Why cant we just plant more trees? Or let the trees we have grow bigger, to soak up all that extra carbon?
>"Why cant we just plant more trees?"
We can, and we certainly should, but that does not solve the problem because those trees will eventually die and that carbon will cycle back through the biosphere. Mankind extracted a ton of carbon from the ground, where it was locked away, and we put it back into the air. People are trying to find ways of putting all that extra carbon back somewhere where it won't affect the cycles in nature. Trees just temporarily lock up carbon.
Why cant we just plant more trees? Or let the trees we have grow bigger, to soak up all that extra carbon?
We can, how many have you planted?
The problem is the space issue and that it takes a decade or two for there to be meaningful carbon uptake.
Most land is private so you can't go around planting willy nilly. What's worse is that you are technically not allowed to plant on most public land either, although for small amounts of native species, you can sneak by.
How is the answer to “carbon removal” not just “turn deserts into plant areas” or “encourage algae blooms” or something? It seems implausible to me that any chemical carbon extraction process has superior externalities to just planting more trees or something.
Planting trees it is very difficult to keep up with global production. TL; DW: planting 20 million trees would equal roughly the CO2 emissions of the USA for half a day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqht2bIQXIY
Just one of the many problems of fundraisers like Team Trees:
1. Trees will eventually die and release their CO2 through rot or burning
2. Consequences of changing the ecosystem so rapidly
Yeah with oil reserves we know of today, most estimates put it around 50 years before we run out of it (that's with the current consumption, it doesn't take into account a completely possible increase in consumption).
That doesn't mean that a) we should extract all of it, and b) we won't find more of it.
Why cant we just plant more trees? Or let the trees we have grow bigger, to soak up all that extra carbon?
>"Why cant we just plant more trees?" We can, and we certainly should, but that does not solve the problem because those trees will eventually die and that carbon will cycle back through the biosphere. Mankind extracted a ton of carbon from the ground, where it was locked away, and we put it back into the air. People are trying to find ways of putting all that extra carbon back somewhere where it won't affect the cyc…
> those trees will eventually die and that carbon will cycle back through the biosphere.
Trees in forests are self-replicating. When one dies another grows in its place.
Yes, this isn't the only solution, but it's certainly part of the solution.
Here's my proposal, take that $100M and find a Saudi/Venezuela oil well operator. Give him the $100M in exchange for not pumping $100M worth of oil out of the ground.
That's basically carbon cap and trade. One of the problems is how do you ensure that the oil well remains blocked off forever?
The risk of fraud is pretty high, especially when you consider that the involved parties are these huge practically untouchable corporations.
>"Why cant we just plant more trees?" We can, and we certainly should, but that does not solve the problem because those trees will eventually die and that carbon will cycle back through the biosphere. Mankind extracted a ton of carbon from the ground, where it was locked away, and we put it back into the air. People are trying to find ways of putting all that extra carbon back somewhere where it won't affect the cyc…
> those trees will eventually die and that carbon will cycle back through the biosphere. Trees in forests are self-replicating. When one dies another grows in its place. Yes, this isn't the only solution, but it's certainly part of the solution.
Yes, but the point is that there is an upper limit to the contribution, and even reforesting unrealistically vast tracts of land does not make up for carbon extracted from deeper in the crust. Growing, cutting, and burying fast growing trees deep in the Earth, then replanting them, would not have that limit (although there would be other problems keeping the land fertile).