>>From: GUEST,Sawzaw
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 06:19 PM

"If you burn trees then grow more trees then you are recycling carbon that is already in the biosphere"

There is too much CO2 in the biosphere is causing global warming because of the greenhouse effect.

If we develop solar, wind, nuclear and hydroelectric energy production and discontinue burning hydrocarbon fuels it will reduce the amount of CO2 and global warming.<<<

Yes both your statements are true. But modern society runs on energy and no one wants to give up their car or heating and cooling their house or car.

So for now, we have to burn something. It will take a long time to develop wind and solar and nuclear. There isn't much hope for Hydropower being much help. Most of the good rivers on this continent have already been developed. For now and for a long time in the future, we have to burn something. There is just no way around that.

If we grow wood and burn it, we take CO2 out of the air by growing the wood, then put it back into the air when we burn the wood.

If we burn fossil fuels we take carbon out of the ground and pump it into the air.

A promising technology is carbon sequestering. That's where you take the carbon dioxide from the smoke stacks and pump it into the ground. The reason we don't do that is because it would at to the cost of electricity and the utilities do not think people want to pay for that.

>>How much oxygen does the oil and gas laying in the ground emit?

Very little I would say. They are called hydrocarbons because they are made of hydrogen and carbon. There may be some oxygen in the coal seams and oil domes, but the amount is certainly not significant.

The amount of oxygen is also not factor in the global warming or energy debate. Oxygen is not a greenhouse gas and the percentage of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere is not changed all that much by burning carbon. Presently oxygen is 20.946% of our atmosphere carbon dioxide is only .0383%.

I think that Obama's energy program is not nearly enough neither are the steps he want to takes to cut carbon emission. But he is light years ahead of McCain. More importantly he has the ability and the will to educate people on these issues and persuade them to do what is required.

If you care about the environment Obama is the clear choice.