On Sat, 17 Aug 2002 13:44:00 +0000, you wrote: >>From what I've read, it's actually too much undergrowth. Before we started >fighting every fire, fires occurred natually and would burn off the >undergrowth and keep it down. The fire didn't often get hot enough to >ignite the larger trees, which is why you have old growth forests with trees >several hundred years old. As we started to put out every little fire, the >undergrowth flourished and built up. Now, you have a lot of kindling, which >when ignited, burns hot enough and long enough to set fire to the larger >trees. Once they catch, you have a major fire. And yes, major fires >occurred in the past, but not as often as now.
I'm quoted below, but I'm not sure who you're quoting above. In any case, with all the forest-fire-related documentaries on science-oriented tv lately, I think that I've seen both: in the famous larger-tree forests (redwood, etc.), you had growth of new trees, but no growth of the "right" trees. Prevention of all lower-to-the-ground fires meant that other species were flourishing and preventing the usual trees from springing up. This is why they had to consider controlled burns even amongst the ancient trees. In the more normal forests, I think you had all manner of growth, brush, trees, whatever. But on that point I'm more shaky. So, I'm sorry for presenting what is undoubtedly not completely accurate, but I think it's both trees and brush. >I've also read that grasses are more efficient per acre at converting carbon >dioxide into oxygen. However, grasses are also more affected by drought >since they don't have the deep roots that trees do. Bottom line - we need >both. > >Even so, as long as we keep dumping more CO2 into the air than nature can >handle, we're just killing ourselves. One reason why I drive an EV. O2 is essential to much life as well, and so it is not just the release of Carbon from underground which is a problem but the affixing of O2 to other atoms making it momentariily unbreathable for humans. Now, if we make our processes more "sustainable" I don't think it's as much of a problem to make CO2. If the C comes not from hundreds of millions of years of stored Carbon but from more-sustainable, more-well-thought-out above-ground processes, then I guess it may present problems but it would not result in as much of a net rise in CO2 percentage and as much decrease in O2 percentage. We never did answer the person's question about how much a person breathes out in CO2. jl
