DOE vs. the World

The second article, not about the EPA, but a government organization dealing with the environment, so included it…

Department of Energy Tells Scientists to Cut and Run, via Huffington Post

I didn’t know this study was in place. And, it seems just as I found out about it, it will disappear.

For more than a decade, the federal government has spent millions of dollars pumping elevated levels of carbon dioxide into small groups of trees to test how forests will respond to global warming in the next 50 years.

Some scientists believe they are on the cusp of receiving key results from the time-consuming experiments.

The U.S. Department of Energy, however, which is funding the project, has told the scientists to chop down the trees, collect the data and move on to new research.

There are mixed reasons for why they want to stop the study. Apparently, they put together a group of people, with unknown backgrounds, and decided that they had enough data. But, why are the scientists in charge of the experiment considered the experts to determine this. In fact, some data is seems extremely relevant and needs to be studied further:

Results so far indicate that elevated levels of carbon dioxide make forests grow more quickly, said Ram Oren, professor of ecology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and principal investigator on the experiments there.

But unless forests are on fertile ground _ hard to come by because of development _ growth will be in leaves, needles, and fine roots, which die off and decompose in a year or two, releasing the carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere, Oren said.

I guess we will see how this develops.