One of the problems with talking environment is that people always tend to look at individual processes and facts as though they exist by themselves - which they don't. The environment is a single process in which everything that happens affects everything else, often in extremely subtle ways.
I noticed the following comments: From Miko
"First, a slight increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration causes great increase in photosynthesis. Second, ocean (algae) absorbs more carbon then land plants. That algae gets eaten by plancton and considerable part of that carbon sinks to the bottom where, for the lack of oxygen, it gets taken out of circulation pretty quickly. Ocean is the greatels regulator of CO2 in the atmosphere."
This is, of course, true on its own. However, the ocean and particularly algae and plankton growth is highly sensitive to weather, ocean temperatures, pollutants, any a range of other factors. The ocean does act as a regulator - but one that is itself regulated by many other things.
And from Lynx - "It also helps to know that recycled paper is more damaging to the environment that the freshly made stuff -
bleach etc used in recycling is highly toxic..."
Simple to say, but it overlooks entirely the effect of removing the trees themselves, as well as how the materials used in recycling are handled. If the recycling materials are dumped into the river then yes, obviously, they are damaging. If they are properly handled it is not an issue. Deforestation however is a major concern (not that the paper industry is much of the problem - land clearance in the rain forest is a much bigger question), since along with algae in the ocaens, land based biomass is the main source of the oxygen we breathe.
Everything hooks into everything else, and none of it is easy to unravel.
- Yoj
[ 07-31-2001: Message edited by: Yoj ]
