Kyoto Protocol

The debate over signing the Kyoto Protocol involves determining all the sources (industry, natural) and sinks (storage) of carbon. But scientists can't find all the sinks.

How can a sink be missing?

In a simple form....scientists decided to develop a 'budget' for Carbon. First you add all the sources, all the fluxs, and finally all the sinks. But what happens when the numbers don't all add up? Scientists were able to estimate the Carbon in the ocean, and the atmosphere, and all the sources/sinks/flux in the terrestrial environment. Problem was, they still came up short. Some carbon had to be missing somewhere. After a good deal of debate several years ago, some suggested that the 'missing sink' was actually carbon stored in trees in North America that had not been appropriately allocated. In other words, the estimation of carbon for N.A. was not correct.

To date, this is a leading theory, and plays a role in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. If the sink is included as some believe it should be, then the US has a huge off-set of carbon to balance against the carbon it produces through pollution. It is similar to saying that the carbon produced/used in the rainforest is similar too the Appalachian woodlands. Intuitively, this seems incorrect because the rainforest is so thick and rich with plants. But when a leaf is dropped from a tree, it almost literally doesn't lie on the ground for an entire day before it is consumed by someone or something [ever see Army Ants on the prowl? - They're verocious eaters]. Whereas, anyone living in the north-east USA knows that they have to rake up LOTS of leaves every fall. The ones that fall to the ground seem to stick around a LONG time before they are recycled.

It would seem that the rainforest consumes a lot of CO2 because it is growing all year long. This is quite true! But very little Carbon is actually stored in the soils of the rainforest. The soils are thin and can't support growth for very long without the replenshment of fallen trees, branchs, leaves, and other dead organisms. This is one reason that cutting down rainforest for grazing cattle or growing crops is such a very poor idea. Typically, the soil is 'mined' for its nutrients and carbon content (the stuff that makes cows fat and vegies big) within just a few years (4 to 5). Then the soil is useless and the farmer must move on to new rainforest. What happens to the 'mined' area? Usually any soil left blows away and the area become sterile, referred to as desertification. Sometimes, other plants will move in that can grow in marginal areas. But the damage is already done.

In the USA, the soil is VERY fertile, some of the richest in the world, because there is so much carbon tied up in it (that's a contributing reason to why it is often so black). Likewise, our trees, especially oak trees, hold a great deal of carbon in their trunk (which is one reason they burn in the fireplace so nicely) and grow for a very long time (100+ years). Thus, the soils and trees act as a very large 'sink' of carbon. Holding it out of the cycle for a long time. Its suspected by some scientists, that this 'holding' capacity wasn't properly calculated or considered in the carbon budgets that were developed. They haven't changed the budgets because we don't have enough data to ensure the suggestions are true....yet! Hope this helps clarify the ....missing sink!

There is one other consideration relative to the Kyoto Protocol! Why should OUR industry's cut back on CO2 production when we already have pollution controls, whereas other countries such as China and India can burn lots of 'dirty' bitumunous coal without any pollution controls? I will let you ponder the economics and judiciousness of that inequity....for now!