Why planting trees won't save the world from global warming http://www.globalchange.com Planting trees is not the answer to global warming -- much as I love trees. Trees fall over and die -- even if they live for 100 years and fix a ton of carbon dioxide into carbon (wood) as they grow. All the carbon is later released as carbon dioxide as the tree falls down and decays on the forest floor. The answer is to capture "old" carbon -- from burning oil, gas, coal, for example with carbon sequestration technology in chimneys of coal fired power stations. Vattenfall in Norway has such a system, capturing 90% of carbon emissions, which are sent back in a pipe under the North Sea for permanent storage. This power storage provides more than 50% of Norway compliance with the Kyoto treaty. Comment by Dr Patrick Dixon, futurist, leading authority on global trends and conference speaker. (more)
