Global warming, peak oil, etc.
I admire your intentions but you should probably just get over it.
Even if the US stopped burning ALL carbon TODAY, China is expected to
double its consumption of oil and coal within 20 years.
Bottom line: Even if Al Gore were the Supreme Chancellor Diktator Fieldmarshal, global warming would continue, no thanks to all his hot air and lisping prissiness. (Little Lord Fauntleroy.)
Best bet: Invest in real estate that's about 50' above sea level...maybe you can resell it as "waterfront" in your lifetime!
opcorn:
As for global warming and its effects, in my view I have to agree that it is too late to stop or resolve it, as there are already (sadly) some massive forces of nature in process that are accelerating the warming process. Even if we stoppped producing any more greenhouse gasses now, there is enough in the atmosphere already to melt the poles and permanently change climate. As for the specific cause, be it solar flare/spot activity or greenhouse gasses or some combination thereof (to this point,
something stopped the last ice age and it was not human activity, and certainly the industrial revolution has greatly accelerated the warming process in the past 200 years). Buuuuuutttt....
China cannot just double their fossil fuel consumption. We (global population) are now at or very near the peak in global oil reserves and supply. We will (semingly) go after tar sands, coal and other dirtier fuel soon. But at this time we are on the peak of the Hubbert curve for oil production, and from here on out we (or China, or Japan, or EU) simply cannot just double their consumption of fossil fuel. There is just not enough supply to meet that kind of demand. We can no longer expand endlessly in an exponential growth model. As such there is a great decline coming in global economy. No avoiding it. The issue is not that we will run out of oil overnight. The issue is that we will soon peak in oil, NG, and coal as global demand meets global production. At that point prices will soar. Supply limitations will push prices higher, and the resulting pricing pressure will drive down demand, and drive recession cycles in the future economies.
As for energy alternatieves? Wood burning is a drop in the ocean. Total solar, wind, and other types of renewable alternatives make up less than 2% of US energy supply and consumption. Hydroelectric is about 5%. Wood burning is probably less than 1/10 of 1%. As others here have said, wood will decay into CO2 and water if you let it rot out there in the forest, or if you burn it. Carbon neutral. However, and a BIG HOWEVER, the energy that you displace by burning wood is carbon-positive though. We displace $250 a month in hydro electricity (at 8 cents a KWhr... cheap in OR) which is also carbon neutral, but that excess energy can be put on the grid and someplace that electricity will displace oil or coal or nuclear or whatever was used to produce electricty. In that regard, you are doing something good for the environment.
Also, here in the land of trees, we are growing more forest mass than there was before white man came to Oregon. Yes, there are far fewer old growth stands today than 100 years ago, but forest mass per acre here is a lot more than it was 100 years ago. More carbon is locked up in the stands than before, and there is more resource available than before, given the same amount of land area. Is is going to sustain the global demand for energy? No. Is it going to be beneficial for us to remain on the planet longer? Yes. Is it sustainable? It can be... if large corporate forest planting practices change.
Also, if we do not burn wood in a controlled manner by cutting trees and building with it or burning it, it will burn on its own. Funny thing about living in a highly commercial forest area; there have been no major forest fires in this area for many years. Down in the natioal forest areas south of here and in the Cascades, there are huge fire areas that have been burned in the past 10years. Thousands of acres went up in smoke, releasing all that carbon and unused energy into the atmosphere. To me that seems tobe a big waste, alll around. Forest fire management has to change along with commercial plating practices.
Anyway, to answer the question originally posted for this thread, I know that by burning wood to heat our water and house here in our OWB we are not only carbon neutral in using energy, but we are diverting carbon emitting energy production from the electrical grid that we would otherwise use, and in doing so we create a net overall positive carbon benefit (reducing overall carbon emissions into the atmosphere). Will it save the planet? No. Unless human population curbes are put into place, and the population peaks or declines, there is really no hope in anything that we do. We will be faced with a catostrophic future event that will devastate the future planet at some point, due to lack of food, energy, climate change, disease, war, famine, or whatever. The laws of nature are like the laws of economics; we either expand or contract. There is no leveling off at some point. There is no sustained level of existing. We grow to a point that the population cannot be sustained, and then we will decline. It is inevitable. It has happened before, and it will happen again.
There is no place to run to to avoid it. There is no plot of land that you can buy and save yourself from the future decline. We live on 105 acres of pasture and forest here. We can easilly survive here on this land in any economic decline and grow food and heat the house. But against a future starving human population, disease epidemic, global war or dramatic climate change? No one can stand up against them, no matter where you are and what resources you have. If the water does rise 50 ft worldwide, there will be so much infrastructure devastation, disease and poverty that what is left will be mauled by the throngs of refugees, or mired in economic collapse as a result of the floods. The future is playing out now in places like north Africa. Famine, drought, flood, war, genocide, all due to large populations and limitations in resources. Where can you live in place like Chad or the Sudan to avoid the chaos that is being unleashed there now? Ain't any place to hide there. And so... in our future of global warming and peak fossil fuel resources, we all sink or swim together. There is no place to hide here either.
