Originally Posted by Capt SNAFU
How much carbon released from a bushfire? How much from controlled burning? The answer is plenty.
Yes plenty. But bushfires are largely irrelevant as they're a constant inclusion over millions of years in the natural carbon cycle. Industrial emissions from 7 billion (and rapidly growing) humans are unique to the last 100-200 years.
I'm not saying a carbon tax is the solution, or even a remotely workable idea. Just sayin', that's all. The amount of carbon released in a bushfire is irrelevant.
Originally Posted by MRGTC
CO2, H2O etc are not pollutants.
What is conventionally thought of as a "pollutant" and what is harmful to the environment and/or human longevity are two totally separate things and depend on the circumstances.
Humble water is essential, and nourishing, and life-giving. Well, unless your farm, your entire year's harvest, and all your worldly possessions get washed away by a deluge of it, or you drown in it, or drink too much of it and die from hypernatremia, or it causes your mainspar to corrode and your wing to fail, etc, etc. So of course we enjoy its great benefits, and at the same time we try to take sensible steps to stop too much of it being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I'm not saying a carbon tax is a good idea or would be effective. Just poking around at simplistic and unsophisticated environmental arguments.
