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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

#71

Post by cookrn »

Cerium wrote: post #22
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.

I think this may have been due to the railroad land grants originally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)

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

#72

Post by ph0rque »

siscia wrote: post #41

An article here a couple of weeks ago claimed that sea weed is more effective than tree fighting carbon dioxide, and it seems cheaper to plant and manage... Shouldn't we focus on it instead of trees ?

Let a thousand flowers bloom, and all that.

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

#73

Post by dec0dedab0de »

infinite8s wrote: post #67
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The idea would be to never actually burn the wood, just heat it up enough to release gases, and burn the gases in a generator. These could be (are?) run at power plants. willismichael pointed out that efficient biomass gasifiers will then burn the resulting charcoal, which releases quite a bit of CO2. I suggested using the charcoal as fertilizer, instead of burning it.

Wouldn't heating it up to release the gas use more energy than results from burning the gas?

As far as I understand it once you get it going you can use the gas to keep the temperature up, and still have excess. Of course, this is only until the fuel runs out.

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

#74

Post by logfromblammo »

aacook wrote: post #21
ludamad wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/comment…

You can wrap their bases with a porous bag of hydrated gel--like a yolk sac for saplings.

Logically, it would be best to use industrial processes to factory-assemble a package that results in the lowest cost per established new tree when it is left in the wild with no further maintenance.

Existing tree seeds are cheap and stupid, and limited by the state or the art in tree-seed technology, which is essentially to coax an animal into eating a fruit and crapping out the seed elsewhere in a nice, fertile pile of dung.

Humans can do better, by sprouting the seeds in a controlled, indoor facility, culling any unsuitable saplings, and granting the sapling additional resources that the parent trees could not provide before planting it in a location distant from the parents that is already known to be suitable for the adult tree.

~Alternately, leave Robo on tree-planting detail, and skip ahead 1000 years in the Epoch to pick him up.~

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

#75

Post by logfromblammo »

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.

Or grow an edible halophyte, such as Salicornia.

In the long run, it would probably be wise to introduce a profitable salt-sequestering crop into regular rotations, just to keep marginal lands from becoming unfarmable.

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

#76

Post by soperj »

thmcmahon wrote: post #23
soperj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those were examples.

Find the australian equivalent.

Pretty easy to find.

Eucalyptus camaldulensis (River Red Gum) is one that is great in high saline environments.

Eucalyptus leucoxylon (Yellow Gum), Eucalyptus melliodora (Yellow Box), Eucalyptus microcarpa (Grey Box), Eucalyptus ovata (Swamp Gum), Eucalyptus viminalis (Manna Gum), Acacia melanoxylon (Blackwood), Allocasuarina verticillata (Drooping Sheoak) Are all good in medium saline environments.

So have your pick.

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

#77

Post by ludamad »

grogenaut wrote: post #39
ludamad wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't tell if you're joking or not. The answer is a f'n bird.

Creating tons of birds is not a solution.
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