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Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

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Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#131

Post by joe_the_user »

mountaintimefrm wrote: post #40

So having read the article summary, then the research paper, then reading the article summary again... it seems that the summary isn't at all an accurate summary of the research paper, but rather a narrow focus on the suboptimal cases where tree growing isn't super effective at sequestering carbon. It sort of completely ignores the cases where they observed enhanced carbon sequestration, increases in soil organic car…

"...tree growing to sequester carbon is very complicated, there's a lot we don't know, and there are a ton of different outcomes depending on how/where the tree growing is carried out.."

My guess is they say that because that's a much as they can say with full evidence backing. But suspect that most ecologists actually want to say "planting tree is a dumb solution for carbon sequestering or anything, please stop". That's what my ecologists say, certainly.

I mean, consider:

A) Trees are very good at spreading themselves. A tree adapted to it's environment will spread everywhere.

B) You can't get more carbon into an environment than ecosystem naturally sequesters - what it sequesters in long term, what's at the end of forest succession [1]. I'm in the California Sierras now and a lot of areas have a higher density of trees than the long term average and this along with global warming has contributed to the massive summer fires we've had. If anything, what this area's ecology needs is a thinning of the stick-like trees that have grown over the last 100 since all the existing trees were cut down during the Gold Rush. That can happen through fire or through human intervention but since human intervention is costly, fire is what it will be - fires made worse by fire suppression over many years. California's ecology is "fire based", etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_succession

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#132

Post by erk__ »

orthecreedence wrote: post #85
vanderZwan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any papers investigating how kelp or other seaweeds compare? I've heard some biologists informally claim that they would be even more effective because they can grow incredibly fast.

I thought trees were somewhat ideal because the carbon sequestered in them can be used as long-lived lumber. If the kelp sequesters carbon but then it gets released immediately when it decomposes or someone eats it, then it doesn't really solve the problem. We need to be putting carbon back into the ground where we got it, or at least converting into forms where it lives a long time on the surface (decades or centuri…

With seaweed at least there is also many possibilities for usage as building materials linke roofing, insulation and bricks

https://youtu.be/g8SQNRXDklk

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#133

Post by wikfwikf »

colechristensen wrote: post #89
wikfwikf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care about the forest supporting other life? Isn't the goal just to take carbon out of the atmosphere?

Ecosystems grow, maintain themselves, and can be better at sequestering carbon. Random example: blue jays plant oak trees. They like acorns, pick them off trees and bury them for later, and forget some. If you have an ecosystem that supports blue jays your forest will expand without fundraisers and government programs. Ecosystems fix carbon in more active biomass than just tree trunks. If you get soil building ecosys…

In a forest full of large trees, the carbon in the non-tree biomass is a rounding error. If you can pack the trees slightly closer and almost everything else now finds the environment too hostile to survive, it's probably a net win from a carbon point of view.

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#134

Post by wikfwikf »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #121
wikfwikf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care about the forest supporting other life? Isn't the goal just to take carbon out of the atmosphere?

> Isn't the goal just to take carbon out of the atmosphere? I disagree. We also want to avoid ecological cascade effects in our ecosystems.

Having huge forests full of trees and barren of much else is great if it allows us to protect other more interesting ecosystems.

And perhaps the best way to create a sustainable ecosystem around the trees is to plant them and see what else develops, rather than try and curate a specific balance of organisms.

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#135

Post by wikfwikf »

TSiege wrote: post #10
colechristensen wrote: post #2

Yes you need to build ecosystems not just plant trees. Monoculture tree stands are often mostly empty of other life. You need to plant a variety of native species keeping track of keystone species and year round food production so that your forest supports other life.

Absolutely. Our ways of thinking about the environment are trapped in the past. Where we focus on one variable and miss the importance and resilience that comes from a holistic approach. We need to be encouraging the right ecosystems for the right environment. For example, we need to be encouraging native grassland ecosystems in the great plains, not forests. Native grasses can have root systems 8 feet deep to deal w…

I think this way of thinking is trapped in the past.

The reality of atmospheric carbon is that we have to get rid of it or face mass extinction. Trying to build some nostalgic idea of a untouched ecosystem in tune with 'nature' is just a feelgood ideology.

We're actually faced with an engineering project - the first planet that our species will terraform.

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#136

Post by ajuc »

quixoticelixer- wrote: post #116
ajuc wrote: post #101

My main problem with planting trees is - you're not planting seeds, but seedlings. These seedlings were already growing elsewhere, you just burned some fuel to transport them to another place. Additionally at least in my region whenever I leave a plot of land unattended for a few years - tree appear on it. If you leave it for more than a decade it becomes a forest. So - it seems the important part is assigning land f…

The amount of fuel used by transporting 10,000 seedlings is easily sequestered by just one of them growing.

But it was growing already. The bottleneck is land allocated for trees, not the tree-planting procedure (in fact it's automatic once you have some trees in vicinity).

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#137

Post by boltzmann-brain »

oliwary wrote: post #129
po wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would have expected the carbon density of oil to be much higher! You're comparing by weight, so density (which is mass/volume) isn't a part of it. 1kg of wood will take up more space than 1kg of oil. So the density is higher but equal weights of 'mostly hydro-carbon' will release equal amounts of CO2.

That’s a very good point. It seems like the densities are relatively similar as well though [0][1]. Not saying they’re the same, but even the fact that they’re in the same order of magnitude was surprising to me. Seems like filling a 1km^3 with wood could offset all CO2 emitted for over 20 years! [0] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html [1] https://www.transmountain.com/about-petroleum-liquids

which is precisely why I've spent the last 15 years petitioning the government for an all-wood generational ship to take us to the nearest extrasolar goldilocks planet

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#139

Post by thechao »

Floegipoky wrote: post #96
hinkley wrote: post #86

My native plant friend has a rant I've heard twice and I gather he's given countless times. The logistics of a wetland restoration are that you get a lump of money to get a group to go out and stick plants in the ground, but the problem is that in an intact habitat plants compliment each other. Some won't grow next to tall plants, others will only grow next to tall plants. So a restoration should ideally be a series…

I bet your friend would be into mass "Earl comes by every year with a few buckets of native seed"- no closure, and definitely not sexy

I've been doing this to my lawn (central Texas): putting in a turf varietal of the native Texas Buffalo grass. This year, we had a 5ish month drought with a couple months of 105° daytime temps. My Buffalo went dormant; all of my neighbors' Bermuda died: the soil temp went too high for it. Soil temp death is something I've been warning people about for years.

It started raining, again, a couple weeks ago: my lawn is a lush, bright green, native surface (with Butterflies, again!); the rest of the street is gray mush.

Re: Planting trees not always an effective way of binding carbon dioxide

#140

Post by Gravityloss »

ravenstine wrote: post #93
Gravityloss wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's a good point that plant sequestration of CO2 is slow compared to digging up coal, oil or methane and burning it, it's not meaningless.

It's not meaningless, but it's an example of humanity chasing its own tail. Photosynthesis is not the most efficient process in the equation by far. It is competing against two things; a system that can use lots of oxygen as an oxidizer to release energy, and titanic stockpiles of hydrocarbons waiting to be burned. An animal can either consume plants after they've done their job or consume other animals, and use anim…

Certainly it gives a perspective: I've read that the amount of fossil fuels we've burned is already greater than the currently living biomass on the whole planet. We've burned almost all of it during the last 100 years.

So yes we can't operate as we do and fix it by on the side planting a few trees.

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