Enough Trees in Australia to neutralize CO2 produced?

Another day...another bit of quick research, calculations and theories :D

Living in Australia if you travel at all, you travel a lot because of the sheer size of the place and distance between populated areas. One thing I have done a bit of over the last few months is planting trees, giving away free trees, encouraging people to plant a tree (it really is a rewarding, feel good experience) and taking care of a small garden/helping others with their own gardens.

As some will recall I am employed in the environmental sector - I'd felt office-bound for too long and the whole tree planting experience was good for my mind, body and soul (tried not to be cliche but seems there's no avoiding it).

One thing I started to notice during this recent activity was tree plantation efforts of others. Driving up the highway one thing you see is a lot of trees and young saplings that have just been planted or well on the way to becoming healthy adolescent trees.

I'll mention at this stage I'm talking about Australian native trees, they survive well in the absence of water (thanks to adapting to the local weather).

On one of my more recent trips on the highway I got thinking..."wow there are a lot of trees, I wonder if the numbers of trees in Australia and their ability to absorb and utilize CO2 represents a significant figure - Something to counter argue the need of the carbon tax".

As with yesterday's experiment, the passing of the Government's Carbon Package has driven me to do some research. And here is what I discovered:


According to coloradotress.org one acre of trees stores 2.6 tonnes of CO2 per year. And according to Google's Public Data Explorer (World Bank World Development Indicators) there are 1,493,000Km2 (368,928,334 acres) of forests in Australia.

This means 959,213,668.4 tonnes is already being absorbed by trees in Australia (theoretically speaking). If you divide this by 23 tonnes (CO2 per capita - As given by...wikipedia) a population of >41mil would have their contributions to CO2 neutralized this way. Australia's Population is <23mil.


Given this information, how a tax on Carbon pollution for Australia came to be  becomes...just more frustrating a thought. On one hand the Government expects us to reduce Carbon Pollution, on the other hand they encourage an ever-increasing population...which is a real problem. The Australian Government encourages this with financial benefits, leave entitlements, etc. The population rises, trees fall victim to urban sprawl (2010 forest coverage is down considerably from 1990) and our standard of living is sacrificed. Point in case? The Carbon Tax. A tax imposed on this generation for living in the transitional period between reliance on fossil fuels and the emergence of a clean technological era which can be proved as being the natural order of things anyhow. 


Sure organic decay also contributes to greenhouse gas concentrations (however small the scale) but 'forests' aren't the only plants in the Country - We are also a country of keen gardeners.


Given this information just makes me question the need and true purpose of a Carbon Tax. How about you?

Australia subject to Carbon Tax. Unnecessary?

Well the Australian Labor Government's 'Carbon Package' was voted in favor this morning. I have mixed feelings about the whole situation.

One thing this decision has done is prompted me to finally make a blog entry I've wanted to do for quite awhile, but it never happened before due to various reasons (mostly laziness :P), until now.

I am a firm believer that technology is steering "us" towards more sustainable living as it is...without taxing people. If you've read my blog for awhile you'll have seen entries about energy efficiency and use of resources.

Today I will post some amateur, independent...and well rushed research I have conducted - The difference in energy demand between VHS/VCR and DVD technology. Enjoy, and if you know people that would be interested, could learn something or need something like this for homework by all means feel free to share :)

Okay here it is...

Aim:      To determine the differences between VHS/VCR and DVD technology in terms of energy
             demand.

Method: Play 'The Big Lebowski in both VHS and DVD formats on compatible playback devices whilst
             gathering data on energy consumption from a power meter device (as found in stores)

The DVD set-up: DVD Player connected to power through a power meter

DVD playback maintained a power consumption rate of 5 Watts, skipping chapters did not result in an increase of energy demand.

 The VCR set-up: DVD Player connected to power through a power meter

The VHS tape (ex-rental)  reaches this classification screen at 13m:18s in...

 The power consumed during Fast Forwarding (and Rewinding for that matter) runs at 9-10 Watts. 

Note: I did not time how long it took to Fast Forward to this point

VHS playback maintained a power consumption rate of 8 Watts

Conclusion: To play a DVD (in this instance...variation would presumably exist between difference
                    brands/models) requires 3 Watts LESS than it takes to play the VHS format.
                    The VHS tape requires rewinding after it has been watched for re-viewing


Further notes:

1. The Big Lebowski has a running time of 119 minutes
2. The tape length of a 'E-120' VHS cassette is 173.7 metres (570ft) - 18.8m of tape is involved to reach the 13 minute mark (to the classification screen, as above).

I hope you have enjoyed this