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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

#51

Post by tiplus »

pgreenwood wrote: post #31
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

We could do a lot better than planting 1 per second. How about planting 900,000 trees per day via aerial bombardment? http://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/sep/02/paulbrown

Thank you so much for posting this, its so nice on a human level to think about turning mine laying tech into tree planting tech.

At the end they mention a planting capacity of 3k square miles per year which is a lot but still small compared to deforestation rates of 46-58k square miles per year.

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

#52

Post by eru »

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…

We mostly care about carbon accessible to the atmosphere.

That's carbon directly in the atmosphere, soil and upper layers of the ocean.

The depths of the ocean can take basically arbitrary amounts of extra carbon-dioxide, and if we stopped producing CO_2 now, in about two thousand years (if I remember right) the oceans would have absorbed and `buried' the extra carbon released by human activity.

Of course, during the process the upper layers of the ocean acidify for a while. That's bad, too.

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

#53

Post by eru »

devishard wrote: post #33
mojoe wrote: post #7

Interestingly, planting 1 trillion trees all at once would decrease the albedo of the earth ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo ), increasing warming in the short term. I wonder how long the trees would have to exist before the scrubbing effect on carbon dioxide would outweigh the albedo change?

Geez, albedo is a topic I didn't know existed until just now, but which is clearly a complex enough topic for hundreds of people to spend their entire lives studying it. Super cool.

It gets even more complicated, because of clouds..

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

#54

Post by eru »

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.

The buffalos themselves might have kept the trees at bay by eating young shoots. (Grass is one of the most hardy things to survive grazing. Most other plant species can't stand it in the long run.)

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

#55

Post by jensen123 »

So the article says that there are currently about 3 trillion trees, down from about 6 trillion when humans started with agriculture, and then cites an ecologist about how insane this is. But, if you go back even further, wouldn't there be less trees again? I watched the documentary "The Green Planet" a while ago. If I remember correctly, it said that before humans greatly reduced the number of grazing animals in Europe by hunting, the forests in Europe were not dense like today. They were more like parks, with many grassy fields, since obviously many trees did not get the chance to grow tall before being eaten by those grazing animals.

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

#57

Post by ptha »

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.

Apparently dead forests release less carbon into the atmosphere than expected:

"Overall, we discovered that after a tree die-off, the loss of carbon in the soil results less from increased respiration by microbes but more from the fact that trees are no longer sequestering photosynthesized carbon into the soil," Moore said. "There seems to be a dampening of the carbon cycle rather than a big pulse of carbon release. So even if the forest now goes from a sink to a source of carbon dioxide, it's not as dramatic of an effect as we thought it would be."

https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-c...

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

#58

Post by CalRobert »

devishard wrote: post #33
mojoe wrote: post #7

Interestingly, planting 1 trillion trees all at once would decrease the albedo of the earth ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo ), increasing warming in the short term. I wonder how long the trees would have to exist before the scrubbing effect on carbon dioxide would outweigh the albedo change?

Geez, albedo is a topic I didn't know existed until just now, but which is clearly a complex enough topic for hundreds of people to spend their entire lives studying it. Super cool.

The fantastic SimEarth had a great daisyworld simulator that illustrated the concept well. You had two species of daisies, light and dark, and their balance had a huge effect on the world.

Of all the Sim games, that's the one I'd most like to see get an update (though "Planet melting? pay $29.99 for in-game carbon credits!" would be an off-putting business model).

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

#59

Post by exabrial »

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.

Not sure why this was down voted without a lot of explanation... In theory it makes sense, and it's not like we couldn't do both.

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

#60

Post by ageofwant »

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.

Native Australian trees are the most salt-hardy trees on the planet. The non-native species you listed would most likely not even survive in "normal" Australian soil conditions.
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