Opus 2021-189: Headlines: First the Cows, Now the Trees

One step in my morning involves scanning the headlines and click bait on several sites that act as news aggregators.  One of the simplest is Citizen Free Press.  They don’t distract you with pictures and videos.  They simple have a list of link titles.

Usually I just get an overview.  If something obviously important shows up I might click on it but often find out it is just a catchy title.  Recently though I found it impossible to ignore a link.  

“‘Tree Farts’ are the next environmental catastrophe…”

I ask you, “How can you resist that one?”  I clicked and did some reading.  Actually, “reading” may not be the best word.  I scanned or skimmed.  I got the gist of the story.  One reason that I did not read in detail was that I soon realized that the author was on board with man made global warming.  Still it was an interesting concept.

It seems that swamps along the coast with a lot of dead trees have wood that is decomposing.  You don’t need to be a scientist to figure that one out.  In the process they give off gas.  One paragraph caught my fancy.

“A team of ecologists went sniffing for tree farts in ghost forests, which form when saltwater from rising sea levels poisons a woodland, leaving behind a marsh full of standing dead trees. These phantom ecosystems are expected to expand with climate change, but it’s unclear exactly how they contribute to the world’s carbon budget.”

First, the picture of ecologists sniffing tree farts is a great comment on the state of science today.  Then you get the standard lines about rising oceans and climate change.

I don’t know that I recommend you read it but it might lighten your day when you think that government money for research is well spent.

homo unius libri