Mark your calendars now for March 21-24, 2005 in Baltimore, Maryland. Those are the dates for the upcoming USDA Symposium, “Greenhouse Gases in Agriculture and Forestry: Refining Knowledge and Building Tools.” The Symposium is being organized by CASMGS and Kansas State University.
The USDA Greenhouse Gas Symposium involves a comprehensive examination of the latest research on sources and sinks of the three primary greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) related to cropland, forests, rangeland, and wetlands. Scientists from around the world are invited to submit papers for oral or poster presentations.
The Symposium will be held at the Wyndham Baltimore - Inner Harbor Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. The preregistration fee is $295. For more information, contact Keith Schlesinger, SSSA, at kschlesinger@soils.org or Chuck Rice, Kansas State University CASMGS, at cwrice@ksu.edu.
According to a new report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to Congress, federal research indicates that emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are one of the likely causes of global warming over the period from 1950-1999.
There is a large potential carbon sink in Western Australia, through both the reforestation of farmland (maximum potential sink estimated to be 2,091 Mt CO2-e, across 16.7 Mha of cleared farmland) and the destocking of pastoral lands (an estimated 3,072 Mt CO2-e in biomass and soils for a 20-year period following 100% destocking), according to an article in the June/July 2004 Australasian Emissions Trading Forum Review by Richard Harper and Chris Mitchell, CRCGA; and Tony Beck, Beck Consulting Services. Their analysis was based on carbon prices between $5-15/t CO2e. Although carbon sinks are generally unlikely to be a profitable stand-alone enterprise under present price projections, they will be a valuable adjunct to reforestation schemes that are aimed at providing other products (wood, pulp, bioenergy) and land and water conservation benefits.