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Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

bloomberg.com

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Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#21

Post by lmilcin »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #15
lmilcin wrote: post #10

Not to discourage, but even reforesting entire land that could possibly be covered in forest will not arrest climate change noticeably. The reason is because forest do not change CO2 levels noticeably, in the long run. The reason is because there is roughly constant amount of carbon in Earths biomass. Planting treas only increases the amonut of biomass by a little bit but has no lasting effect of scrubbing CO2 from a…

I think this initiative was aimed at soil erosion and moisture retention...

Planting trees definitely does not hurt and as you say, prevents soil erosion and helps keep ground water which is going to be more and more important as we go. Just don't think this will magically revert global warming, this would be dangerous attitude.

Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#22

Post by zkomp »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #16
beachy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timber buildings, furniture are possible targets for medium term sequestration of co2 via timber. More offbeat approaches might include modern giant pyramids built of timber, perhaps in the Australian outback. As long as they could be secured from fire and decay.

Maybe it's easier to let them rot in place like it worked in the rainforests for millions of years?

Look up terra preta, regular wood would just decompose and release the carbon back. You have to make charcoal out of it to be able to sequester carbon in the longer term (thousands of years)

Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#23

Post by lmilcin »

luesterklemme wrote: post #12
lmilcin wrote: post #10

Not to discourage, but even reforesting entire land that could possibly be covered in forest will not arrest climate change noticeably. The reason is because forest do not change CO2 levels noticeably, in the long run. The reason is because there is roughly constant amount of carbon in Earths biomass. Planting treas only increases the amonut of biomass by a little bit but has no lasting effect of scrubbing CO2 from a…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting... ETH Zürich seems to disagree with that statement.

Well, humanity uses around 15 billion tonnes of coal and oil and gas every year. At that speed, in just 30 years, we add as much carbon to the atmosphere as entire biomass of Earth.

Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#24

Post by neuronic »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #14
oblio wrote: post #8

I wish them luck. I'm a sort of history buff and Ethiopia has an amazing history. It's been a state (in various forms and with different names) for more than 2000 years, in a part of the world where such stability has been scarce. It has its own ancient alphabet. It was the only country in Africa to resist the Scramble for Africa and was only occupied by Italy for less than 10 years (after putting the Italian Army to…

I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to reap rewards that can only come from most simple needs being met easily. In general, the developing countries are mostly "behind the curve", meaning their economic growth mostly wasn't that much lower for most of history, but rather they started somewhat later,…

> I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to reap rewards that can only come from most simple needs being met easily.

Europe's industrialization as well as other Western countries heavily depended on the exploitation of third world countries in Asia and Africa, especially after WW2.

Sweatshops and slavery and cheap mass transportation of goods make our lifestyle possible. For a very recent example, smartphones produced in the US/Europe would simply not be affordable for most users and the technology would be nowhere near where it is nowadays since initial smartphones would have never been popular. It took suicide-level conditions in places like Foxconn to get us our gadget at So who are African nations going to exploit? Each other?

Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#26

Post by ehnto »

beachy wrote: post #13
lmilcin wrote: post #10

Not to discourage, but even reforesting entire land that could possibly be covered in forest will not arrest climate change noticeably. The reason is because forest do not change CO2 levels noticeably, in the long run. The reason is because there is roughly constant amount of carbon in Earths biomass. Planting treas only increases the amonut of biomass by a little bit but has no lasting effect of scrubbing CO2 from a…

Timber buildings, furniture are possible targets for medium term sequestration of co2 via timber. More offbeat approaches might include modern giant pyramids built of timber, perhaps in the Australian outback. As long as they could be secured from fire and decay.

It would catch fire in the Australian outback. Dry, hot, windy thunderstorms would see to that! We have tonnes of natural wildfires, and some are still started by aboriginal tribes as part of their nomadic way of life and spiritual beliefs. It wouldn't last.

Just throw it into the empty mining pits instead.

Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#27

Post by nottorp »

neuronic wrote: post #24
bayesian_horse wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to reap rewards that can only come from most simple needs being met easily. In general, the developing countries are mostly "behind the curve", meaning their economic growth mostly wasn't that much lower for most of history, but rather they started somewhat later,…

> I wouldn't say it's that stable or that the rest of Africa is instable, especially compared to Europe. It's just that Europe industrialized earlier and got to reap rewards that can only come from most simple needs being met easily. Europe's industrialization as well as other Western countries heavily depended on the exploitation of third world countries in Asia and Africa, especially after WW2. Sweatshops and slave…

It took suicide-level conditions in places like Foxconn to get us our gadget at

Not that I disagree with the rest of the post, but it's time the suicides at Foxconn story dies a fiery death.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/10/apples-c...

The juicy quote:

At the time of that spate of suicides Foxconn had nearly 1 million workers in its plants. There were up to 14 suicides (it depends whose count you want to use) among that 1 million. The average rate of suicide in China is 22 per 100,000 people per year. That is, the suicide rate at Foxconn was under 5% of the general suicide rate of the Chinese population.

Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#29

Post by abainbridge »

oblio wrote: post #8

I wish them luck. I'm a sort of history buff and Ethiopia has an amazing history. It's been a state (in various forms and with different names) for more than 2000 years, in a part of the world where such stability has been scarce. It has its own ancient alphabet. It was the only country in Africa to resist the Scramble for Africa and was only occupied by Italy for less than 10 years (after putting the Italian Army to…

Can you recommend a book on the history of Ethiopia? I've been meaning to read about it for a while.

Re: Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

#30

Post by ido »

ehnto wrote: post #26
beachy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timber buildings, furniture are possible targets for medium term sequestration of co2 via timber. More offbeat approaches might include modern giant pyramids built of timber, perhaps in the Australian outback. As long as they could be secured from fire and decay.

It would catch fire in the Australian outback. Dry, hot, windy thunderstorms would see to that! We have tonnes of natural wildfires, and some are still started by aboriginal tribes as part of their nomadic way of life and spiritual beliefs. It wouldn't last. Just throw it into the empty mining pits instead.

Dump them in the poles then.
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