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Permalink Reply by Laurel V on March 23, 2010 at 10:34pm

Viv very well written, and very correct! i wonder? does the Fuel and machinery to cut grass instead of grazing, get taken into account, and all those Urban mowers working overtime in suburbia surely pollute more than a few sheep and cows utilizing the grass for food. are councils going to pay up a penalty for neat verges?

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Permalink Reply by Viv Forbes on March 24, 2010 at 3:47am

If Canberra believes trees are better than grass why don't they plant eucalypt scrub over all those expensive lawns down there?

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Permalink Reply by Colin J Ely on March 24, 2010 at 10:23am

Viv
A very good submission. If you go to Peter Andrew's forum Natural Sequence Farming, you will see that they are agitating to have eucalypts made a 'Weed of National Significance! Firstly, while everyone should be encouraged to have trees on their property. particularly along riparian areas, if the government want to legislate, they should pay for the privilege, also all trees are good, and there are plenty of natives that are not eucalypts, most of which are valuable timber trees.

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Permalink Reply by Dixie Nott on March 24, 2010 at 10:55am

"Grass is also green " Very good, Viv. I think this is bumper sticker material.

We are all hoping the submissions we sent may influence somebody. Yours was a great read, should be in schools as ref material.

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Permalink Reply by alan mikkelsen on March 24, 2010 at 6:26pm

Grant, a personal invitation made entirely of my own volition, and absolutely not on behalf of my old uni colleague and friend of some 53 years, the redoubtable author of this discussion, Viv Forbes.

Back in one of your 'suck em in' blogoramas currently being kept alive by some of our colleagues who just can't ignore a Red Flag, no matter how blatant its Potstirring intent, you said:
" You would think that the Australian CLimate Science Coalition would have something to do with scientists, wouldn't you? Except it's nothing more than a website created by corporate think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.

They have an interesting collection of characters on their 'Scientific Advisory Panel' including one who is an expert on cancer research, climate science and petroleum exploration. Quite the renaissance guy.

Another is William Kininmonth. He's a Director of the "Australian Climate Research Institute" which is nothing more than a trading name for 'Kininmonth, William Robert' and headquartered at his house."

That more than says enough without my getting stuck- in, and anyway I am sick and tired of all the 2-way belligerance. Why don't you visit the Carbon Sense website and see what it has to say? Which is a lot. Whether you go on to read JP McK and GR's posts genuinely seeking your payout as promised - a neutral judge would I'm sure call on you to throw in your promised $1000 payout - is up to you as a 'gentleman'.

Cheers for now alan m

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Permalink Reply by Joanne Rea on March 25, 2010 at 4:50pm

Viv
A great submission to the inquiry. I am heartened by the sheer number of people who took the time to write submissions.
However, one inquiry, (there may be others) "Food Production in Australia" which seemed not to have had so many submissions has had 15 hearings. The Native Veg ect. Inquiry is to have only 3.

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Permalink Reply by Donald Woods on March 31, 2010 at 9:06pm

Congratulations and thanks Viv. This is a well written, well thought out submission obviously based on years of experience,observation and thought.
I am in substantial agreement but do diverge to a degree in some of the detail.
In my very much briefer and more terse submission I have commented on issues, much as you have.

One divergence that I have made is based more on the question of Green House Gas conversion. I make the point that sequestration (locking up carbon) is futile and the objective should be to convert GHG's if there is a concern that they are a real threat. (Note that I am a sceptic). To this end I make the point that fast conversion requires fast growing plant matter of any persuasion (even weeds). I comment further that man has been breeding and selecting varieties for centuries for speed of growth, quantity and quality.
Slow growing Native vegetation does not achieve any of these and is far from the best result.
Once the conversion has taken place (ie plant photosynthesis) as far as the GHG's are concerned the process is complete and sequestration is futile.
Suffice for now I am awaiting the Senate enquiry to allow release of submissions.
Cheers
Don

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Permalink Reply by Viv Forbes on April 1, 2010 at 4:06am

Good point Don, but fast growing plants also tend to be fast rotting plants. And once they die and rot, the carbon goes back to the atmosphere, and absolutely nothing is achieved in the way of green house gas conversion (even if this were a sensible goal).

Viv

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Permalink Reply by Donald Woods on April 1, 2010 at 8:37am

Sorry Viv you have lost me.
How does carbon 'get back to the atmosphere'? I thought it is locked up in the ground, particularly if it is ploughed in. Besides carbon is a solid.
The plants have already done there conversion job on the CO2 and they have 'breathed out' Oxygen.
The more and faster the better I would have thought.

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Permalink Reply by Viv Forbes on April 1, 2010 at 8:20pm

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.

Every plant, whether grass or tree, fast growing or slow growing, participates in the carbon cycle.

As a plant grows, it extracts carbon dioxide from the air. Then using solar energy and the magic of photosynthesis, the plant combines carbon from the carbon dioxide with water, nitrogen and minerals from the atmosphere and the soil to produce plant sugars, carbohydrates and protein. As the carbon is extracted from the carbon dioxide some excess oxygen is returned to the atmosphere. Some carbon is taken from the growing plant roots by soil microbes to form soil humus.

This process of net removal of carbon in carbon dioxide by the growing plant continues until the plant reached maturity. The plant then stops growing bigger, leaves drop and annuals die. When the plant dies and the trunk or stems rot or burn, the carbon in the leaf tissues is converted back to carbon dioxide and goes back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and water. It all goes back to the atmosphere from whence it came.

Some small amount of carbon may stay for longer in soil humus as roots rot, but there is a limit to the soil capacity to hold carbon in this way and equilibrium is eventually reached. Some humus is lost from the soil back to the atmosphere by soil oxidation, during drought or fire, or because of soil disturbance.

The only time the carbon exists as solid charcoal on the surface where big logs don’t burn fully after a bushfire. That charcoal is usually fully burnt in the next fire, and then goes back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. If you managed to plough it under, it would stay in the soil for ages, but the tonnages you could capture in this way are tiny.

Mature plants thus always reach a steady state where carbon removed by photo-synthesis is equal to carbon lost back to the atmosphere by things such as decaying leaves, bush fires, rotting branches, grazing animals or wood-borers. Therefore NO PLANT can extract carbon from the atmosphere continuously – it merely borrows some for the term of its life, and then returns it on death. Fast growing plants tend to go round the cycle faster.

Every plant and animal comes from the atmosphere and the soil, and eventually, that is where we all end up. It is a zero sum game.

Viv Forbes

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