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Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

theguardian.com

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Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#11

Post by ElBarto »

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #6
mc32 wrote: post #2

Deforestation is a great issue in developing economies. It's something which must be addressed. What's not mentioned is that human population growth is the main driver of this pressure. Given our abilities to manage disease and such, more efforts should go into educating women in developing allowing them to become more independent and have more control over their reproduction. When people move from agrarian societies…

> China would not be where it is without the great effort (though hamfistedly implemented) it put into controlling growth I would not advocate this authoritarian approach (I'm not saying you are). Part of the solution is what you said earlier, education. But population stabilizes on it's own as a country goes through the Demographic Transition. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition Or for somethin…

What China did was their only option.

We need to realise that sometimes the "authoritarian approach" is the only option available. There is no other way to put the brakes on steep population growth especially as this is usually linked to culture and education. But education may work 20 years down the line, which is too late for such an issue.

The demographic transition is also besides the point as the issue is to stabilise population at a lower level that it would have done 'naturally'.

Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#12

Post by danielecook »

Whatever happened with the idea of using drones to plant 1 billion trees?

I was in Iceland earlier this year - a country largely devoid of trees. There aren’t any because the Vikings chopped them all down. Despite the cold - however - they do grow there albeit much slower then elsewhere.

In any case, it seems to me we could be seeding a lot of barren locations so they’ll become forests within 20 years.

Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#13

Post by iNerdier »

danielecook wrote: post #12

Whatever happened with the idea of using drones to plant 1 billion trees? I was in Iceland earlier this year - a country largely devoid of trees. There aren’t any because the Vikings chopped them all down. Despite the cold - however - they do grow there albeit much slower then elsewhere. In any case, it seems to me we could be seeding a lot of barren locations so they’ll become forests within 20 years.

Sheep.

They’ve tried and sheep tend to eat all the saplings. Unlike in other places the sheep are not penned in, they’re free to roam which means any area you want to try and re-forest in a fairly hostile environment to begin with has to be expensively fenced off until they get to a fairly good size.

Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#14

Post by adrianN »

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #6
mc32 wrote: post #2

Deforestation is a great issue in developing economies. It's something which must be addressed. What's not mentioned is that human population growth is the main driver of this pressure. Given our abilities to manage disease and such, more efforts should go into educating women in developing allowing them to become more independent and have more control over their reproduction. When people move from agrarian societies…

> China would not be where it is without the great effort (though hamfistedly implemented) it put into controlling growth I would not advocate this authoritarian approach (I'm not saying you are). Part of the solution is what you said earlier, education. But population stabilizes on it's own as a country goes through the Demographic Transition. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition Or for somethin…

The question is whether the population will naturally level out before or after the last old growth rain forests are gone.

We need to empower women in those countries and enable people to make a living in other ways than selling timber and slash-and-burn agriculture. Breeding and selling rare butterflies[1] is one option that I've heard of, but obviously that doesn't scale. I don't find it unreasonable to just pay people for not cutting down rain forests. First world countries have a responsibility here. After all we cut down all our old growth forests and now demand that developing countries don't do the same.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-butterflies/kenyans...

Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#16

Post by CalRobert »

grey_earthling wrote: post #15

In a capitalist economy, why would anyone maintain a forest? Unless you get enough direct personal benefit, or someone else is paying you enough, you wouldn't. This isn't a failure of capitalism; this is capitalism.

Because not maintaining it is too expensive after you pay for the externalities. Which you must, of course, in any reasonable regime.

Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#18

Post by CalRobert »

wawhal wrote: post #3

Sure. The greater problem is how do we achieve that. With a growing population, deforestation has become necessary to meet agricultural and accommodation needs of humans. As sad as it sounds, people need food and shelter. The problem boils down to controlling population and also handling population. If people want to keep buying new houses, there is more demand for deforestation. The agricultural demand for deforesta…

"with a growing population of cows..." Might be more accurate really. We could feed ten billion occasional meatand dairy eaters much more easily than five billion Americans.

Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#19

Post by sampo »

CalRobert wrote: post #17

Meanwhile even a country normally viewed as responsible is cutting down ancient forest to get to the coal beneath. Bit of a double whammy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/09/berlin-startup...

George Monbiot opines that Germany has never been particularly responsible:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/19/world-...

Re: Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions

#20

Post by SCHiM »

im3w1l wrote: post #10
PinkMilkshake wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China would not be where it is without the great effort (though hamfistedly implemented) it put into controlling growth I would not advocate this authoritarian approach (I'm not saying you are). Part of the solution is what you said earlier, education. But population stabilizes on it's own as a country goes through the Demographic Transition. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition Or for somethin…

The demographic transition is just a theory. UN have already had to adjust population projection upwards as the curves have not followed the theory as close as predicted.

Do you have a reference to this?
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