191–200 of 218 posts
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I am not talking about your lawn, but fields of wild grass.
Oh wow I feel like an idiot. Thanks for the clarification, I some how thought grass was man made or domesticated/engineer like cows.
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I did some math on this, and if all the countries in the advanced world planted fast growing trees alongside all paved and unpaved roads, over 40 years, that could potentially be enough to sequester half of all carbon emitted by humans. Given that carbon has a half life of between 20-200 years, and that we appear to be reaching peak emissions, and that a lot of estimates say our emissions should drop by 70% just give…
What does "carbon has a half life of between 20-200 years" mean in this comment?
I've read in several places that 50% of carbon in the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean within 20-200 years.
I'm guessing that's bad for the ocean, and maybe there's a limit, and the rate probably isn't constant. It's not a half-life at all.
I did a rough spreadsheet some time back based on this 1998 EPA carbon sequestration worksheet [1] and found that an average person from a high carbon output country needs about 600-1000 trees to offset their carbon output. There are about 3 trillion trees for a population of 7 billion people for an average of 428 trees per person, so that means you have to make up the delta of about 172 to 572 trees over the course…
So for a one time $600 donation ($1/tree [1]) I can be a carbon neutral person for life? Seems like a bargain. Am I missing something? [1] https://www.nationalforests.org/get-involved/tree-planting-p...
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No easy way to plot this - planting trees to sequester CO2 may or may not have a net positive impact at scale for a variety of reasons: 1) The timescale is very long - a single tree to drive carbon neutrality is MOST optimistically pegged at 40 - 100 years depending on species. With expanding populations planning or guaranteeing execution on that time scale is limited. AKA it's very unlikely that most efforts, unless…
Electricity from solar photovoltaic generation has life cycle emissions 90-95% lower than fossil-derived electricity, per median figures in the IPCC's 2014 tabulation of global warming potential of selected electricity sources. Geothermal, concentrated solar power, nuclear power, and wind power have even lower life cycle emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emis... Displacing fossil-deri…
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I did some math on this, and if all the countries in the advanced world planted fast growing trees alongside all paved and unpaved roads, over 40 years, that could potentially be enough to sequester half of all carbon emitted by humans. Given that carbon has a half life of between 20-200 years, and that we appear to be reaching peak emissions, and that a lot of estimates say our emissions should drop by 70% just give…
One problem I can see right off the bat is at the trees might rec a lot of the pavement (from roots uplifting the pavement). Walking around parts of Portland on the sidewalk is like being on a rollercoaster because of the tree roots.
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Introducing nuclear power in climate discussions tends to cause flamewars because it's often introduced by someone making extreme blanket statements, like "humans cannot be trusted with nuclear power" or "nuclear is the only available solution to climate change." Just mention it as one of the low-emissions alternatives to fossil power. Cite climate-focused organizations for support rather than industry-specific organ…
The problem with Nuclear is it needs huge subsides to be cost competitive with battery backed Wind / Solar or Hydro, even more if you want it to load follow. With just a carbon tax and no specific Nuclear subsidies, Nuclear is rarely a good option. In theory it seems like a great idea, in practice with decades of 10’s to 100’s of Billions in R&D it’s unlikely to improve that much within the next 5-10 years. (106 Bill…
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a lot of plants can be propagated from twigs, you don't need to buy more
I’ve found that rooting hormone vastly increases the number that do well. I’ve also been told but have not tried, that you can make a DIY rooting hormone by soaking green willow twigs in water than adding your cuttings.
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I think the tree survival rate is baked into the numbers, and most of these trees will outlive me anyway, so year-over-year CO2 I think would be fine. The EOL question is discussed in sibling comments and seems to be the crux of the issue. It seems like it mostly hinges on whether permanently increase the % of land that's covered by forest, or whether it reverts to something else once the trees die. Based on wikipedi…
Even at $1/per tree, that is still extremely expensive when you consider that developing countries will need trees to offset their emissions as well. As an American ~$600-$3000 isn't a huge deal, but that outstrips the gdp per capita of many countries. We should plant lots of trees, but we should also do everything else in our power in parallel.
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> Full grown trees don't absord as much co2 as a tree that is still growing This does not seem logical. Two cars emit more C02 than one car. Two leaves will absorb more CO2 than one leaf. A 2m young tree will never be able to consum so many CO2 as its older 40m high grandparent with a x10000 mass (mass that must be maintained).
> Two leaves will absorb more CO2 than one leaf Trees don't absorb CO2 just by existing- they absorb CO2 by growing . The carbon from the air is converted into structure, body of the tree. When the tree stops growing, the CO2 stops being absorbed. Cutting down the tree and using the wood for long-term storage contains all that CO2. Planting new trees means growing trees that absorb more CO2 from the air.