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A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

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Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#121

Post by ouid »

dghughes wrote: post #116
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #80

Far too little, far too late. It may have helped fix climate if we had stopped deforestation in 1992 after the first UN climate summit, used only sustainable wood from that moment on and cleared no mature forest for pasture or palm oil. Oh, and started migrating to zero carbon economies when it would have taken a percent or two reduction a year, rather than the throw ourselves off a reduction cliff required now. Than…

I'd assume growing trees would sequester far more carbon than mature trees? Grow, chop, grow perhaps?

I think this is a naive view. First, there isn't a shortage of land for planting trees. And land is a requirement for storing the sequestered trees anyway.

The most cost effective path to fixing more carbon is to plant right, and without cutting.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#122

Post by hinkley »

pjkundert wrote: post #101
drderidder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's basically, well, not true. When trees break down they contribute to soil organic matter. Approx 58% of SOM is carbon (SOC) making soil one of the largest carbon sinks on the planet. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_organic_matter

If soil continues to accumulate in a healthy form, as it did on the Great Plains over millennia of grazing by bison herds, then yes. Old growth forests often grow on rocky land, and have little long-term depth accumulation. Source: hiking old growth forests over decades, and being a farmer.

Literally survivor bias. The old growth forests that survived loggers were the ones they couldn’t get to for a profit. Those will be in or near geographic barriers like swamps or rocky terrain.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#123

Post by natch »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #111
natch wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The people voting against environmental reforms are doing it because they don't want to reduce their quality of life. No. They're doing it because of tribalism and ignorance. They perceive that by allowing progress on energy sustainability issues, they allow the enemy tribe a victory. And many of them don't care at all about sustainability because they believe the second coming is just around the corner. The ones wh…

>The ones who think it would reduce their quality of life are just being ignorant. They don't understand the possibilities. I'm not willing to give people that benefit of the doubt. Deep down, people are loss averse, and will tell themselves whatever about the second coming or make up conspiracies to do it. The real cause is people don't want to give up single family homes with garages and SUVs on quarter+ acre lots.…

I think we'll still have the luxuries we have today. Fossil fuel burning will not completely end, but we'll get to our vacation destinations another way. Electric airplanes are coming, for example. Not soon, but eventually.

Single family homes with quarter+ acre lots are great places for solar installations, btw.

>I don't see what would motivate people

Test drive a Tesla, and then you will see.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#124

Post by DennisP »

So we need 3 billion acres. There are 4.62 billion acres of cropland in the world: https://blog.neogen.com/new-map-shows-4-62-billion-acres-of-...

It's looking increasingly likely that lab-grown food will make a lot of that farming obsolete: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/lab-gr...

Solar Foods estimates their process is 20,000 times more land-efficient than farming. Lab-grown beef also looks at least ten times more efficient on land, energy, and water, according to the book Clean Meat.

So if it doesn't take too long before this stuff takes over the market, we could grow our three billion acres of trees on existing arable land and skip most of the desalination.

It might seem impossible for agriculture do disappear all that quickly, but whale oil was the fifth-largest industry in the U.S., then kerosene came along and wiped it out in a couple decades. And according to studies, people overwhelmingly eat what's cheap and tastes good; if lab-grown foods can manage to taste good and leverage their low resource use into low prices, things could change very quickly.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#125

Post by agumonkey »

GVIrish wrote: post #114
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should we not try any ideas like this? Just give up and burn it all down, point fingers and say, "I told you it was too late. Look how right I am." I see no solutions offered in any of your written paragraphs and I welcome any and all alternatives.

We should absolutely reforest on a large scale, but we also need to drastically cut emissions, and pursue other carbon sequestration strategies (olivine weathering for example). I'm not sure trying to convert desert into forest is even a good idea. Some of these deserts have been around a long, long time and harbor their own unique organisms. And as the article mentions it could cause unpredictable disruptions in wea…

Am I naïve, but if people are busy replanting or doing nature related things (granted locally) they will probably less busy ordering items from the other side of the planet.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#126

Post by ErotemeObelus »

DennisP wrote: post #124

So we need 3 billion acres. There are 4.62 billion acres of cropland in the world: https://blog.neogen.com/new-map-shows-4-62-billion-acres-of-... It's looking increasingly likely that lab-grown food will make a lot of that farming obsolete: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/lab-gr... Solar Foods estimates their process is 20,000 times more land-efficient than farming. Lab-grown beef also looks at…

> Lab-grown beef also looks at least ten times more efficient on land, energy, and water, according to the book Clean Meat.

Wait until they accidentally create Super Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#127

Post by agumonkey »

triclops200 wrote: post #8

That only "fixes" climate change as long as the trees continue growing and do not die. When dead, trees release their CO_2 that they've sequestered back into the atmosphere due to decomposition. Therefore, assuming those forests stay around, you've only delayed the problem by sinking a fixed amount of CO_2 away into the living biomass of the trees. The only way to make that a permanent sink would be to biochar the tr…

That's only one side of forest. Don't they contribute on thermal buffering, wind patterns and evaporation too ?

Also it may help sustaining the good chain.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#128

Post by AnimalMuppet »

noiv wrote: post #112
hossbeast wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you have worse problems.

I fail to imagine problems worse than Earth with +4C.

A fair amount of greenhouse gas emissions are from growing and transporting food. "Just stop" means that a fair amount of our food production stops. The problem with +4C is a lot of people dying; killing them earlier by starvation is not a solution.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#129

Post by NeedMoreTea »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #106
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a house is on fire, worry about the new extension after the fire is out. Otherwise it's Jevons' paradox writ large. We're still destroying and emitting at ever faster rate. Effort should be going into circular sustainable economies, decarbonising, achieving carbon neutrality, assisting the developing world to carbon neutrality too.

That works under the assumption that we can't do both. We can absolutely work on carbon neutrality and getting the developing world off of coal and oil burning technologies while working on restoring a natural carbon capture system in the form of forests and ecosystems.

I just think the neutrality, reduction in resource use and sustainability has to come first. Otherwise Jevons. Of course there can be intelligent overlap. I would hope that as nations move near to neutrality they must have put effort into a rethink of agriculture and forestry (and every other human activity).

Now they can re-plant locally appropriate species and create new forest that will eventually appear to be entirely natural ancient woodland or rain forest. Forest that's destined to be mainly left alone as carbon sequestration. Along with wood production that's sympathetic to the planet and sustainable.

Greening deserts feels, to me, like a "near neutrality" re-wilding project. Something we can think of adding in a push to carbon negative, to undo some of the damage done. Something to do after we have sustainable, renewable electricity everywhere network to desalinate and irrigate. Something that can be carefully seeded to take account of species and that appears and acts natural, and stays put as national park or reservation. Without destroying yet another wilderness.

Not as a green project slapped down as Deus ex machina solution in a world that's not yet moving to neutrality. That risks making it worse. In fact it will almost certainly make it worse as coal and oil is still permitted to keep on looking for new markets and uses.

Re: A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

#130

Post by koheripbal »

drderidder wrote: post #38
triclops200 wrote: post #8

That only "fixes" climate change as long as the trees continue growing and do not die. When dead, trees release their CO_2 that they've sequestered back into the atmosphere due to decomposition. Therefore, assuming those forests stay around, you've only delayed the problem by sinking a fixed amount of CO_2 away into the living biomass of the trees. The only way to make that a permanent sink would be to biochar the tr…

That's basically, well, not true. When trees break down they contribute to soil organic matter. Approx 58% of SOM is carbon (SOC) making soil one of the largest carbon sinks on the planet. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_organic_matter

There is an upper limit to the amount of CO2 that soil absorbs - it's clearly not infinite. There is an equilibrium in the Earth's natural Carbon cycle.

Once a soil matures (a process that might take many decades), the amount of CO2 retained vs emitted reaches equilibrium.

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