguments that are scientifically weak; that is no better than the CAGW proponents.

Best regards

[Bishop Hill]

I'm not sure why you think the argument is scientifically weak. Why should trees which sequester carbon for a few decades deal with the issue of the release of thousands of years of carbon sequestered in the form of fossil fuels.

And this is without even mentioning the question of where all these trees are supposed to be grown.

[Nigel Sedgwick]

Bishop Hill, by my interpretation of his words, seems to be saying that no carbon is stored in forest that is grown and maintained as forest. I don't believe he means this.

As to where the forest might be grown, I understand some 7.2 million hectares of current forest is lost/destroyed every year. Maybe there then.

Sadly, such dispute over detail is not good for the case of CAGW sceptics, as we don't believe that enough extra forest could be grown for useful carbon sequestration. This is, of course and not least, because atmospheric CO2 is not though, by such sceptics, to be (catastrophically) material to global warming.

Actually, the point I was trying to make was otherwise: that taking an extreme and unreasonable position on quantity of some actual effect (no carbon sequestrated in forests) is unhelpful in opposition to those taking a similar position on something else (increased atmospheric CO2 causes CAGW).

To put it much more simply (I hope not too simply), if you deny "coal is from carbon sequestrated long ago in trees and other vegetation?", how can you complain about the denial of the existence of the medieval warm period?

Best regards

[Bishop Hill]

No, he doesn't believe this. The quote is an amusing one to illustrate a point, and we can allow him some rhetorical flourish. I have paraphrased his arguments more fully in my last response - ie that trees will only sequester carbon for a few decades, and that there is insufficient vacant land to sequester meaningful amounts (how much of the 7.2m hectares just starts growing again anyway?).

This isn't an extreme position.