Copenhagen conundrum - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times

The phrase “climate change denier” has a nasty ring to it. It links those who dispute mainstream science on global warming with “Holocaust deniers”. They are not just wrong, it implies, they are evil.

But the climate change lobby is in the grip of its own form of dangerous fantasy. It is in denial not about science, but about international politics.

At the moment, efforts to deal with global warming are focused on a huge international summit in Copenhagen in December. But the chances of Copenhagen delivering a deal that meets the goals for carbon dioxide emissions set by the United Nations Panel on Climate Change is vanishingly small. In private, many climate change activists will admit this. But Copenhagen is the only game in town, so they keep playing.

[Should we heat our homes with wood to prevent this?]: Global warming-induced forest fires to increase health risks in western U.S.

"Warmer temperatures can dry out underbrush, leading to a more serious conflagration once a fire is started by lightning or human activity," said Logan. "Because smoke and other particles from fires adversely affect air quality, an increase in wildfires could have large impacts on human health."

Why Does David Suzuki Hate Trees? : TreeHugger

[Suzuki Foundation report] While trees can be long-lived, they inherently lack permanence. Large amouts of carbon stored in forests can quilckly be released as a result of forest fires, logging or disease. For the carbon in a tree to be able to offset other emissions and help limit the impacts of climate change, it must remain locked up in that tree for at least a hundred years....

Trees take years to reach maturity, and during their early years as saplings, trees can only absorb a limited amount of carbon from the atmosphere, meaning that carbon offset projects usually do not deliver actual emission reductions in the atmosphere for many years, possibly decades, after the trees are planted....