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There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

nautil.us

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Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#21

Post by aacook »

ludamad wrote: post #17
xivzgrev wrote: post #15

If you planted a tree every second, it would take you 31 thousand ish years to plant them all. That said, if you had 100k people planting them itd take under a year. Can a machine plant 1 tree per second? Id be interested to learn that

That's an interesting thought. It immediately made me think of some fast moving contraption that buried seeds into the ground. Obvious difficulties would be navigating, and being small while being able to force something into the ground.

There are people who get paid to manually plant trees. They're called Tree planters. Seeds seem more scalable but the industry appears to use saplings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9wPTwlGGJs

Maybe a drone could complete the two actions instead. 1. Jam rod thing into ground, pull it out, dump dirt 2. Stuff in tree

A guy on Reddit claimed to have planted 1.25mm trees this way: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/24jgsy/ive_planted_12...

Young trees need water until they're established, so I wonder how many little trees actually survive.

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#22

Post by Cerium »

ageofwant wrote: post #6

Look here: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-33.0362291,118.4896355,5465... Can you figure out where there used to be trees ? That's now wheat farms mostly. Due to the tree removal salination has ruined 2 million hectares of what is now essential wasteland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity_in_Australia

Zoom in on just about anywhere in Oregon and you will see a strange halftone pattern. Checkerboard logging.

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#23

Post by thmcmahon »

soperj wrote: post #16
ageofwant wrote: post #6

Look here: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-33.0362291,118.4896355,5465... Can you figure out where there used to be trees ? That's now wheat farms mostly. Due to the tree removal salination has ruined 2 million hectares of what is now essential wasteland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity_in_Australia

Don't know why you couldn't replant trees then. There are many types trees that do well in saltier soil. For example, White Ash, Red Cedar, Black Walnut, Japanese Black Pine, Pin Oak and Red Oak. Doubt it'd take much to get something estabilshed, and it'd probably take over on it's own gradually.

Not sure that you'd want to plant a bunch of European trees to replace native Australian forests.

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#24

Post by jordanb »

solipsism wrote: post #19
WalterBright wrote: post #12

I read that the great plains were naturally forests, not grasslands. The theory is they are grasslands because long ago the forests were burned to provide habitat for the buffalo. This theory is supported by the Kansas farmers having planted trees, and the trees do quite well. I would imagine that a great deal of forest could be created by replanting the great plains.

You may be remembering incorrectly, the great plains were grasslands many millions of years before humans arrived on the scene. Remember we only left Africa ~100,000 years ago.

Yeah the grasslands are 25 million years old. Humans have only been in America for 15,000 years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains#Paleontology

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#25

Post by gpsx »

I am not an expert on this but I assume the total amount of carbon on the earth is essentially constant. I am guessing for the most part it exists on earth as (1) plants and other life forms (2) fossil fuels and (3) other non-living stored carbon, in things like plastics and lumber. In the air it is mainly carbon dioxide. The more we store on earth the less there will be in the air.

Maybe we need a plant and trade system rather than cap and trade. Whenever fossil fuels are sold, a corresponding amount of carbon must be stored, either through new plants of in other sequestered carbon.

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#26

Post by cschneid »

gpsx wrote: post #25

I am not an expert on this but I assume the total amount of carbon on the earth is essentially constant. I am guessing for the most part it exists on earth as (1) plants and other life forms (2) fossil fuels and (3) other non-living stored carbon, in things like plastics and lumber. In the air it is mainly carbon dioxide. The more we store on earth the less there will be in the air. Maybe we need a plant and trade sy…

You're describing one form of carbon offsets. A cap & trade system is pretty much what you're suggesting, depending on the specific implementation of a cap&trade system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset#Land_use.2C_land...

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#27

Post by prebrov »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #11

Makes little sense because trees die and decay, releasing their stored carbon. We released the carbon from liquid fuels and thats how we should reset, back to liquid carbon that wont go anywhere.

Isn't that how ecosystem should work? Tree dies, new one grows on the spot. X amount of carbon should be locked in a Forrest ecosystem as long as it lives; trees, other vegetation and organisms. Some of it will eventually fossilize for good.

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#28

Post by gpsx »

cschneid wrote: post #26
gpsx wrote: post #25

I am not an expert on this but I assume the total amount of carbon on the earth is essentially constant. I am guessing for the most part it exists on earth as (1) plants and other life forms (2) fossil fuels and (3) other non-living stored carbon, in things like plastics and lumber. In the air it is mainly carbon dioxide. The more we store on earth the less there will be in the air. Maybe we need a plant and trade sy…

You're describing one form of carbon offsets. A cap & trade system is pretty much what you're suggesting, depending on the specific implementation of a cap&trade system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset#Land_use.2C_land...

I did not realize cap and trade systems were backed by actual carbon storage. That makes more sense then. Thanks for the link.

Re: There’s Plenty of Space for One Trillion More Trees

#29

Post by geon »

xivzgrev wrote: post #15

If you planted a tree every second, it would take you 31 thousand ish years to plant them all. That said, if you had 100k people planting them itd take under a year. Can a machine plant 1 tree per second? Id be interested to learn that

> 31 thousand

They would start planting themselves after a few decades.

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