ALTRAV, your anti green bias is "bloody" self evident. maybe a little fact instead of unsubstantiated ravings is in order. Do you have evidence of "that the bloody greens buried these findings beneath natural disasters and global warming stories." Your's, and others, sycophantic support of vested interest on the issue is totally counter productive. The evidence for global warming is real, its overwhelming, and its there to be acted upon.

Foxy thanks for the interesting facts.

Dearest Foxy,

Perhaps not always :). But I certainly couldn't have put it any better myself, when you write:

"That the progress was going to occur in what had been
the backwater as far as Muslims were concerned, the
West - rather than the Muslim lands - set the scene for
the "so-called" clashes of civilisation of the early 21st
century. The two cultures were set to diverge dramatically,
one pursuing progress based on Greek philosophy, science
and politics; the other regressed from its high point of
scholarship, art and invention and stagnated in a mire of
Old Testament beliefs and AD 700 desert culture."

We can dig up the pre-industrial bones of those whose traditional beliefs we now are so superior to, but we really need to understand how our perceptions of the real world, our struggling to somehow bring our 'knowledge' into some rough correspondence with that reality, have been painfully built up from that traditional, and necessarily religious, base, towards a far more scientific interpretation.

Those backward, out-moded beliefs of our ancestors provide a base from which we continually build a better understanding of the world. We can stand back and slag them, or selectively slag them (let's not examine the Koran with as much vigour as we do the Old Testament), a bit like kids in the playground laughing at another kid who's crapped himself. But we are the children of those gr-gr-grandparents. Silly stories aside, the ancient texts, even to an extent the Koran, are the ancestors of what we think are brilliantly modern ideas now. We stand on the shoulders of many generations of, not just giants, but of intelligent people locked in pre-scientific and therefore magical and religious ways of thinking. Self-opinionated2 and the rest of us need to acknowledge that.

Love,

Joe

Alt Rav,

Vegetation, especially in its growing phase, soaks up CO2 and emits Oxygen. Vegetation uses CO2 and water to create cellulose to build plant tissue and grow. On the whole, animal life takes in oxygen and emits CO2. We breathe in oxygen and emit a proportion of CO2. Without plants taking up CO2, there wouldn't be enough oxygen to support human life.

Once any particular vegetation is fully mature, it takes in far less CO2, since it doesn't need it to grow much more. Clearing land enables new growth to soak up more CO2. I certainly don't agree with burning the 'junk' resulting from land clearances, but as long as it's replaced with new growing material soaking up CO2, I'm cautiously happy.

Anyhow, getting back to the thread. .......

As a general rule of thumb, before posting any half-baked theories you heard down the pub, it is a good idea to do some quick fact checking on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#Atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_and_the_carbon_cycle

"Most sources of CO2 emissions are natural, and are balanced to various degrees by natural CO2 sinks. For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands and the action of forest fires results in the release of about 439 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year, while new growth entirely counteracts this effect, absorbing 450 gigatonnes per year."

"Anthropogenic carbon emissions exceed the amount that can be taken up or balanced out by natural sinks. As a result, carbon dioxide has gradually accumulated in the atmosphere, and as of 2013, its concentration is almost 43% above pre-industrial levels. Various techniques have been proposed for removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in carbon dioxide sinks. Currently about half of the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels is not absorbed by vegetation and the oceans and remains in the atmosphere."

Look guys I didn't makeup this stuff. I am merely repeating it. All that I have said, numbers and all are exactly what was spoken by others. In this case, the very person who headed the study. I don't dis-agree with the comments made here on CO2, but when I come across a report saying that the forests are a very large emitter of CO2, I'm not going to ignore it just because I 'think' it doesn't sound right. What you all have to understand is, I heard it on a public medium not 'down at the pub'. (I don't drink so I don't frequent any PUBs). These things I say sometimes come as a surprise to me too. Having come across such statements I feel it prudent to pass them on. If they sound a little far fetched, I would agree, that's why I mention them. Now unless someone heard the same story and can in some way, correct me, my comments stand.
There are enough people pushing all sorts of agenda. We don't know the truth so I keep an open mind and consider every event and new data.
Who wishes to question the findings of a satellite? Anyway the info is out there now so again, look it up.

//I don't dis-agree with the comments made here on CO2, but when I come across a report saying that the forests are a very large emitter of CO2//

The problem with isn't with the report, it's with your interpretation of it.

As I've already pointed out, forests are indeed very large emitters of CO2. But they are also very large carbon sinks, so their net emissions are effectively zero.

You've just latched onto the fact that they emit lots of CO2 and decided to conveniently ignore the other half of the equation where they absorb as much as they emit, in order to support your ludicrous notion that there is some kind conspiracy to prevent us from finding out that trees are actually to blame for the rise in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution.