I thought new vegetation absorbed up to 3 times as much C02 as mature vegetation...so shouldn't we cut down all the rainforests, and grow them back?
Absolutely not - that's absorbtion only and relative to weight of vegetation!
Takes a long time to grow a 20 tonne tree! Consider the weight of a acre of rainforest - much of it carbon - that's where the conservative estimate of 260 tonnes per acre comes from.
An interesting fact:
In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. That’s about 100 acres cleared every minute to create farmland for crops such as soya or palm oil, or for cattle ranching.
www.coolearth.org The problem
This is the sort of information we should be putting out to counter the environmental crusaders - those that are actually doing so much long term
damage to the environmental cause with their incorrect information and attacks on aviation.
Unfortunately we cannot just expect this to go away - political parties are vying with each other to get the "green" vote. Children are being persuaded that flying will kill their future world.
It is only by educating with the correct science that we can counter this attack. The industry has to realise that it has to fight back.