"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
: Leon wrote:
: "Chris Friesen" wrote in message
: el...
: On 12/07/2009 11:15 AM, Leon wrote:
:
: Really and truly none of the global warming/climate change
malarkey
: came about until we started trying to clean up the environment and
: stop air pollution. For hundreds of years a lot of wood was
: always being burned for
: cooking and heating, no global warming problem then.
:
: As long as the rate of burning doesn't exceed the rate of growth,
: burning wood for energy is carbon neutral.
:
: That sounds lile a fuzzy feels good formula.
:
: Not really. If there is a problem it is the result of suddenly
releasing a
: lot of carbon that was sequestered over millions of years. Trees are
short
: term--burn them and plant new ones where the old ones were and the new
ones
: store the same amount of carbon as the old ones released while being
burned.
:
: 200 years ago the population of the planet was under a billion
: people. Now it's 6x that.
:
: But every one was burning then not so now, actually few by contrast.
:
:
:
: From 1850 to 2000, the total energy consumption of the USA
increased
: by a factor of 50. Of course a large amount of that is due to
: population increase, but the per-capita energy consumption has
: increased roughly 4x over that period.
:
: So.. much cleaner energy consumption compared to way back when.
:
: How do you figure?

Do you really want him to answer that?

Dave in Houston
: