Forest Fires Have Potential To Render Climate Efforts Moot - Reuters

OSLO (Reuters) - Effective control of forest fires may prove crucial in the fight against global warming since blazes from Alaska to Indonesia spew out vast amounts of heat-trapping gases, Canadian foresters said on Thursday.

"Forests are a wild card in the debate" about rising world temperatures, said Brian Stocks, a forest fire expert with the government-run Canadian Forest Service.

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Fires in Indonesia which raged for months in the late 1990s, creating clouds that dimmed the sun, released up to an estimated 2.6 billion tons of greenhouse gases or the equivalent of about 40 percent of world industrial emissions in a year. Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they burn or rot. Carbon dioxide is also emitted by burning fossil fuels in cars, power plants and factories, and is widely blamed for blanketing the planet and nudging up temperatures.


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And 60 percent of Canada's 8,500 annual forest fires are caused by humans, according to the coalition which meets in Toronto on Thursday and Friday. Rain forests, like in the Amazon, are wetter and so less vulnerable to fire. Forest fires now release about 150 million tons of carbon dioxide a year in Canada, compared with a 2002 total of 730 million tons from industrial sources."

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http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-03-03T190225Z_01_L03447702_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-FORESTS-DC.XML

another reason freepers will use to ignore global warming.

ITS US, we are to blame.....

Its all those items mentioned and some unmentioned ones too that heats this planet up.

The burning of fossil fuel, from coal to oil, from pitch to wood, and now, NUKESs too.

The billions of light bulbs heat up our air like never before. All those air conditioning units emit heat to the point of making a difference of 15 degrees or so in a major desert city ...to the point of making their summer nights even hotter.

Its us...we are doing it,...them forest fires only add to the equation...


WOOOOOOT

of anthropogenic influence on the atmosphere. As temps, hydro-cycles, and insect ranges shift, forests become more susceptible to fire.

More anthropogenic CO2 leads to more climate change which leads to more forest fires which leads to more climate change which leads to more forest fires which leads to........well you get the point.

4 million acres and then some of black spruce, all of it good and dead and dry by now.

When it happens Rush and crew will blame it on the "frivoulous" lawsuits that prevented logging which left all those trees to burn down.