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Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

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Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#131

Post by ttyprintk »

stochtastic wrote: post #102

A cautionary tale from personal experience: My parents retired to a rural area and wanted to ensure that their area would remain a healthy old growth forest. They have been actively involved in a land trust that has successfully created large, continuous corridors throughout the area. One of their contributions was a continuous strip of about 20 acres. Their community has stitched these together to create wonderful c…

I know this may not help now, but to approve such a development, many counties would require that it is not down range from a historical or even prospective shooting range. You might offer every new resident subsidized membership because they live downrange.

Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#132

Post by loonster »

aporetics wrote: post #95
jandrewrogers wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would think giving it to some federal parks/wildlife agency would come with stronger protections than an NGO could provide. The Federal government is not a reliable steward of public wilderness lands. Their incentives and motivations are quite different from a purpose-built NGO. In practice an NGO can offer a much more consistent and aligned implementation of objectives.

Example: Bears Ears National Monument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bears_Ears_National_Monument?w...

It's just as hard to undo something as it is to do something. A proclamation by a president is a very low bar.

A better method would be by law. That would require a future president, house, and Senate to agree.

Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#133

Post by loonster »

ttyprintk wrote: post #68
hedora wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered if it is possible for environmental groups to buy oil drilling rights at auction (to prevent oil companies from buying the wells). At the very least, it would run up the cost of the mineral rights, making the resulting oil/coal more expensive. In the best case, it would prevent drilling/mining.

In Colorado, those rights are detached from land ownership. A state commission chooses lease parameters and, with some local consequence, those leases fund rural schools. A better system might: - Fund schools in a different way - Permit mineral rights to be owned just like private land - Require an insurance policy for exploration in the event it destroys a well or other water source

Money is fungible. The schools aren't funded that way, it is just how it was sold to the public. Every dollar that goes into schools will be reduced by the same amount in the general budget. The same happened in my state with the Lotto.

Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#134

Post by 0000011111 »

GavinMcG wrote: post #24
0000011111 wrote: post #20

In the US we struggle to protect the land that is already owned by state and federal agencies. For example, each year we spend billions on fire suppression on public land. And most year more acres burn and the cost increases. https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/statistics 5,510,675 Acres Year-to-date Acres Burned FY 2021 suppression cost $4,389,000,000 Conservation his hard especially in a landscape where we fail t…

This presupposes that fire suppression is an important goal. Obviously carbon storage is only possible if it isn’t all routinely released as smoke, but it’s not obvious to me that fire reduces carbon capture so much that other alternatives are better—and preservation may be a net good if other conservation/recreation/quality-of-life goals are accomplished alongside carbon capture.

Carbon capture is a good point for carbon storage part of the environmental movement.

And total Acreage burned per year continues to increase. Year - million acres burned 2015 - 10.13 2020 - 10.12 (over 1 million on the dixie fire in CA alone) 2017 - 10.03

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10244.pdf

Thats 21% of all federal land in 3 years! * total federal land in USA = 640 million acres.

For contrast in a good year YNSP might controlled burn 1,000 Acres.

It is all going to burn.

We need to find a better way to capture carbon.

Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#135

Post by maerF0x0 »

When it comes to exercising control over society through ownership, and eventually butting heads with those societal values, it will become clear who truly owns the land.

Similarly try not paying land taxes. You'll find out that land deeds are actually their asset and your liability.

Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#138

Post by markdown »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #98
obowersa wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: Sometimes! So its a little more complex and a little bit more nuanced. The mechanism is part of the land reform policy and called the ‘Community Right To Buy’. Ahead of time, a community body (which has a legal definition) can register an interest in buying qualifying land. All of these notes of interest are available from the registers of scotland and has to be renewed regularly/etc. At the point that a lando…

So if I want to give land to a friend, I can be forced to sell it if one of these groups have shown interest? That sounds very strange

> That sounds wonderful

There should always be an opportunity for land to return to the commons.

Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#139

Post by mr_toad »

hedora wrote: post #64
nimbius wrote: post #14

Its an unpopular opinion but no. Much as we cannot stop drowning in water with more water, we cannot extinguish climate change caused by technocratic neoliberal consumer capitalism with more of the same. The effort must exist outside a market. it cannot be commercialized, it exists as an inefficiency, and it remains a corrective action to right some of the most egregious hubris of mankinds existence on this planet. i…

It's easily solved with markets: Charge a carbon recapture tax equivalent to direct air capture of 150% of the product's greenhouse emissions. (This is affordable; it'd end up being about $1/gallon of gas tax.) Getting our corrupt government to actually do that is another story, even with > 60% of the population calling for drastic, urgent action.

If France is anything to go buy the population only call for drastic action when they don’t have to pay for it themselves. Start putting up gas prices and see what happens.

Re: Can we protect land for nature and carbon by simply buying it up?

#140

Post by dmajka »

bmitc wrote: post #101

It should be pointed out that conservation and reserves are not enough. We have got to be restoring land with native plants, in particular land in urban environments. https://homegrownnationalpark.org/

Some colleagues published a paper on the general order of actions to apply in the mitigation hierarchy, and found that the preference typically should be protection > improved land management > restoration. This is based on a combination of factors, including magnitude and immediacy of benefits, cost, and cobenefits these actions confer.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01198-0

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