Undisturbed tropical forests are absorbing nearly one-fifth of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels, a new study has found. Trees in undisturbed tropical forests are soaking up more CO2 than people realized.
The scientific report published in “Nature” magazine suggests that the world’s remaining tropical forests remove 4.8 billion tons of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year. This includes a previously unknown carbon sink in Africa, which annually absorbs 1.2 billion tons of CO2.
The study was based on taken data on African tropical forests from the past 40 years and has shown that for at least the past few decades each hectare of intact African forest has trapped an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon per year.
The scientists then analyzed the new African data together with South American and Asian findings to assess the total sink in tropical forests. Analysis of these 250,000 tree records reveals that, on average, remaining undisturbed forests are trapping carbon, showing that they are a globally significant carbon sink.
“We are receiving a free subsidy from nature,” said Dr. Simon Lewis from the University of Leeds, and the lead author of the paper, in a press statement.
“Tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18 percent of the CO2 added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of climate change.”
– (CNN)
read full article here
Wow! Where would we be without humanity’s best, brightest and most “educated”…oh, right where we are now, in crisis! When will they give “Nature” her full credit for being the intelligence sponsoring their bullshit? Maybe they’ll get the point when movies like “The Happening”, start to happen?
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Mali,
How more in your face can you put the need to rethink and restructure? When you put it together like that, it really becomes clear, even to those who still think nothing’s wrong. I couldn’t help but laugh at the pure idiocy of most scientist quoted in articles like these. Maybe Simon Lewis is more aware of the cause of the problem, and wasn’t fully quoted, so this isn’t a personal attack on him? But for those scientists that don’t have a clue, when the real answer is right in their face, makes the educated look really uneducated when it comes to what’s natural.
The Happening does a really good job communicating what un-natural ppl will do, and conclude is the cause of Nature/Mother Nature saying, “enough is enough”. The scene with the news reporting “Terrorist”, were behind the attacks was so funny. They just can’t conceive the intelligence of Nature. This is why I agree that humanity’s “Green” efforts are ill conceived because, the majority of ppl will not figure out how “conscious” Nature is before it’s too late, so they will always default back to the position of violating natural order and offending the hell outta Nature once again.
Really interesting post,
jas
Wassup jas,
It was fun hangin’ last weekend. You’ve got some cool art sista-girl. You should do something with it – I really think it’ll be received well
I’m sure Mali won’t mind post it here, or you can always start a Flickr account? In any case, it’s GoOd so stop trippin, ok 
This is a good post Malio! I love M. Night Shyamalan work, esp. Lady in the Water. Mali nice way of making you’re point clear with the Utah Phillips auto snippet – you’ve painted a undeniable picture!
@Jas, you’re so right about being Green. It can be done to save yourself, just so you have a place to live. It has to be done because you respect that Nature is more than alive – it is Life, so it is intelligent, and is how something like The Happening can become a possibility, which I feel is why this movie scares the shit outta ppl.
Doesn’t matter how Green you think you are if it doesn’t help you see the most important thing about humanity’s carbon footprint. When existing with or entering the residence of intelligent Life, clean or take off you’re shoes outta respect. I learned this from my Japanese grandfather, but it applies in more way then one!
kaya