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

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

#231

Post by bayesian_horse »

neltnerb wrote: post #77
bayesian_horse wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the issue they want to address is not climate change but retention of soil and improving their regional climate and water cycle.

And it doesn't hurt that it probably slightly improves global warming and planting trees isn't very costly. Especially in places where labor is inexpensive. Why would they not do this is often a question I've been left with after talking to climate change nihilists. No, it won't fix global warming. But it doesn't cost very much, helps their population and economy, and makes a dent in global warming. At least they're…

Those perfectly functional nuclear power plants have a tendency to blow up a lot more often than predicted. After a couple of theoretically impossible accidents people get a bit nervous.

And they produce perfectly radioactive nuclear waste nobody knows what to do with right now...

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

#232

Post by bayesian_horse »

barry-cotter wrote: post #73
neuronic wrote: post #24

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. 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…

> 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. If colonialism was necessary for industrialisation the European powers with no or smaller colonial empires would have had lower growth. Germany would have been behind the U.K. and France. Austria would have been obviously suffering compared to Germany.…

I'd say all of Europe, and America benefited from trade with developing countries, especially in terms of Energy. But then the definition of exploitation gets a lot trickier than it already is.

I believe exploitation is simply a not so useful label. Trade agreements, even those that appear lopsided, are in my opinion not morally wrong. The moral issues arise from accompanying violence, corruption and theft.

The developing countries who arguably have been "exploited" could not have developed even to their current state on their own. At least not within centuries.

The oil-rich countries in the middle east couldn't have used their oil for anything until they got the technology to get it out of the earth and somebody paid them for exporting it.

Same goes for many exports of African countries.

Sure thing, the "first world" has done a lot of wrong to the "third world". But the latter isn't going to get anywhere without help from the former, either.

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

#233

Post by zapita »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #220
zapita wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I'll note that you haven't addressed the "unlimited land" part at all. Shall I conclude that you agree with me, at least, that appropriation of native land was one of the pillars of US wealth creation? > butter production in the southern states where there was "unlimited free labor" was roughly 20% of the national output, even though they had 40% of the total dairy cows. So from this one example, you're extrap…

If he can't use his 25% native part as an argument for wealth partially accruing to original inhabitants of the continent, you can't use his other 75% as an argument for wealth accruing to European settlers (assuming his other 75% is European).

I’m not arguing anything based on the results of a blood test of one person! And neither should you. That would make no sense at all.

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

#234

Post by lmilcin »

soperj wrote: post #80
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…

You've basically saying mass deforestation isn't a big deal.

Please, try to read with comprehension.

Deforestation is definitely a big deal. We need to preserve nature's diversity and forests are extremely important part of that.

What I meant is to warn people against thinking that if we start planting trees en masse then we have somehow on the right track to solve the problem. We are not.

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

#235

Post by zapita »

merpnderp wrote: post #215
zapita wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The shortest and simplest argument is that the South barely had the funds to prosecute the war while the North not only could fully fund their war efforts, they had access to extensive lines of credit from other nations. The South had to rely upon the largesse of European countries using it as a pawn. Interesting argument. And what was the wealth of the North built on?

Well we know it wasn't slavery. In the South the rich invested in slaves, and the rich controlled most of the economy. In the North the economy was dominated by agriculture, and was well along into the industrial revolution. To put the economies in the starkest of differences, 90% of all the capital in the United States, prior to the Civil War, was located in the North. The North employed 1000% more factory workers,…

Interesting. Would you say the South was an important market for the industrialized North?

Would you like to guess whether businessmen in the North invested in the slave trade and grew rich thanks to it?

And what do you make of the fact that the North abolished slavery only after decades of using slaves, making it plausible that they never could have succeeded as colonies without slaves in the first place?

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

#236

Post by zapita »

simonsarris wrote: post #207
zapita wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing that slavery did not contribute significantly to the wealth of the North, first by using slaves directly, then by integrating advantageously with the South’s economy and the slave trade?

My condensed argument is that Slavery per se does not make countries rich. Rather I am only arguing that slavery, in many countries including the USA, Brazil, and others world-wide, did not contribute to the long term economic success of the nation nearly as much as many claim it does (or solely claim it does in the USA). We don't have a counterfactual Twin Earth where those countries did not have slaves, but we know…

So your answer is no, then?

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

#237

Post by crististm »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #155
crististm wrote: post #104

350M are a lot of trees to be planted in a day. I've done tree planting and the estimated time/effort don't add up. I'm skeptical about the numbers. Seed planting is a different story

What are you estimating as the effort?

20-40 trees per person per day

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

#239

Post by crististm »

aldanor wrote: post #238
crististm wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20-40 trees per person per day

Times 10% population = 350M

Because 10% of the population have nothing to do in a day and voluntarily plant trees? Hmmm...

I might be underestimating Ethiopians though...

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

#240

Post by bayesian_horse »

deogeo wrote: post #187
gingabriska wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If colonialism was necessary for industrialisation the European powers with no or smaller colonial empires would have had lower growth. This assumes that the colonialists countries didn't trade with non colonialist countries in Europe. Prussia initiated the concept of a common market in 1818 and in 1833 a treaty extended the Zollverein to the larger states of Germany, although Austria, by Prussian design was exclude…

> This assumes that the colonialists countries didn't trade with non colonialist countries in Europe. Look at the US and Mexico: Despite having a lot of trade and migration, the two countries significantly differ economically. So it plainly does not hold that trade and migration entirely eliminates differences.

The issue about trade is that non-colonizing countries in Europe traded with colonies and their colonizers, benefiting from the alleged exploitation.

And indeed, Mexico is gaining ground on the US, not least because of bilateral trade and bilateral migration.

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