Bad News for Tree Huggers

Saving the environment has just become a bit more complicated... German scientists found another culprit for the emission of greenhouse gases:

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics have now carefully analysed which organic gases are emitted from plants. They made the surprising discovery that plants release methane, a greenhouse gas - and this goes against all previous assumptions.

I guess that's the reason why so many computer based climate simulations get it wrong: "This study (not the Max Planck study mentioned above) suggests serious caveats with respect to the ability of most of the presently available climate models in representing the statistical properties of the global scale atmospheric dynamics of the present climate and, a fortiori, in the perspective of modelling climate change." (via CCNET)

Here's what the folks at Fox News had to say about the results from the Max Planck institute:

Gigot: Winners and losers, picks and pans, "Hits & Misses"--it is our way of calling attention to the best, and the worst, of the week.

Item one: Tree huggers beware. A new study is turning conventional wisdom about global warming on its head--Dan.

Henninger: Well you know, Paul, if you go onto a web site of Ronald Reagan's stupidest quotes, the one you'll always find is the one he said in 1981, which is that trees cause more pollution than automobiles. Well, maybe Ronald Reagan was a genius.

[laughter]

Because the eminent Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany, has just reported in Nature magazine that plants, trees, forests, emit 10% to 30% of the methane gas into the atmosphere. This is a greenhouse gas. The sort of stuff the Kyoto Treaty is meant to suppress.

So, this is causing big problems for the tree huggers if plants, in fact, do cause greenhouse gases. I have just one message for them, the next time you are out for a walk in the woods--[inhales loudly]--breathe the methane.

[laughter]

Gigot: Have they checked the U.S. Senate for methane emissions lately, Dan?

Henninger: They should.

Gigot: All right. Thanks.

(Paul Gigot is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal; Dan Henninger is Wall Street Journal columnist and deputy editor)

Well, there's at least one guy - a true "Kyoto" believer - who takes the fight against greenhouse gas emitting sources very seriously...

Comments

[Walter]

International scientific team reacts to misinterpretation of their research results and provides the correct perspective

"In a recent study (Nature, 12 January 2006), scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Utrecht University, Netherlands, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland, UK, revealed that plants produce the greenhouse gas methane. First estimates indicated that this could account for a significant proportion of methane in the atmosphere. There has been extended media coverage of this work with unfortunately, in many instances, a misinterpretation of the findings. Furthermore, the discovery led to intense speculations on the potential relevance of the findings for reforestation programs in the framework of the Kyoto protocol. These issues need to be put in the right perspective..."

Note from David: The most predictable comment of the week (make that month).
The Max Planck researchers from the very beginning were anxious not to let their results get in harms way of their politically motivated love for "Kyoto". After all, Max Planck Institute scientists are among the strongest backers of "Kyoto" in Germany.
But they had to report their core findings anyway, which are: plants are substantial greenhouse gas emitters. Whatever consequences one draws from this undisputed result in terms of political analysis is no longer within the realm of the authors of the study.
My pleasure.

[jakemonO]

It seems Airbus may be complicit in some global warming as well. (Warning, even the author seems to admit that this one's a stretch...)
http://enplaned.blogspot.com/2006/01/paying-airlines-to-pollute-airbus.html

[PlutosDad]

It's been well known for awhile that the rain forests are not the "oxygen factories" rumor holds them to be. Mainly because of the huge amounts of decaying plant material throws tons of CO2 and methane and other gasses into the atmosphere. Photosynthesis just barely keeps up with the CO2.

But you will only find that fact if you really delve deep into books on the greenhouse effect. Certainly not by watching the media.

[James]

Keep in mind in Germany, it's illegal to cut a tree down that's on your property means that the Germans will be anti-Kyoto.

[Patricia]

Could you translate http://www.kurier.at/oesterreich/1254837.php

It seems interesting...

[FranzisM]

Well, India has its cows and Germany has its trees... what was the traditional American fetish? Was it guns or air-conditioners? In any case, to cut down a symbolic tree without protest you have to be at least a Saint Boniface.

That the Kyoto universe experiences greenhouse effects without a greenhouse is just as significant or insignificant as the fact that in the Hollywood universe spaceships produce podracing noises in cosmic vacuum. It is science fiction.

The purpose of the Kyoto Protocol is to provide a culture-bearing futurological principle, not to anticipate technicalities. The emission control clauses are a wildcard for the future mechanism that is to regulate the limited fossile resources if civilization is assumed to exist for an unlimited time.

Reagan got a lot of things right, among them missile defense, but I would neither describe him as an expert for emission control nor as one for European archetypes. In the context of Heidelberg he probably would remember the 1980s air raid against Ghaddafi. Yet, in the strict interpretation of the Kyoto principle he would have to be described as a space alien.

BTW, why is anybody astonished at the natural gas emissions of plants and animals? Ever wondered from what the oil and gas ressources were created in the first place? Gerhard Schröder is trying to sell us out to Vladimir Putin for methane supply!

[Pamela]

FranzisM
>> what was the traditional American fetish? Was it guns or air-conditioners?

I think it's cold beverages.

I'm willing to bet money the most methane emissions come from politicians.

[FranzisM]

Pamela, that fetish is a shared one. :-)

[Sock Puppet of Doom]

Real science will never be able to convince the religion of enviromentalism that much of what they hold true is based on falsification.

My fetish involves redheads.

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Ronnie Raygun was right - he was asked about 20 years ago what caused global warming - trees.

And "the world" can't blame W anymore, what are they going to do??????

What is even MORE interesting is this stuff is starting to drip out, this isn't the 1st article I've heard about. Why now? Because Kyoto is effectively dead? The environ.....were hoping the ice core sampling would prove their point - it didn't.

A computer sim was done about putting more trees in Canada and guess what!?

It got hotter.

Geez, go to Animal Kingdom in WDW.

Lots of trees and it's hotter and more humid at that park.

I'm not the only 1 to make that observation.

[joe]

Sandy P,

You act like facts matter to the euros.

Please, if you are going to joke, tell us before hand. Some here might take you seriously.

[Mike H.]

Add the excessive methane to the solar cycle and you get Global Warming. Unfortunately Mars doesn't have that excuse and neither does Uranus, They are managing to keep up with the pack though. A treatise on the sun's effects on earth's climatology

[grlzjustwant2havefun]

Global warming is a non-issue.

Once the black turbans nuke Israel we'll get global cooling.

[FranzisM]

The tree fetish is something we share with the Israelis, BTW

[triticale]

If we were to imagine for the sake of discussion that I were a tree-hugger, my response would be that Gaia in Her infinite wisdom balanced the ecosystem to deal with the greenhouse gasses from plants and everything is 100% because those evil SUVs I envy pushed things past the threshhold.

[FranzisM]

And if you were an Autobahn in Maryland you would envy the parking lot of Donna W. Cross.