Science and technology - the Q & A thread

[Funky Ghost]

Volcanoes (in total) release less CO2 than humans do on a year to year basis.
Remember thate Icelandic volcano that disrupted transatlantic air service?
Some estimates indicate that resulted in a net decrease in CO2 emssisions; the
fact that we weren't burning so much jet fuel offset the CO2 emitted by the volcano itself.
(I'm being a bit weasely here since I know that these things are hard to measure; what this does show
is that in terms of CO2 emissions, this eruption was not much much (orders of magnitude) larger than
the CO2 emssions of the disrupted air traffic).

Mt. St. Helens affected an area about 15x20 miles, a about 192,000 acres;
We Link Removed.

Volcanoes expand islands like Iceland and Hawaii, and even construct new islands. But so do humans. So again, not hugely different in terms of impact.

I can't think of a single environmental impact produced by volcanoes where humans aren't at least in the ball park or completely out pacing the natural impacts.

Ok. I had agreed to walk from this but just this once... You are completely discounting the fact that the forest are replanted. Have been for a long time now. It does the lumber industry zero good to resource themselves out of a business. Finding facts to support something is easy, as long as it says what you want it to. It doesn't make it factual or germane to a conversation. I'm not sure where CO2 emissions entered the conversation ( yes I am, from someone wanting to push a point. . . typical unfortunately on this emotionally charged topic . . . .)

 

[Aberdumbie]

North Atlantic cod were once thought inexhaustible; but we've managed to [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

Good point. I am honestly one who does listen to the debate with an open mind. My real fear is that it has become more of a popularity issue than a critically debated issue. I do love the outdoors and do genuinely listen with an open mind.

 

[catcauphonic]

Category:Species made extinct by human activities - Wikipedia

 

[mapadofu]

Ok. I had agreed to walk from this but just this once... You are completely discounting the fact that the forest are replanted. Have been for a long time now. It does the lumber industry zero good to resource themselves out of a business. Finding facts to support something is easy, as long as it says what you want it to. It doesn't make it factual or germane to a conversation. I'm not sure where CO2 emissions entered the conversation ( yes I am, from someone wanting to push a point. . . typical unfortunately on this emotionally charged topic . . . .)

You stated that the environmental impacts of a single volcano eruption is much larger than what humans do. I tried to think of some things volcanoes do: emit CO2, level forests, create new land, and then compare the scale of those effects to what humans do in the same vein (emit CO2, level forests, create new land).

I don't discount the fact that harvested forest is replanted, just like the forest area affected by Mt. St. Helens is regrowing; I basically see the two, the volcano and the clear cutting, as yielding similar environmental effects in terms of the trees. However, the area directly affected by that eruption is much much smaller than the area affected by human logging; and we don't see a Mt. St. Helens sized eruption all that often, but logging (and replanting) are going on year upon year.

The main effect of volcanoes that I left off in the name of time/effort is the dust & ash ejected by volcanoes, but given the CO2 emission results, I doubt that the dust/ash production will turn out strongly in volcanoes' favor, but I could be wrong.

I guess I took "I wonder, if you have thought about a single volcanic eruption and it's environmental effect on the environment." pretty literally, and tried to find comparisons to address that query.

Are there aspects on which volcanoes' environmental effects are vastly larger than humans?

 

[sissy kathy]

You stated that the environmental impacts of a single volcano eruption is much larger than what humans do. I tried to think of some things volcanoes do: emit CO2, level forests, create new land, and then compare the scale of those effects to what humans do in the same vein (emit CO2, level forests, create new land).

I don't discount the fact that harvested forest is replanted, just like the forest area affected by Mt. St. Helens is regrowing; I basically see the two, the volcano and the clear cutting, as yielding similar environmental effects in terms of the trees. However, the area directly affected by that eruption is much much smaller than the area affected by human logging; and we don't see a Mt. St. Helens sized eruption all that often, but logging (and replanting) are going on year upon year.

The main effect of volcanoes that I left off in the name of time/effort is the dust & ash ejected by volcanoes, but given the CO2 emission results, I doubt that the dust/ash production will turn out strongly in volcanoes' favor, but I could be wrong.

I guess I took "I wonder, if you have thought about a single volcanic eruption and it's environmental effect on the environment." pretty literally, and tried to find comparisons to address that query.

Are there aspects on which volcanoes' environmental effects are vastly larger than humans?

The area of felled trees from MT St Helen was 240 square miles, there has NEVER been a clearcut of that size.
Gifford Pinchot National Forest - About the Forest
The largest clearcut of record, that I can find is 45 hectares, roughly 1/5 of a square mile.
Clearcutting in British Columbia - Wikipedia
So the Mt St Helen eruption cleared 1,200 times more timber than the largest clear cuts. It would have taken
years, perhaps decades, for ten crews to clearcut as much timber as that eruption cleared in one day.

 

[Lobster11]

Frankly, I don't see the relevance of comparing the environmental effects of humans with those of volcanoes -- or of storms, earthquakes, or anything else. We can't do anything about those things; they are what they are. The only relevant question is how much of an effect humans have, and how sustainable these effects are, beyond the effects of such "natural" forces.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Do we have a [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] here, in the form of a saintly but sinister mountain? How much land has been degraded in other ways and could that be comparable to one fiery force majeure in situ, beyond the specifics, considering the overall effect, over time?

 

[mapadofu]

The area of felled trees from MT St Helen was 240 square miles, there has NEVER been a clearcut of that size.
Gifford Pinchot National Forest - About the Forest
The largest clearcut of record, that I can find is 45 hectares, roughly 1/5 of a square mile.
Clearcutting in British Columbia - Wikipedia
So the Mt St Helen eruption cleared 1,200 times more timber than the largest clear cuts. It would have taken
years, perhaps decades, for ten crews to clearcut as much timber as that eruption cleared in one day.

So this is a metric by which volcanoes outstrip humans: there was no *single* clearcut as large as that eruption.

Now, we get into judgement calls: whether we should be measuring things at the single event level, or whether we should be measuring the aggregate effect over all humans, which in British Columbia, is harvested at a rate of around 180,000 hectare/year, about 44% of it being via clear-cut (from 2000-2007), Invalid Link Removed. For reference, the 240 sq. mi. of Mt. St. Helens is about 62,000 hectare.

 

[sissy kathy]

So this is a metric by which volcanoes outstrip humans: there was no *single* clearcut as large as that eruption.

Now, we get into judgement calls: whether we should be measuring things at the single event level, or whether we should be measuring the aggregate effect over all humans, which in British Columbia, is a harvested area of around 180,000 hectacre/year, about 44% of it being via clear-cut (from 2000-2007), Invalid Link Removed. For reference, the 240 sq. mi. of Mt. St. Helens is about 62,000 hectacre.

I'm not arguing one way or another. Just pointing out a misstatement of fact. FYI there is a big brew-ha-ha going on about logging in the Denali now. Commercial companies want to log about 10,000 acres there over a period of 100 years. 10,000 acres is about 16 square miles. 240 square miles is 153,600 acres. So the Mt St Helen eruption looks like about 1,500 years of logging in a day.

 

[mapadofu]

I'm not arguing one way or another. Just pointing out a misstatement of fact. FYI there is a big brew-ha-ha going on about logging in the Denali now. Commercial companies want to log about 10,000 acres there over a period of 100 years. 10,000 acres is about 16 square miles. 240 square miles is 153,600 acres. So the Mt St Helen eruption looks like about 1,500 years of logging in a day.

"Misstatement of fact"? please let me know what I got wrong.

I'm not familiar with the proposed logging in/near Denali, do you have a reference?

I am not arguing anything about the rate of timber harvesting other than the fact that, in aggregate, its impact on forests is much larger than the effects of volcanoes. Fancifully, if you were a tree (what kind of tree would you want to be?) you're more likely to die at the hands of a lumberjack than at the hands of a volcano.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Invalid Link Removed: What happens when quantum mechanics tinker with your best timepiece?

 

[sissy kathy]

Since 1990 the globe has lost 129,000 hectares of forrest. That works of to 498 sq miles as of 2015. That works out to 33 sq miles a year. 1/8 th of the Mt St Helen loss in a single day.
Rate of global forest loss halved, says UN
Now I can understand your misstatement; that information isn't easy to access, you must mine for it.

You are saying 184,00 hectares in British Columbia alone are being harvested/yr. My numbers don't support that, I don't see it in your citation either. That's almost 150% more than the number I cited globally.

But as @Lobster11 pointed out, there is no sense worrying about it; there is absolutely nothing we can do to change it.

 

[mapadofu]

Since 1990 the globe has lost 129,000 hectares of forrest. That works of to 498 sq miles as of 2015. That works out to 33 sq miles a year. 1/8 th of the Mt St Helen loss in a single day.
Rate of global forest loss halved, says UN
Now I can understand your misstatement; that information isn't easy to access, you must mine for it.

You are saying 184,00 hectares in British Columbia alone are being harvested/yr. My numbers don't support that, I don't see it in your citation either. That's almost 150% more than the number I cited globally.

See "siviculture" on pg. 10 of the BC report for the numbers I cited.

According to the BC report "Currently, the annual rate of forest land conversion in the province is very low.",
I've only read the summary and didn't see specific numbers on forest area growth or decline.
As mentioned before by someone else, harvested is not the same as lost. I don't consider the land near Mt. St. Helens "lost" for forestry, it'll grow back given time and I don't think anybody is putting it to any other use; similarly the 180k hectare in BC is harvested and, probably for the most part, re-planted.

This might be a way in which the magnitude of a single volcanic event is even more relevant than just counting up the area -- a big swath of blown away forest may recover more slowly than the smaller patches that are removed, or just thinned, by logging.

 

[Tom Bomb]

[…] even if we [are] not the primary cause (which the evidence suggests we are), we still have an ethical obligation to mitigate the damage we cause [.…]

This is a critical point. Should this then become one of the necessary aspects governing scientific inquiry, especially when that inquiry leads to real negative effects upon our quality of life?

In a similar vein, is economics a genuine science (beyond the dismal science), and, if so, what then are we to make of its so-called Invalid Link Removed, in the scheme of things, and how would science, as a whole, be able to successfully function, given an equivalent potential? Perhaps, science could, very profitably, be redefined. There remains a whole world of possibilities out there.

 

[sissy kathy]

"Misstatement of fact"? please let me know what I got wrong.

I'm not familiar with the proposed logging in/near Denali, do you have a reference?

I am not arguing anything about the rate of timber harvesting other than the fact that, in aggregate, its impact on forests is much larger than the effects of volcanoes. Fancifully, if you were a tree (what kind of tree would you want to be?) you're more likely to die at the hands of a lumberjack than at the hands of a volcano.

Unfortunately I don't have a reference for that. I saw a petition that was circulating around about 4 months ago and just pulled that from my head. I'm not sure about the 10,000 figure either. I remember commenting that the acreage for the proposed logging was less than 1% of the the Park/Reserve, but with that being 6 million acres that could be up to 60,000 acres, but the 10,000 sticks with me. I tried to search for an article about it with no success.

 

[BBQisgood]

Since 1990 the globe has lost 129,000 hectares of forrest. That works of to 498 sq miles as of 2015. That works out to 33 sq miles a year. 1/8 th of the Mt St Helen loss in a single day.
Rate of global forest loss halved, says UN
Now I can understand your misstatement; that information isn't easy to access, you must mine for it.

You are saying 184,00 hectares in British Columbia alone are being harvested/yr. My numbers don't support that, I don't see it in your citation either. That's almost 150% more than the number I cited globally.

But as @Lobster11 pointed out, there is no sense worrying about it; there is absolutely nothing we can do to change it.

That number is 129 million hectares (per year). (Edited--- meant to say since 1990, not per year--this would be over 6 million a year--and the UN data looks as if it is until 2010) Not 129 thousand.

It's right there in the link you posted and I independently verified it with UN data. Quote from your link:

Despite the good news, it points out that since 1990, the world had lost forests covering some 129m hectares – an area the size of South Africa.

@mapadofu did not misstate a fact near as I can tell. (At least not based on projected data that was off by a factor of 1,000).

 

[BBQisgood]

From the standpoint of this thread's best interest, let's make sure everything is in keeping with what OP @hbarcat was going after: questions and answers by folks genuinely interested either with/without formal training in science.

He also did his best to steer away from environmental issues because of some very self-evident reasons several posts ago.

This is shaping up to be an all-time best thread on Talkbass and I, for one, don't want to see it become a one-issue discussion and I sure don't want to see it shut down.

I am not saying "no" to every environmental question or climate issue post, and given my background I may weigh in on them. But, that particular topic is so steeped in controversy and sensationalism it can become tiresome to skeptical thinkers.

 

[sissy kathy]

That number is 129 million hectares per year. Not 129 thousand.

It's right there in the link you posted and I independently verified it with UN data. Quote from your link:

Despite the good news, it points out that since 1990, the world had lost forests covering some 129m hectares – an area the size of South Africa.

@mapadofu did not misstate a fact near as I can tell.

In 1990 the world had 4,128m hectares of forest covering 31.6% of the global land area, the forest report said.

By 2015 this had decreased to 3,999m hectares, covering 30.6% – a net loss of some 129m hectares.

1990 -2015 = 25 year difference.

4128 - 3999 = 129 Million hectares OVER 25 years.
129,000,000 / 25 = 5.1 million hectares/yr.

5.5 million hectares = 19,700 sq mi

Man I can't do math in my head any more. I was off by a couple orders or magnitude.

 

[hondo4life]

Higgs boson

/thread

 

[BBQisgood]

Higgs boson!! Please weigh in physics folks!!!