GOP logic: fact or fiction?

Have you heard the latest GOP junk science report? Having exhausted their fury for the termite, industry-backed pseudo-scientists are now laying blame for climate change on the arctic moose. They claim that his belching is responsible for huge amounts of greenhouse gas. He’s such a global terror, they assert, that we need not give another thought to the CO2 put out by factories and power plants.

There are a few problems with this claim. First, the test was based on belching figures calculated from cows, not moose. No one has studied the digestive patterns of moose, because their numbers have dwindled so sharply that there are not many moose left to study. In fact, the number of grazing animals has been declining for quite some time, and quite sharply. Long ago the mammoth became extinct, and then the buffalo population was obliterated with westward expansion. The moose population is down 90%. Yet global warming is accelerating even as these animals disappear. Obviously grazing animals are not the cause of climate change.

The truth is that grazing animals reduce greenhouse gases in a number of ways. First, grazing stimulates more plant growth. Plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere, storing the carbon and releasing the oxygen; therefore, grazing is a good thing for the earth.

Second, grazing animals do not add new carbon to the earth. All greenhouse gasses released by grazing animals came from vegetation, which in turn came from the atmosphere. Even if 100% of the greenhouse components consumed by grazing were released back into the atmosphere, this would be a sum zero game. The same CO2 would simply be cycled round and round, with no net increase of greenhouse gas.

Third, grazing animals store carbon. In reality, the return of CO2 to the atmosphere is not as efficient described above. A portion of the greenhouse components are stored in the animal bones. Some is also trapped in the animal dung.

The dung itself has beneficial effects, too. It acts as a fertilizer, promoting additional plant growth. Another portion of the dung remains in the soil for long periods of time, sequestering some greenhouse components.

As grazing animals disappear from the earth, more plant matter is left to decay. Decaying plant matter releases carbon back into the atmosphere, creating greenhouse gasses. Thus, any creature that consumes currently growing biomass is fighting rather than augmenting global warming.

We must turn away from pointing fingers at the belching arctic moose or even the dastardly termite mound as a way of explaining climate change. Instead, we must look in the mirror. There are only two mechanisms that significantly increase the greenhouse effect: Changes to stored carbon products and changes to the total amount of living plant material.

We add to the greenhouse effect when we burn carbon products that have been previously sequestered. For example, when we burn fossil fuels such as a coal or oil, we are releasing greenhouses gasses that had been sequestered for untold ages. On the flip side, when carbon products are sequestered and stored as in the grazing animal example above, then greenhouse effects are reduced.

Changes to the total amount of living plant material also affect greenhouse gasses. Living plants release oxygen into the atmosphere, which pumps up the ozone layer and offsets greenhouse gas. Deforestation has a tremendous impact, particularly when the trees are burned. Spraying pesticides along the highways and power lines kills plants and then leaves them there to rot. This is a double-whammy, because it takes out carbon-storing, oxygen-producing biomass, and then releases greenhouse gasses as the weeds rot. We can also imagine that this is not good for the insects that eat the grass, the birds and bats that eat the insects, and so on. Some have speculated that highway and power line pesticides may do more harm to the environment than a good-sized coal burning power plant.

To put it even more simply, storing carbon reduces the greenhouse effect, and releasing stored carbon increases the greenhouse effect. In spite of a few belches, the net actions of the arctic moose result in storing carbon, not releasing stored carbon.

Since industrialization, the delicate balance of carbon releasing and carbon storing has been out of kilter. Each year humans create more greenhouse gasses through energy production and industry, while destroying biomass via deforestation and pesticides. We are already paying a price for our actions. Natural catastrophes are occurring in almost biblical frequency and proportions. Scientists tell us this is only the beginning. Earlier this year, 2,000 scientists convened to present the expected trajectory of climate change and its catastrophic effects – including coastal flooding, agricultural failure and stronger hurricanes and tropical storms.

As usual, Republican politicians refuse to let the facts get in their way. Georgia legislators held a hearing just last week titled “Global Warming: Fact or Fiction?” The very name of the conference suggests the sort of head-in-the-sand attitude we’ve come to expect from the Georgia GOP. While the temperatures soared to triple digits outside, Republican legislators calmly assured everyone that global warming was unproven and might never happen.

Global warming is a fact. It is already happening. The ice caps are melting, and at a faster rate than scientists expected. If this is not true, then please explain the tizzy of various countries trying to stake their claim on the oil reserves beneath the melting ice. The only aspect of climate change that is still debated by serious scientists is the cause – human actions, natural cycles, or a combination. To suggest that global warming itself could be “fiction” is pure madness.

Or maybe it is not madness at all. Maybe the denial of reality is deliberate and down-right evil. Reading through the list of so-called climate experts brought in by the Republicans dispels any illusions of a fair hearing. How can institutes designed to support big oil and big coal while opposing environmental laws be trusted to tell our leaders whether climate change is for real? If they wanted the truth about climate change, they would have asked South Georgia farmers, who are suffering one of the worst droughts in history. They also could have asked the Texas flood victims, and the Texas drought and fire victims. They could have asked the sufferers of Hurricane Dean, which was categorized as one of the worst hurricanes ever. They could have asked south Georgians living on the outskirts of the burned-out Okefenokee.

Someday school children will read how Republican politicians denied the obvious and fought all our attempts to save the earth. They will read how science was politicized, and the Republican Party took the side of the coal and oil industry, turning their backs on farmers, wildlife, and the very earth itself. On the other hand, if we let the Republicans have their way, there will be no children left to read the story.