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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

#61

Post by lopmotr »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #25
lopmotr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> since they regrow new trees that sequester carbon faster in their early years than mature trees Is that actually the case? Wouldn't a larger tree's volume mean it consumes a ton more Carbon than a smaller tree, even if the smaller tree is rapidly growing?

Turns out it's not so simple:

Young trees sequester carbon faster: https://psmag.com/environment/young-trees-suck-up-more-carbo...

Old trees sequester carbon faster: https://theconversation.com/big-old-trees-grow-faster-making...

Though when you consider forestry has the goal of producing sequestered carbon (wood), you would think they'd find a fast way to do that. In my country, commercial forestry is done with non-native species that are planted by the forest owners and obviously must be replanted for them to keep operating. They harvest them after about 20 years of growth. I guess that's the age when further growth would be too slow to be economical.

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

#62

Post by kibwen »

nielsbot wrote: post #59

A glimmer of hope? Waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of "it will cost too much", "politically it's not possible", or some such...

I think part of the appeal of this plan, aside from its theorized effectiveness, is that it doesn't require any political buy-in. People can plant trees all on their own.

That said, a trillion is a quantity larger than any human has the ability to intuitively grasp. It really depends if by "planting trees" they mean "scattering seeds by aircraft" or if they mean "hand-planting saplings".

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

#65

Post by gdubs »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #46

It can actually be better than this still. Cattle can be part of a solution to helping restore arid land where the soil has been destroyed by intensive farming and erosion. Healthy soil stores enormous amounts of biomass (aka carbon). Intensive farming has destroyed enormous amounts of land world-wide and turned it into desert, releasing lots of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is a reversible process and catlle is part…

Healthy grazed pasture can sequester carbon, but ultimately we need to let a lot of land go back into natural forest to address the scale of th problem.

Source: “The Carbon Farming Solution”

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

#66

Post by Panino »

WalterBright wrote: post #40

Finding ways to get trees to grow in inhospitable areas, like the tundra, deserts, and at high altitude, can also help.

As far as deserts go, here is Geoff Lawton using permaculture to grow fruit and other trees in Wadi Rum, Jordan, a desert that gets just 17mm of rain per year (less than an inch). They use only permaculture and greywater to achieve this feat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycLbO02lb7w

If fruit can be grown there, it can be grown almost anywhere on Earth.

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

#67

Post by 8bitsrule »

kibwen wrote: post #62
nielsbot wrote: post #59

A glimmer of hope? Waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of "it will cost too much", "politically it's not possible", or some such...

I think part of the appeal of this plan, aside from its theorized effectiveness, is that it doesn't require any political buy-in. People can plant trees all on their own. That said, a trillion is a quantity larger than any human has the ability to intuitively grasp. It really depends if by "planting trees" they mean "scattering seeds by aircraft" or if they mean "hand-planting saplings".

Maybe this helps: if most Americans plant 3 trees, that's about a billion trees.

When I was young and part of a crew, each us planted -several hundred- trees over 3 eight-hour days. So at least a thousand per person in 10 days. A nation-wide volunteer org -with access to enough seedlings- ... that's the tricky part ... could quickly multiply that to 300 per American - 10% of that trillion.

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

#68

Post by DoreenMichele »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #46

It can actually be better than this still. Cattle can be part of a solution to helping restore arid land where the soil has been destroyed by intensive farming and erosion. Healthy soil stores enormous amounts of biomass (aka carbon). Intensive farming has destroyed enormous amounts of land world-wide and turned it into desert, releasing lots of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is a reversible process and catlle is part…

It can actually be better than this still.

Urban forestry is also a thing, so we don't actually have to exclude urban environments. We can increase the number of trees within city limits as well.

Some resources:

https://www.fs.fed.us/managing-land/urban-forests/ucf

https://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/vibrant-cit...

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

#69

Post by JudgeWapner »

Tharkun wrote: post #55
HillaryBriss wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder that too. Also, how much concrete construction could be replaced with engineered wood construction so that less concrete was manufactured (thus reducing a primary source of CO2 output) and more CO2 could be sequestered in buildings? i.e. can we genetically engineer a tree that grows fast and is well suited for construction uses?

There may be no need to genetically engineer trees for construction at this point, at least not in north america. Some kind of beetle (or was it a fungus?) has killed off a mind boggling number of trees which can be used as engineered wood in construction. As CLT and maybe Brettstapel.

> Some kind of beetle (or was it a fungus?) has killed off a mind boggling number of trees

which may be a side-effect of fighting forest fires and the campaign against logging. higher tree density == easier for fungus to spread. this is why I don't automatically believe anything from the "enlightened" progressive camp. back in the 80's, it was "Stop the Big Bad Loggers! Save the Forest!". Now, had they responsibly thinned the forest, used the timber for logging, that CO2 would be sequestered in homes and the fungus wouldn't have spread through the forest.

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

#70

Post by JudgeWapner »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #13

I wonder if anyone is researching genetically modified trees that specialize in carbon sequestration. Sort of like Golden Rice but for climate change.

I wonder how much more CO2 can be captured by rapidly growing plants such as hemp or corn? I've also heard that algae is really good at it too.
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