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Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

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Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#31

Post by blincoln »

enriquto wrote: post #20
pjc50 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or about one air passenger trip to Europe. ("just plant trees" is not a viable solution to climate change unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity)

> unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity and what, then? When plants die, their matter is decomposed by fungi and all their carbon is released back into the atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is buried). The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosp…

> The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosphere.

Isn't this a little like saying that humans in a confined space don't actually use up any of the oxygen, because it's still technically present in the CO2 they exhale?

> For example, by cutting trees and burying their wood in sealed mines several kilometers underground.

What would be the net benefit of treating it like radioactive waste versus using it as a construction material? Yes, a small percentage of the carbon would escape, but most of it would stay locked up in the wood, and one wouldn't create the massive amounts of CO2 necessary to build and operate those hypothetical mines.

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#32

Post by tokai »

throw310822 wrote: post #29
DrBazza wrote: post #8

BBC version of same article - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68518623 > An estimated 500,000 trees are in the UK compared to 80,000 in California. > To assess how these towering giants are adapting to their UK home, scientists selected a sample of nearly 5,000 trees to study at Wakehurst, Benmore Botanic Garden in Argyllshire, Scotland and Havering Country Park in Essex. > However, while the trees are…

Also, does this mean that all the 500k trees have been planted?

3128 hectares were planted with trees in UK just last year. Remember that trees are a crop, and most forests in Europe are plantations.

https://forestrycommission.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/16/england-tr...

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#33

Post by rob74 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #25
lukan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the seeds only being able to grow successfully in full sun and in mineral-rich soils, free from competing vegetation. Although the seeds can germinate in moist needle humus in the spring, these seedlings will die as the duff dries in the summer. They therefore require periodic wildfire to clear competing vegetation and soil humus before successful regeneration can occur" (Wikipedia) They need fire and sun. (And mayb…

perhaps the seedlings can be cultivated manually then, until they can survive without intervention - then they should last a long time.

Well yeah, I mean that's nothing new - it's called a tree nursery. But, as the BBC article states, the chances of them reproducing in the wild are slim...

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#34

Post by rob74 »

tokai wrote: post #32
throw310822 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, does this mean that all the 500k trees have been planted?

3128 hectares were planted with trees in UK just last year. Remember that trees are a crop, and most forests in Europe are plantations. https://forestrycommission.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/16/england-tr...

Trees are a crop, but the very slow growing sequoias are more of a status symbol (as the article also mentions). And not only in the UK, many parks, botanical gardens etc. all over Europe just have to have at least one sequoia...

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#35

Post by xeromal »

Chris2048 wrote: post #25
lukan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the seeds only being able to grow successfully in full sun and in mineral-rich soils, free from competing vegetation. Although the seeds can germinate in moist needle humus in the spring, these seedlings will die as the duff dries in the summer. They therefore require periodic wildfire to clear competing vegetation and soil humus before successful regeneration can occur" (Wikipedia) They need fire and sun. (And mayb…

perhaps the seedlings can be cultivated manually then, until they can survive without intervention - then they should last a long time.

I think that's the point of this post. They're manually cared for until they survive but they don't have to worry about them reproducing. Kind of a nice feature!

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#36

Post by HPsquared »

enriquto wrote: post #20
pjc50 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or about one air passenger trip to Europe. ("just plant trees" is not a viable solution to climate change unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity)

> unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity and what, then? When plants die, their matter is decomposed by fungi and all their carbon is released back into the atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is buried). The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosp…

All the work involved in felling, cutting and manually sequestering the wood sounds like it could be more expensive - and a lot slower and less scalable - than direct air capture. (Which is already uneconomical)

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#37

Post by omnibrain »

enriquto wrote: post #20
pjc50 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or about one air passenger trip to Europe. ("just plant trees" is not a viable solution to climate change unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity)

> unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity and what, then? When plants die, their matter is decomposed by fungi and all their carbon is released back into the atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is buried). The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosp…

> and what, then? When plants die, their matter is decomposed by fungi and all their carbon is released back into the atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is buried).

Why does every measure have to solve the problem? Buying time is just as important. We start mammoth groves now. Buy time for measures that solve the problem and win huge ressources (building wood, recreational space, erosion prevention) for the future.

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#38

Post by yitchelle »

m-i-l wrote: post #19

There are pictures and locations of many at https://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/ . See also HN discussion of redwoodworld.co.uk at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28047458 . (Not affiliated, but I did submit details of my local sequoias).

I noticed that redwoodworld.co.uk had saplings for sale. Very intriguing.

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#39

Post by openrisk »

The introduction of non-native tree species is not without its own controversies as these may support very different biodiversity landscapes.

In central Europe there is, e.g., a debate about the role and future of the Douglas fir, which was also introduced from North America centuries ago:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2022.84458...

Re: Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

#40

Post by pvaldes »

pjc50 wrote: post #10
pvaldes wrote: post #3

"[Each Sequoiadendron tree] can potentially pull an average of 85 kilograms of carbon out of the atmosphere per year". I will try to remind this phrase, specially the per year part.

Or about one air passenger trip to Europe. ("just plant trees" is not a viable solution to climate change unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity)

> unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity

And this is technologically a big problem because...? Dig a hole and put a seed and pay somebody to watch it for several years is too difficult when our societies are at stake?

Because some people can't avoid to satisfy their chomp-burn-boycott-my-own-future rash?... No problem. This people needs mental help, and society can provide it. Keep them far away from nature.

Ecological systems don't show linear responses. Tiny increases or decreases in a variable can trigger huge changes. Even a partial improvement counts. In the worst case could give us a lot of extra time to have a second chance to try.

Planting trees will not mean that we will survive, just that our chances to survive will increase. It still seems a valuable goal.

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