FIVE: SCIENTISTS STANCE ON REFORESTATION.

This chapter explores scientists' priorities for combatting global warming. Once again, this examination raises the issue of the dominant energy system of the future.

v) Norman Myers.

Norman myers supports Reforestation to combat global warming - primarily, however, in third world countries, "One of the most cost-effective and technically feasible ways to counter the greenhouse effect lies with grandscale reforestation in the tropics." [1] Given myers' considerable expertise in global politics, it is unfortunate to say the least that he could even consider that third world countries are going to allow their land to be taken over to plant Forests for the sake of protecting the Earth - which to many third world people means the over-industrialized world. He estimates that about a million square kilometres would be needed, "1 million square kilometres is a lot of land. It is equivalent to Britain, France and west Germany together. Planting 1 million square kilometres with trees would cost $40 billion." [2]

He also supports Reforestation in third world countries not to combat global warming but to provide the poor with more resources, "In the South, because of the critical environmental role played by tropical forests, it is better to establish "tree farms" on lands already deforested than to harvest the natural forest. According to the Worldwatch Institute, establishing plantations on just 5% of the area of tropical forest already cleared could provide twice as much industrial wood as is currently harvested from all tropical forests. Fuelwood plantations are also urgently required in the south to relieve pressure on natural forests. We need to increase five-fold the number of fuelwood trees planted per year, especially around farms and in village woodlots, at an annual cost estimated at $1 billion." [3] ; "What can we do to improve the global wood situation? Adequate funding should be provided for the establishment of commerical fuelwood plantations in the tropics, where the year-round steamy warm climates are ideal for generating timber - thus increasing wood stocks and relieving pressure on virgin forest. In addition, developed nations should review their own forestry policies, with a view to producing more home-grown wood and encouraging greater recycling of paper." [4]

Despite this support for Reforestation he does not promote Wood economies. On the contrary, he is an advocate of alternative energy, "In the long term we need to replace fossil fuels with environmentally benign renewables such as wind, wave and solar." [5] He argues that, "The grossly unequal endowments of non-renewable and renewable energy (between countries) .. mean that there can be no single energy solution for the problems which have emerged since the first oil shock .. Coal cannot be the alternative to oil, any more than nuclear fission or renewable energy can." [6]

x) Nigel Calder.

Nigel calder is somewhat sceptical about the relevance of Reforestation for combatting global warming. Firstly, he is not convinced that the Planet is warming up. This is quite reasonable since even the scientists who predict there will be increases in global temperatures admit that there is no unequivocal evidence to prove that the recent rise in temperatures has been caused by global warming. However, calder's scepticism is based more on personal experiences than a comprehensive assessment of the meteorological evidence because in the 1970s he was one of many scientists (including some who are currently the leading proponents of global warming) who believed the Earth was heading into another ice age, "Calder assigned a strong possibility to a new ice age within a hundred years." [7] ; He .. "warned of a .. 'snow-blitz' .. an icy equivalent of wildfire .. Calder listed 15 nations in danger of 'complete' or 'almost complete' obliteration by ice sheets." [8]

Secondly, he believes there is no evidence that the tropical Rainforests are being devastated, "This research on sources and sinks of carbon dioxide also sets an upper limit to the contribution from deforestation in the tropics. A strong source of CO₂ near the equator would contravene the observed geographical pattern of atmospheric CO₂, gradually declining from north to south. The net CO₂ injected from tropical forests can be only about 1 billion tons a year, at most." [9]

xi) Edward I Newman.

I: Brutland's Carbon Deficit.

Newman compares the possibility of two countries, sweden and brutland, deriving their energy from Phytomass .. "to provide 50% of its present energy use on a continuous basis, Sweden would need 60,000 km² of biomass plantations, or 15% of its land area. Assuming the same yield per hectare in the UK, over 400,000 km² of energy plantations would be needed to provide half of the UK's present energy use, which is more than the country's total land area (about 70% more!)." [10]

Newman is an academic of biological sciences at bristol university, and he doesn't use this appalling revelation about brutland's inability to balance its current Carbon budget (let alone its historical Carbon budget) to admonish the way the country has been living so obscenely beyond its ecological means - but, then again, what else can be expected from over-paid, over-privileged, academics? On the contrary, he uses it to prove that Phytomass is irrelevant as an energy source in brutland. He believes the country should maintain its current level of energy expenditure but should reduce its ecological impact by using a modicum of alternative energy - i.e. wind power, etc. It is the role of newly privatized academics to pander to their Earth-rapist sponsors and thereby legitimize the country's destruction of the Earth.

Using the fact that brutland cannot currently rely on Phytomass to meet its entire energy needs as an excuse to dismiss this source of energy, is a variation on the silly point made by george woodwell that it is not possible to combat global warming because there is a lack of land for Reforestation. Whereas woodwell seems to regard with a tinge of sadness that it would not be possible to control global warming through a natural ecological approach, newman seems pleased that brutland would not be able to meet its energy needs from Phytomass because, for him, this puts such a romantic solution out of consideration. In newman's opinion it is almost as if once a country has developed a high energy economy which grossly surpasses its ecological means of support then it does not need to do anything about combatting global warming because it would be totally unfeasible to transform the country so that it lives within its Carbon budget. As far as he is concerned once a country has attained the status of a gross polluter then it is free from any responsibility for helping to combat global warming. The only countries which should bear such responsibilities should be those which are not yet releasing large quantities of pollution. Newman probably earns in the region of £25,000 per annum to come up with such hokum.

II: The Balance between Photosynthesis and Respiration.

Capitalist academician newman also has an 'academic' argument to dismiss global Reforestation as a means of combatting global warming. Newman outlines the Earth's global Carbon spiral in a diagram showing .. "estimates of the amount of carbon held in various pools, and rates of transfer between pools." He goes on to point out that, "The numbers should be regarded as being accurate only to one significant figure, and some are less certain than that." [11] This is admirable caution concerning an area of knowledge about which there is at present very little empirical evidence - despite the fact that humans have pushed the Earth to the verge of a global ecological collapse. Nevertheless, despite this show of academic caution, newman goes on to extol, without any empirical knowledge, the rather bizarre principle of an alleged balance between Photosynthesis and respiration, "This balance of photosynthesis and respiration is a sort of (sic) ecological principle that is embodied in figure 2.3" (showing that terrestrial Plants and micro-organisms respire about 60 Gton of Carbon into the atmosphere whilst Photosynthesis absorbs about 60 Gtons of Carbon). [12] For good measure he finishes off .. "we cannot measure the world's photosynthesis and respiration rates accurately enough to prove it." [13]

So here we have the spectacle of an academic promoting a principle for which there is no scientific evidence. Why should he pick this principle rather than say the opposite - that there is never a balance? After all the Earth's climate has fluctuated over the aeons so why should there be a balance? Perhaps the imbalance between the two is what helps the climate to counter astronomic changes pushing the Earth into and out of ice ages?

Quite why this "sort of" 'principle' should have settled so snuggly into newman's brain seems at first to be a mystery but an explanation suddenly emerges when he discusses the feasibility of combatting global warming through Reforestation. He needs some way of theoretically dismissing such a solution. Having dismissed Reforestation in brutland on the wacky grounds that there isn't enough room to plant more Forests because the land is already occupied by Earth wrecking industries, this 'principle' is useful for dismissing Reforestation, "If carbon is to be removed from the atmosphere year by year on a long term basis, we should need to establish Carbon-sink plantations, harvest them while they are still growing actively, replant the site, and store the harvested wood permanently so that it does not rot (since that would return CO₂ to the atmosphere). This storage would be a formidable activity. It has been estimated (Vitousek 1991) that the total amount of carbon stored in all cut timber, worldwide, in use in houses, furniture, fences, etc., plus wood products such as paper, is 4-5 Gtons. This is about equal to a year's release of carbon from burning fossil fuels. Therefore we would need to add to the world's carbon sink store an amount of wood equal to the present total; and this wood has to be stored for ever." [14] Just in case such an argument against global Reforestation is not convincing he generalizes his view about the limitations of Reforestation in Brutland, "The area required for growing these carbon sink forests would also be formidable. If we assume 5 tons ha^-1yr^-1, as an average productivity, this would absorb 2 tons Carbon ha^-1yr^-1, so to absorb 5Gtons Carbon yr^-1 would require 25 million km² to be permanently dedicated to carbon sinks; this is 19% of the world's land surface. These calculations are based on the aim of absorbing all the CO₂ generated from burning fossil fuels each year, but they serve to show that even if we had a more limited aim, Carbon-sink forests are not a realistic way of helping to solve the problem." [15] This argument is nothing more than a psuedo-green bogey.

III: Steady-State Forests.

Closely related to the 'principle' of a balance between Photosynthesis and respiration is the hypothesis that, "steady-state forests are not net absorbers of Carbon." This is about as profound as saying that once a bottle has been filled up there is no more room for anymore. Once again there is no empirical evidence because there may be no such thing as 'stable Forests'. Academics like newman could spend the rest of their lives searching for a stable Forest without ever finding one. The principle that Forests do not reach a point of Carbon saturation is just as valid as the so-called principle that Forests reach a steady Carbon state.

This then is the bizarre world of the factory pharm academician legitimizing the activities of his Earth-rapist pimps. Start with a meaningless idea; elevate it into a 'principle'; convert it into something resembling a fact, "The key point to emphasize is that steady-state forests are not net absorbers of Carbon"; proceed to conjure up a horrifying image of societies drowning in Wood products as a result of using Reforestation to counteract excessive and wholly unnecessary Carbon emissions; and then, finally, add the coup de grace that it is not feasible to cover 19% of the Earth's land surface in Forest plantations (ignoring for a moment that oomans have devastated nearly one-third of the Planet's Forests since the end of the last ice age) because such land is needed for industrial/commercial development, shopping centres, roads, universities, hospital car parks, etc. After all, how are humans going to survive if they don't continue suffocating the Earth's life-sustaining processes in tarmac and cement? The fact that newman regards Reforestation as such a nightmare indicates that his views are not based on any scientific understanding of the Earth's life support system but have been conditioned by his existence as a livestock intellectual in an academic factory pharm funded by multi-national corporations. Newman ought to smoke a couple of joints if he's to stand any chance of dispelling such incredible phantasmagorias of the mind.

IV: Criticisms.

There are a number of assumptions in newman's nightmare scenario which need investigating.

IV.A: The Permanent Harvesting of Forests.

Newman contends that if Reforestation is used to combat global warming then Forests would have to be periodically harvested if they are going to rapidly absorb huge quantities of Carbon. This view contrasts with woodwell's view, quoted above, that Forests used for Carbon storage should be left untouched, "The trees have to be put into forest that will remain forest and not be .. harvested ..." [16]

IV.B: The Permanent Storage of Wood.

In newman's scenario, harvested Wood would have to be "stored for ever". As has just been noted, there is no necessity to harvest Forests used as Carbon stores. But, even if they were harvested this would still not mean that the Wood would have to be "stored for ever". There may well be a time when global warming abates and global cooling sets in and the stored Wood could be burnt to help combat the return of another ice age.

IV.C: The Phantasms of Steady-State Forests.

It has already been pointed out above that there is no evidence that Forests reach a steady-state where they .. "are not net absorbers of Carbon". Given the lack of empirical evidence it is necessary to hypothesize about what may be happening. One of the factors which determines whether Forests store or lose Carbon depends on the climate. If there is excess Carbon in the atmosphere then Forests are likely to absorb more and more Carbon. It is only if there is a shortage of atmospheric Carbon that Forests would stop growing; they may even release more Carbon than they absorb. [17]

As has been suggested above, where there is a surplus of atmospheric Carbon, Forests may continually absorb Carbon. Forests store Carbon not merely in the form of Trees but in the form of Soil. There is more Carbon in Soils than there is in Trees, "Undisturbed soil holds even more carbon than there is in the form of trees. Up to half of the original carbon content of the soil must oxidise slowly into CO₂ and escape into the atmosphere as land comes under the plough. This must have been a major contribution to the build up of CO₂ in the atmosphere in the 19th and early 20th centuries." [18] At the present time, some types of Forest possess more Soil than others. [19]

All Forests are rooted in Soil - even the tropical Rainforests stand on some Soil. This Soil did not suddenly appear on Earth out of nowhere. It was created through the decomposition of Plants and Trees. Forests create Soil through a number of different processes:-

* when leaves fall to the ground they are either broken up by decomposers or dragged into the Soil by a vast range of Animals where they eventually decompose;

* Trees pump Carbon into the Soil through their roots;

* the Animals which browse on leaves deposit Manure on the ground where it is absorbed by micro-organisms or soaks into the soil.

Given the right climatic conditions Forests can expand for tens of thousands of years because they put more nutrients into the Soil than they take out. The longer that Forests are left untouched by humans the more Soil they create. Forests do not reach a stable state because throughout their lives they are continually taking Carbon out of the atmosphere and creating Soil. In a few thousand years' time the Soils of Amazonia may well be much thicker than they are at present.

Forests also store Carbon in the form of Wildlife. Imagine a Forest without Animals (which, in reality, is very difficult since Forests depend as much on Animals as Animals depend on Forests). There would be no Animals to:-

* prune branches;

* fertilise the Soil;

* disburse seeds;

* germinate certain seeds, etc.

Under these circumstances Forests would find it difficult to grow - they might even find it difficult to survive.

Over the course of time, evolution creates new species which survive by exploiting an ecological niche. The new species then creates new niches for another species. Evolution is the process by which more and more Animals create more and more ecological niches which enable more and more Animal species to survive and evolve. It is a process which packs more and more species into a habitat especially one as palatial as Forests - and, of course, the more Animals there are, the more Carbon which ends up in the ground, creating even more Soil, enabling more Trees to grow and survive. The evolution of Animals is a way of packing more and more Carbon into the Forest closet. [20] If there was no biodiversity the amount of Carbon that could be stored in Forests would be far smaller. The greater the biodiversification the more Carbon which can be stored in a Forest. Tropical Rainforests are a good example of the way that Forests can store large quantities of Carbon not only in the form of Soil, but in the form of Animals. [21] Animals store considerable amounts of Carbon in their bodies although their role as Carbon catalysts, enabling Forests and Soils to store more and more Carbon than would be possible in the absence of Animals, is probably a more important role. When humans trample through the Forests they wreck the Carbon storage role of Animals and thereby release the Carbon into the atmosphere.

Given excess atmospheric Carbon, Forests continually absorb Carbon because they continually create more and more Soil and are filled with more and more Animal species. Forests continually increase the storage of Carbon not merely over the decades and centuries, but the millenia. They never reach a stable climax state - even when there is a balance between the number of Trees growing and dying. Forests stop absorbing Carbon only when the amount of Carbon in the atmosphere declines.

Fast growing eucalyptus plantations may reach their climax state in a matter of decades but this is only because they do not create new Soils and because they are virtually bereft of Wildlife. The tragedy of razing the world's Forests is not simply that the Carbon stored in the Trees is dumped into the atmosphere but that, as a result of the Soil disappearing through erosion, and the obliteration of Biodiversity, even more Carbon is dumped into the atmosphere.

The reason why capitalist academicians like newman keep making elementary mistakes about 'stable Forests' is because they don't see Forests as living entities packed full of diverse and interesting life forms, but solely as cash registers i.e. natural resources to be exploited to make profits - some of which, of course, eventually wends its way back into universities to finance decadent academics whose role is to protect Earth rapists by covering up the scale of the destruction which these scumbags are inflicting on the Earth's life-support system.

IV.D: The Albedo Effect of Forests.

Newman dismisses Reforestation as a means of countering global warming because he neglects the albedo effect of Forests and the role that Forests play in the water cycle - both of which are influential factors on global warming. Even if Forests existed in a stable state such as that proposed by newman, this would not legitimize harvesting because Forests' albedo effect and water cycle may be of crucial importance in helping to curb global warming.

IV.E: Conclusions.

The political danger posed by the idea of a global balance between Photosynthesis and respiration is that no matter how many Forests are planted around the world the absorption of Carbon will always be balanced by respiration and thus Reforestation will never be of any use in countering global warming. Similarly, the political danger of the idea of so-called 'stable Forests' is that because a Forest may be deemed to be 'stable' then it is no longer of any use in countering global warming.

The hypothesis about stable Forests is reiterated by virtually all ecologists who support high tech solutions to the world's global ecological problems. It is often stated with a grand confidence which seems bizarre coming from supposedly empirical scientists especially when, a few pages earlier in their work, such scientists reiterate their own version of newman's admission that .. "we cannot measure the world's photosynthesis and respiration rates accurately enough to prove (that there is an equality between the two)." This profession of ignorance seems to qualify academics to make wholly unwarranted statements dismissing Reforestation as a means of countering global warming.

xii) Tucker, Townsend and Sellars.

Some commentators argue that it would not be practical to use Reforestation to combat global warming because it would mean constantly measuring the Earth's Phytomass to ensure atmospheric Carbon was being kept at the right concentration. Early attempts to measure the Earth's Phytomass did not succeed in providing accurate or comprehensive results, "A major aim of the International Biological Program, which operated during the late 1960s and early 1970s, was to obtain measurements of net primary productivity for a representative set of sites throughout the world." [1] However, newman believes this could change in the future, "There is a different technique which may in future be able to provide much more extensive measurements of primary productivity; remote sensing from satellites." [2]

Work has already started on monitoring the Earth's Vegetation cover and drawing up a Vegetation Index using satellites. In the early 1970s Nasa launched a series of landsat satellites to constantly monitor and evaluate the state of the world's crops. Then a new weather satellite noaa-7 was launched carrying the first advanced very high resolution radiometer (avhrr) which provided better information than landsat. Unfortunately, no one knew for certain what the noaa satellite was measuring. But gradually the answers began to unfold .. "the vegetation index is a universal measure of plant growth." [3] Once the data could be interpreted correctly the new satellite proved to be a considerable success, "When Tucker and Townsend mapped the vegetation index, season by season, they were able to distinguish broad areas of rainforest, grassland and so on, by the density of vegetation and its seasonal behaviour. This use of weather satellites for vegetation monitoring marks a U-Turn away from an excessive reliance on satellites of the Landsat type." [4]

As the data continued to be evaluated it was discovered that the satellite was also providing invaluable information about related phenomena which there had been no plans to measure, "If the vegetation index from AVHRR did no more than paint unprecedented portraits of Africa and other continents with plants, and reveal the broad changes from season to season and year to year, it would count as an astonishing innovation. Yet that was only the start. The vegetation index turned out to be a prime measure of the influence of plants in the Earth system." [5]

Piers sellars and his colleagues in maryland designed a computer model of the climate to interpret the satellite's data. By 1986 they were feeding the model with vast quantities of information and helping to evaluate a huge segment of the Earth's Carbon spiral, "Their Simple Biosphere Model takes in conventional weather data and computes changes in leaf temperatures, the rain, and dew wetting the leaves, and the wetness of various layers of soil." [6]

xiii) Wally Broecker.

Wally broecker suggests one option for countering global warming, "We could have fleets of jets flying in the sky releasing (sulphate) dust. A fleet of 700 jumbo jets could distribute 35 million tonnes of sulphate each year at an annual cost of around £10 billion." [7] Whether this calculation also includes the sulpur needed to counteract the effects of aircrafts' dumping of huge quantities of greenhouse gases high into the atmosphere is not known.

xiv) John Houghton.

Houghton is one of the world's leading meteorologists and has played a key role in putting global warming onto the global political agenda. He has been responsible for setting up and running the scientific working group of the inter-governmental panel on climate change (ipcc), the world's leading authority on global warming. He should have a better understanding of global warming than almost anyone else on Earth - including most of his colleagues. The fact that the ipcc scientific working group had the audacity to demand immediate 60-80% reductions in Carbon emissions seems to indicate that he commands enough authority to ensure that scientific Truth is not compromised by political expediency or political pressures. It was thus hoped that he would take the opportunity in his recently published book on global warming to outline his suspicions about the dangers of global warming and thus indicate the depth and urgency of the changes that need to be made to avert a global warming disaster. Unfortunately, houghton kept his book within the bounds of scientific evidence which, as a consequence, despite his warnings about the dangers posed by global warming, give the impression that global warming does not need fundamental social and political changes and is therefore not a serious threat. For example he doesn't believe global warming could accelerate out of control, "There is no possibility of such runaway greenhouse conditions occurring on Earth (as they do on venus)." [8]

Houghton devotes just a few short paragraphs to Reforestation. He does not regard it as the main priority for combatting global warming, merely as one of the means for helping to slow down the rise in global temperatures. Whilst at least he doesn't whinge about Reforestation not being feasible because there isn't enough land on which to plant Forests, he does take the global status quo for granted as if the mere fact that the Earth-rapists have nearly wrecked the Earth is a justification for leaving them to finish off the job. He asks whether Tree planting is feasible and quotes a study by his namesake about the current availability of land for planting Forests (totally ignoring the political implications of such a study), "A study by RA Houghton for the tropical regions has identified land which has supported forests in the past and which is not presently being used for croplands or settlement, of an area totalling 5 million square kilometres -

in Latin America - 1 msk

Asia - 1 msk

Africa - 3 msk." [9]

Once again a scientist comes to the conclusion that Reforestation should take place in third world countries without realizing in the slightest that such a recommendation is irrelevant because it is politically unacceptable to third world countries. As if he might have realized he was talking political nonsense he later adds that, "Potential for afforestation, not so great but still substantial, also exists at mid and high latitudes." [10]

xv) Eugene P Odum.

Odum has written an academic textbook, 'ecology and our endangered life-support systems', for university undergraduates outlining the basic concepts of ecology. Whilst the title conjures up a sense of urgency about the damage which humans are inflicting on the Earth's life support system the book itself reveals no such concern. The title is the author's only concession to livening up what is a comprehensive but exceedingly dry and dull book. When he veers off into a bit of science fiction about the prospect of setting up space colonies it reveals that it has never crossed his mind that the Earth's life support system is likely to fall apart long before such a fantasy ever comes to pass. It also seems not have crossed his mind that if such a project was implemented it would play a significant part in pushing the Earth over the ecological precipice. [11] To give one example of the complacency about the subject he's supposed to illuminate, "As long as these uses (logging and grazing) do not appreciably change the structure and function of the forests or its abililty to reproduce itself, then the forest qualifies as a natural area according to our definition." [12] It's bad enough that his definition of 'natural' stretches the term beyond its limit but even worse is that he seems to have not the slightest comprehension that the Animal exploitation industry is the biggest cause of geophysiological destruction. The book could have been written by an android programmed by an android.

Interestingly he is one of the few academics who defines ecology in the widest possible sense, "Ecology is .. the study of the earth's life support system." [13] Most academic ecologists seem to believe that ecology is about local phenomena and very few attempt to identify it with the Earth as a whole.

Odum does not discuss the need for Reforestation to combat global warming.

xvi) Florentin Krause, Wilfrid Bach & Jon Koomey

These three authors have produced one of the best academic textbook on global warming - despite its limitations. The fact that it is one of the earliest and was written at a time when the public had hardly heard of global warming makes it even more remarkable. Although they give priority to the reduction in Carbon emissions and promote the idea of 'environmental least cost planning' [14] this work is invaluable for a number of reasons:-

* Firstly, the authors believe it is necessary not merely to set a limit for Carbon emissions e.g. 20% reductions by the year 2020, but to set what they call a 'global Carbon budget' which limits the total amount of fossil Carbon which should be released into the atmosphere. The authors are using a technical scientific term as a political objective. As far as is known this is the first work which has sought to politicize this scientific term - albeit, as will be seen, in a rather distorted fashion. [15]

* Secondly, of all the scientists discussed so far, these authors explore the most radical policy options for Reforestation, "In principle, the percentage of the earth's land surface under forests could probably be returned to the 6 billion ha level of pre-industrial times. If left alone and given sufficient time, nature might do the job on its own. However, the climate problem must be addressed in the next 5-10 decades. This presents a logistic constraint." [16] It is unfortunate that they do not advocate the implementation of this radical option but at least they are willing to think through each possible option - unlike most other scientists whose thinking seems to stop at anything beyond the maintenance of their grants from multi-national corporations.

* Thirdly, the authors highlight (but do not support) the case for returning to pre-industrial levels of atmospheric Carbon in order to avert the risk of climatic diasters, "To pursue the maximum reduction of anthropogenic climate risks, one would want to phase out fossil fuel consumption over the next few decades ..; sequester all historic carbon releases since the onset of industrialization; and also offset all future fossil and biospheric releases that are inevitable during the completion of the fossil phase-out. This would lead to a return to preindustrial atmospheric conditions and a steady-state situation in which no net anthropogenic carbon releases, either biospheric or fossil would occur." [17] Reflecting on such an extreme option reveals an open-mindedness of a rare kind. Unfortunately the authors lack the courage to promote such a policy which is the only one likely to safeguard human survival.

* Fourthly, the authors validate the argument, first put forward by james lovelock and promoted by geocentrics, that Reforestation entails drastic curbs on the Animal exploitation industry - although they are far from promoting veganism let alone vegetarianism.

* Fifthly, the authors validate another geocentric proposition - that the only way to combat global warming is by abolishing the global inequalities between the rich and 'poor' countries.

* Finally, what makes the work an even more invaluable read is that it presents the most thorough account of the Earth's Carbon spiral. Many authors highlighting global warming have mentioned or discussed this spiral but none have outlined it in such a comprehensive and detailed way - and without boring the reader like some scientists. This work should be read merely for this scientific analysis - especially by those still trying to understand what is so crucial about the Carbon spiral.

Unfortunately, this work turns out to be far less radical than it could have been. It eventually adopts the most reformist methodology and recommends some rather tepid targets. In order to expose its inadequacies it may be as well to indicate the negative implications of the positive ideas outlined above.

I: A Fossil Carbon Budget.

The authors believe the best way to combat global warming is through the adoption of a global Carbon budget, "In this chapter, we .. determine an approximate concentration limit for carbon dioxide. We then translate this concentration limit into a global fossil carbon budget." [18] They go on to suggest, "The centrepiece of an international agreement to protect the world's climate should be a global budget for cumulative fossil carbon releases between now and 2100. A climate stabilizing fossil carbon budget for the period from 1985 to 2100 would then be 300 btC .. " [19] This budget would have quite severe social and economic ramifications, "A 300btC budget means major restrictions on the use of global fossil resources. Our analysis suggests that climate stabilization requires keeping significant portions of even the world's conventional fossil resources in the ground." [20]

As far as the authors are concerned a 'global Carbon budget' is one which is solely concerned with fossil fuel emissions. They do not attempt to develop the idea of a budget in the full sense of the term where there is both an 'income' and an 'expenditure' - in the case of an ecological budget not merely the Carbon dumped into the atmosphere but the Carbon sequestered through Photosynthesis. The authors believe there are a number of reasons for focusing solely on Carbon emissions rather than including Carbon absorption - although they believe it should eventually be possible to unite 'fossil and biotic budgets'. The other idiosyncratic feature of the 'budget' is that it not include Carbon emissions from Reforestation. It concentrates solely on Carbon emissions from fossil fuels - hence the phrase 'fossil Carbon budget', "Since energy use currently is, and forseeably will remain, the dominant driving force of global warming .. we focus on least cost options for reducing use of fossil fuels." [21]

II: Allocating the Fossil Carbon Budget.

Having determined the world's fossil 'budget' for the next century or so the authors then proceed to determine how to allocate this budget between the 'industrialized' and 'developing' worlds. They acknowledge that the industrialized world is responsible for provoking global warming whilst the third world has helped to stabilize the climate, "A logical principle for assigning responsibility for climate stabilization would be that those who cause the damage pay for the abatement. Identifying the principal culprits in the destruction of the world's climate is not difficult. The history of greenhouse gas emissions shows that the industrialized countries have been and continue to be by far the major source of climate destabilization ..." [22] Unfortunately, the authors quickly give up on this sensible line of thought. Instead of insisting that each country should balance its historical Carbon budget the authors embark on an investigation of three other criteria for allocating the fossil budget, "In establishing equity formulas, at least three basic alternatives are available: carbon-release based models, [23] C/gdp-based models, [24] and population-based models. [25] " [26] The authors eventually conclude that none of these three options is feasible.

In order to proceed with their analysis, they adopt what is called a working hypothesis in which the budget is split evenly between the 'north' and the 'south', "As a simple working hypothesis, we split the global fossil carbon budget evenly between industrialized and developing countries. This choice represents an approximate midpoint between the cumulative per capita formula and the carbon release formula." [27] Unfortunately, as happens all too often, a working hypothesis gradually develops a legitimacy of its own, "A 50:50 split of the global fossil carbon budget among developing and industrialized nations appears to yield workable and fair reduction milestones. It would push industrialized countries to fully mobilize their technological, financial, and organizational capacities for phasing out fossil fuels without creating infeasible goals." [28] In other words the three authors totally ignore the injustices of the past and insist that both 'north' and 'south' should share equally the responsibility for combatting global warming over the next one hundred years. But all that this so-called equality will do is reward the polluters and antagonize the non-polluters. It totally fails to meet any meaningful sense of equity.

III: Responsibility for Reforestation.

It has been pointed out above that the authors refuse to adopt a budget which includes the sequestration of atmospheric Carbon. This does not mean, however, that they ignore the issue of Reforestation. On the contrary the authors explore a number of Reforestation options including an estimation of the maximum possible Reforestation which could take place around the world. The authors also argue that their fossil budget is based on the assumption that Forests will be returned to their 1985 levels, "In fact, the fossil carbon budgets developed (earlier) are explicitly based on maintaining biotic carbon storage at mid-1980s levels. Given current deforestation trends this will involve a major afforestation and reforestation campaign." [29]

There are two drawbacks to this plan. Firstly, why should the ideal level of Forest cover be that in 1985? Secondly, the authors believe that responsibility for Reforestation lies with the so-called developing countries. Although the authors state, "This budget implicitly assumes that .. Carbon storage in forests and soils will be returned to mid-1980s level through several decades of afforestation in both temperate and tropical regions, combined with curtailment of tropical deforestation." [30] elsewhere they are a little more specific, "The bulk of this campaign will need to be carried out by developing countries." [31] It is unjust that third world countries should have to Reforest their lands more than the over-industrialized nations given that whilst the former have protected their Forests the latter have decimated theirs. If the idea of sharing the fossil budget between the over-industrialized and third worlds is unfair then the proposal that third world countries should shoulder the biggest burdens for Reforestation merely adds to the injustice.

What makes this decision to give third world countries the biggest responsibility for Reforestation even worse is that .. "the percentage of the biospheric carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems outside tropical forests is about 320-360 btC, or about 60-75% of the global stock. These figures illustrate the critical influence of forest maintenance in the industrialized regions on global climate stabilization." [32] Even though temperate Forests have the biggest impact on the global Carbon spiral, it is tropical Forests which are supposed to do the most to extract Carbon from the atmosphere. Even though the authors know the facts they simply don't seem willing to draw the necessary conclusions.

In spite of these criticisms it is still refreshing to hear these academics demanding that there should be extensive Reforestation in the over-industrialized countries, "To maintain the goal of holding biotic carbon storage steady on a global level, industrial countries would have to afforest an area of about 130 million ha, equivalent to taking about 20% of their (non-dryland) cropland and pasture out of production." [33] Few other academics have made any comparable demand and few others, whilst supporting Reforestation, have dared to put a figure on the amount of land that needs to be Reforested.

IV: The Animal Exploitation Industry

The authors believe that in order to combat global warming it is necessary to Reforest large areas of pastureland (and cropland - since a significant proportion of this is used to feed livestock). They also believe the Animal exploitation industry is one of the biggest contributors to global warming, "The greatest change in the terrestrial biospheric carbon reservoir occurs through human agricultural activity. This activity can be broadly defined as the transformation of forests into non-forests for pasture or crop production purposes." [34]

These authors are amongst the very few academics to have reached such a conclusion and need to be praised for doing so. However, they do not recommend the deconstruction of the entire Animal exploitation industry. They believe it would be possible to fulfil their objectives for combatting global warming merely by persuading consumers to switch from eating beef to pork because cattle cause so much more methane pollution than other types of livestock, "To achieve substantial reductions in the methane releases of industrialised areas from domestic animals, it would not be necessary to switch to a vegetarian diet. Reducing per capita consumption of beef by 50% would still allow ample supplies of dairy products while reducing methane production by about 40%. The cut in per capita meat consumption overall would be no more than 12%. If the beef were replaced by pork, the methane reduction would still be lowered by virtually the same amount, due to the low methane production in pigs. Meat consumption would, in this case, not have to drop at all." [35]

V: Abolishing Global Poverty

The authors are emphatic that combating global warming entails the abolition of global inequalities between rich and poor countries, "One important insight driven home by the greenhouse effect is that gross international inequity and ecological maintenance are fundamentally incompatible. In fact, the global environmental crisis and the warming threat could bring about a realignment of international policies that goes far beyond the control of greenhouse gases in the narrow sense. Solutions to the global warming problem and related environmental threats will necessitate satisfying basic needs everywhere." [36]

Unfortunately, as has been seen above,the authors' recommendations for combatting global warming lead them to recommend that the third world world should face the same Carbon emissions' limit as the over-industrialized world and, secondly, that the third world most should carry out the most Reforestation. Neither of these recommendations is fair nor are they likely to appeal to third world people which means they are unlikely to be of any use in combatting global warming.

It can be concluded that this work, which starts off by promising so much in the way of combatting global warming in a just and fair way, fails to fulfil its potential. Rather than using global warming to force the abandonment of the Animal exploitation industry and global inequalities between north and south, these authors ditch the radical implications of their work and settle for policies which will not prevent a global warming disaster.

xvi) Oliver Rackham.

Rackham dismisses Reforestation as a means of combatting global warming, "Tree planting is supposed to help the cause of conservation in various ways. The most general objective is to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Undeniably, having more trees will work in the right direction - but to a minute degree. For its practical effect, telling people to plant trees is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea-levels. Anyone concerned about CO₂ should work at preventing the destruction of peat-bogs." [37]

Here is one of the clearest examples of a first class ecologist/conservationist who has little understanding of geophysiology. He clearly knows his Trees since he knows their latin names. He knows which Trees are native and which are exotic; why they grow in certain ways, what soils they grow in, what use they are to Wildlife, what sort of Wood they produce, what conditions they need to grow, etc., etc.. However, ask him about issues beyond ecology and he seems to be floundering. He seems to know nothing about brutland's Carbon debts; the politics of deforestation (if this country has a mere 8% Tree cover then why should other countries not cut down all their Forests until they have the same level of Tree cover?); the need for Wood economies (yes indeedie, bogs may help to counter the greenhouse effect but it is hardly feasible to build a sustainable Planet by creating vast new bogs and encouraging people to live in 'regional bog economies' from which they could draw all of their resources); and, finally, bogs may store more Carbon than Forests but their albedo affect does not have such a powerful influence on global warming as Forests.