Sunday, November 17, 2002
The Editor, Lethbridge Herald
Dr. Suzuki Errs
Dr. Suzuki's column, Science Matters, makes some serious technical errors ("Fossil fuels not the only culprit in climate change", November 17, A4).
He states, "the Indonesian fires released an astonishing two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That's about a third of the total amount produced by human activities in 1997 and equal to the amount that all living plant life on earth on Earth is capable of removing from the atmosphere in a year."
Human activities involving fossil fuels, release about six billion tonnes of carbon annually. That translates to about 22 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. It thus seems Dr. Suzuki has fallen into a common trap for amateur climate scientists. He has confused carbon content with equivalent carbon dioxide mass.
The more serious error is to state that living plant life can remove only 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually from the atmosphere. Carbon cycle studies (i.e. NASA Earth Observatory) indicate that over 400 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide are removed annually from the atmosphere by land based plant life.
On the other hand, animal life releases a similar amount of carbon dioxide from the carbon in the plant life it depends on for food. Humans control a good part of both plant and animal life. Humans can better manage this control to establish carbon sinks from our agriculture, forestry, and other activity with organic materials. Growing forests, forest products, organic wastes now going to landfills, and unused plant material from agriculture all contain carbon which might be prevented from reaching the atmosphere. Such carbon sinks have potential to reduce the 12 billion tonne annual growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Sincerely,
Duane Pendergast
cc. Dr. David Suzuki's Office by Fax: (604) 730-9672