If you buy into some woods today, you're in for a big surprise

Let's start with some good news. It seems that to my growing list of enlightened media (with the exception of The Economist, who have just announced their updates are going paid subscription. Boo) giving at least some measure (extent and/or duration of access tba) of free access to information I can add the Guardian. At least I can now add a new political and social balance to those news feeds I have traditionally had access to (Telegraph, Times) and used (mainly by virtue of being delivering daily to my desktop, free... and with archive access), and whose news and opinions have doubtless shaped, if not influenced, some of my factual knowledge base... and possibly opinions. 

Now it kinda goes downhill from here. The Guardian is not what you call enviro-sceptic (no op-ed's from Jeremy Clarkson I'd hazard, though I'd bet a small nuclear plant he has something to say about the following within the week), so the front page I saw in the newsagents this morning stopped me dead.

Anyway, I came straight to the net to read more, and was greeted by this e-version, which was equally striking:

Global warming: blame the forests 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1684379,00.html

as it goes on to share, in what they deem a startling discovery, living plants may (let's cling on to that word for now) emit almost a third of the methane entering the Earth's atmosphere. And methane is not helpful, warming-wise.

In what I'd say was masterful understatement, they go on to opine that it will also intensify debates (ya think??! I am braced for a reaction from 'interested parties' which will make the reaction to the Beeb's landfill expose look tame) on whether targets in climate change treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol should be based entirely on carbon emissions.

In an associated very interesting fact, bearing in mind my target-based systems phobia, is that suits like these  because, surprise, surprise - they are easily measured. Taking sinks into account is less popular, even though they remove carbon from the atmosphere. But they are more difficult to measure. So.. it may be wrong, but at least it gives us an easy result. Nice career if you can get it.

Before your break out the chainsaw, the report doesn't see planting forests as a bad idea, thank heavens, though that seems at odds with the headline to me. Author Dr. Mahli at least feels that "Putting a tree where there was no tree before locks up a lot of carbon and this [new research] perhaps reduces the overall benefit of that by a fraction". Phew.

However, on balance I must to confess to a having felt a bit of smug 'toldyerzoism' momentarily, but for all the wrong reasons. I just have a major niggle about the culture of keeping on doing stuff and buying off the guilt by whacking a tree in the ground to compensate. It seemed/s the wrong way to tackle things, sending a compromised message, and looking all too easy to fall into the hands of every shyster around trying to play it for what they can get. 

But I have alwasy felt that greenery.. was good. And I'll take some convincing I need to cut down my back garden and turn it into a forecourt. But John Prescott must be thinking the rapture has come, so look out Sussex!

Anyway, this blog is more often than not a way to see Junkk.com policy getting shaped, and this is a case in point.

On balance, we'll stick with reading stuff, sharing what we think is for real and valid, and let you decide. It isn't exactly the purest journalism (we don't, yet, have the budget to maintain 'Our Man In Havant'), but then I don't think very much of what the mainstream reports is either these days. We all see an item, maybe follow up, ask a few questions (but often not), and then whack it up there and see what happens to the ratings. 

At least this report was by a team from the Max Plank Institute (supported by an expert from Oxford University), published in Nature and picked up by various news organisations, including the Guardian, and thence via me to you here. And that's not a bad provenance chain, at least for the facts. I'm not quite so sure about the interpretations and/or reactions.

However, at least we will keep on sharing such stuff with a sprinkling of eye-twitch, a hint of 'is this really the case?', and wherever possible with a counter view to put beside it. But I do think we're going to play down our focus on the information side of such issues, at least in areas such as climate change. For one, a lot of other, bigger guys are already doing it. And frankly, it's just getting us in a spin, so I can only imagine what it's doing for those with less chance to collate and review the various resources daily. First something is good, then its bad. Where the heck does that leave you to do for the best?

But mainly I think we'll focus a tad more on doing what we are desingned to do best, and I know can only help: which is try to reduce waste and promote efficiencies through end-benefit driven ideas, information in a form the general public can engage with and respond to, along with support and, where possible, associated rewards of saved time, effort and money. Sound like a plan?