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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?

#141

Post by GavinMcG »

0000011111 wrote: post #134
GavinMcG wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 YNS…

What percentage of captured carbon does burning release? (And on what time frame? Fire is an important part of some ecosystems in the long run, even if not the short.)

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

#142

Post by carapace »

BurningFrog wrote: post #105
carapace wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do build things. I'm in SF where we have recently replaced the Bay Bridge, dug a big ol' tunnel, put up skyscrapers and luxury condos, etc. What we don't do is build housing. (A lot of people blame NIMBYism for that but the situation is complex.) > The lack of power generation, power transmission, and pretty much any infrastructure you can think of is another. A friend of mine drives a Tesla, he says charging stat…

You're probably giving a more thoughtful answer than my rant deserved :) What I was trying to express was said better by Marc Andreessen "It’s Time to Build" manifesto. Read that instead: https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/ The Bay Bridge only got built because the old one proved seismically unsafe, and that took 24 years, with a 2500% cost overrun, according to Wikipedia. No other bridges will be build in…

I always appreciate a good opportunity to stand on the the soapbox. :)

I read Andreessen's piece (and caught the reference) I just think he's wrong.

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

#143

Post by londons_explore »

In England, some kind of long term lease might work.

Conservationists lease land for say 200 years and allow it to go wild.

Many big landowners don't actually earn much revenue from the land, so they would be happy to lease it for quite a low cost.

But the land forms part of a family estate that the family has owned for hundreds of years, so they don't want to give it up.

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

#144

Post by londons_explore »

Land would be sold much more frequently if inheritance tax weren't so easy to dodge.

If you had to give up 40% of your land every generation, big estates would quickly shrink and be sold on the open market.

So the solution is for the government to tighten up inheritance tax law. Specifically, I would make a new law that if any asset hasn't been part of an inheritance (and had tax paid) for 100 years, then 40% tax becomes immediately payable.

The tax is 40% of the monetary value of the land, but can also be 40% of the land area given to the government. If the government disagrees with your valuation, then the government has the option to buy the whole estate from the owner for the declared value.

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

#145

Post by imtringued »

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…

You do know that this is essentially what Henry Geroge was warning about? People invest in their community and then some private land owners capture all those public benefits and turn them into cold, hard, emotionless cash.

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

#146

Post by imtringued »

bananarchist wrote: post #73
idiotsecant wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate - if you don't even live in the country should you have the right to own property there?

If you don't live on the property should you have the right to own it?

Sure, why not? But you should be paying an appropriate tax for that privilege to make owner occupied housing and land more affordable than rentals.

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

#147

Post by imtringued »

londons_explore wrote: post #144

Land would be sold much more frequently if inheritance tax weren't so easy to dodge. If you had to give up 40% of your land every generation, big estates would quickly shrink and be sold on the open market. So the solution is for the government to tighten up inheritance tax law. Specifically, I would make a new law that if any asset hasn't been part of an inheritance (and had tax paid) for 100 years, then 40% tax bec…

I have always wondered why inheritance taxes require liquidation of assets, that is unnecessary pain. Just grant the government an ownership stake to land, assets and businesses which the inheritor can buy back over time.

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

#148

Post by imtringued »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #100

> "just 1% of the population own half the land in England" This is idea in same level as quantitative easing, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing ) "Lets give rich people money so they recover economy" what happens "Rich people use that money £895 billion buy stocks, so they inflate market even more and not even penny trickles down to ordinary people, so they become even poorer. Paying rich people tha…

Imagine if you could print new land certificates for untouched land. Oh right we do that all the time and this leads to urban sprawl because we can't seem to get the existing land owners to cooperate.

Strangely enough the situation is the same with money.

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

#149

Post by imtringued »

mr_toad wrote: post #139
hedora wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pay a co2 dividend, market it as taking away free co2 pollution rights from the rich and corporations and giving them back to the people.

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

#150

Post by imtringued »

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…

The problem isn't markets. The problem is growth dependence.
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