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Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

theguardian.com

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Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#31

Post by NeedMoreTea »

lopmotr wrote: post #17
zamazingo wrote: post #5

That means a global / multinational movement against governments cutting trees (eg for lucrative construction deals) is needed.

Cutting for wood doesn't hurt since the carbon is still trapped in the wood. In fact it helps since they regrow new trees that sequester carbon faster in their early years than mature trees.

There's been studies showing the rate of sequestration increases as the tree gets older. So there's a disadvantage when young.

We should find a way to discourage cutting mature forest and rainforest as well as planting new.

Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#32

Post by hristov »

lopmotr wrote: post #17
zamazingo wrote: post #5

That means a global / multinational movement against governments cutting trees (eg for lucrative construction deals) is needed.

Cutting for wood doesn't hurt since the carbon is still trapped in the wood. In fact it helps since they regrow new trees that sequester carbon faster in their early years than mature trees.

That is the superficial thinking but unfortunately it is not true. First when they cut trees, they do not haul in the branches and the leaves. There is no money in that. The branches and the leaves are all cut out and left in place with just the main trunk being hauled to the sawmill. The branches and the leaves then dry out and rot releasing their carbon. This means that big part of the trees mass (probably at least 50%) does not get its carbon sequestered. (For a similar reason freshly logged forests are a much bigger fire danger than forests that have not been logged at all).

Secondly unfortunately, in general loggers mostly do not regrow the areas they cut down. Although they do talk about regrowing whenever they are talking to the media, in reality the areas regrown are far less than the areas cut down and thus the earth is losing a lot of tree cover every year.

Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#33

Post by graeme »

notatoad wrote: post #21
skosch wrote: post #10

Interesting – we need more of such studies. Check out Drawdown [0] for other interventions with quantified costs/benefits. Economists widely agree that carbon pricing is the most effective way to fix climate change [1], and fee-and-dividend implementations are the most viable politically (there's a bill before Congress now [2]). [0] https://www.drawdown.org/ [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/business/economic-sc…

I believe carbon pricing has two aspects - one is to charge carbon emitters, the other aspect is to use that money to do something that reduces existing CO2 levels. Just charging emitters does not completely solve the problem, so research into the best ways to spend the funds generated by carbon pricing is critical.

It depends. You could, for example, make high carbon taxes while reducing income taxes or dividending the money back to people. This would let you have more of a carbon blocking effect while keeping government revenues steady.

If you use the money for a specific purpose, then you either need low carbon taxes to avoid radically altering the government’s role in the economy, or you are making a large bet that the government will spend the money well.

Having a large, long run carbon tax will do much to encourage the market to develop alternatives.

Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#34

Post by tobltobs »

lrem wrote: post #30

The key phrase of the article: “Without freeing up the billions of hectares we use to produce meat and milk, this ambition is not realisable,” This is the polar opposite of what is happening at the moment. In particular: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/02/americas/amazon-brazil-bo...

Why do you cut of the second part of this sentence?

“Restoring trees at [low] density is not mutually exclusive with grazing. In fact many studies suggest sheep and cattle do better if there are a few trees in the field.”

Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#35

Post by NeedMoreTea »

notatoad wrote: post #21
skosch wrote: post #10

Interesting – we need more of such studies. Check out Drawdown [0] for other interventions with quantified costs/benefits. Economists widely agree that carbon pricing is the most effective way to fix climate change [1], and fee-and-dividend implementations are the most viable politically (there's a bill before Congress now [2]). [0] https://www.drawdown.org/ [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/business/economic-sc…

I believe carbon pricing has two aspects - one is to charge carbon emitters, the other aspect is to use that money to do something that reduces existing CO2 levels. Just charging emitters does not completely solve the problem, so research into the best ways to spend the funds generated by carbon pricing is critical.

Better to start now with some rough combination of redistribution to help the most vulnerable (in society, and to climate impacts), the poorest etc, and also projects to manage and reduce - forestry planting, clean energy, insulating houses not at risk of floods etc.

Then once it's in and working start researching better and more effective ways to use it. I don't think we have the luxury to hang around any more.

Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#37

Post by Flip-per »

> The analysis found there are 1.7bn hectares of treeless land on which 1.2tn native tree saplings would naturally grow.

> Crowther’s team calculated that there are currently about 3tn trees in the world, which is about half the number that existed before

I really hope this study is solid, but how can 1.2tn re-planted trees make up for a loss of 3tn logged ones? And moreover cover the CO2 of all that burned coal and oil?

Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#38

Post by m463 »

zamazingo wrote: post #5

That means a global / multinational movement against governments cutting trees (eg for lucrative construction deals) is needed.

If carbon offsets are properly modeled, planting and cutting (profit/cost) would work itself out.

I think of how the acid rain stuff seemed to have worked out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program

Re: Many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas

#39

Post by NeedMoreTea »

Flip-per wrote: post #37

> The analysis found there are 1.7bn hectares of treeless land on which 1.2tn native tree saplings would naturally grow. > Crowther’s team calculated that there are currently about 3tn trees in the world, which is about half the number that existed before I really hope this study is solid, but how can 1.2tn re-planted trees make up for a loss of 3tn logged ones? And moreover cover the CO2 of all that burned coal and…

Because it's not suggesting to return to pre-human numbers, but to plant without encroaching on current agricultural and urban land.
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