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China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

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Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#201

Post by worik »

devnullbrain wrote: post #45
navigate8310 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that put pressure on the cities itself especially the peripheral counties to pave way for housing and concrete roads?

Yes, and it's a good thing. Either way, you need to fit the needs of the same number of people. If they're in a dense city near everything they need, they use less space. Policies to limit urban sprawl just an expensive way to create more sprawl elsewhere - and roads to it.

> Yes, and it's a good thing

It is. I have seen the data

But I live in a rural area of New Zealand and I also see how people moving onto farm land greatly increases tree cover (not forrest) and biodiversity, I assume because people plant gardens, and closely husband them

In New Zealand farmers are grossly damaging to the environment. They clear everything and plant mono cultures and treat water as exhaustable and rivers as waste dumps

So yes people in cities is a good thing, but people in rural areas are good, to

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#202

Post by XorNot »

rtpg wrote: post #170
mdeeks wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the places where per capita doesn't matter as much as total emissions. We have one planet. The yearly total and cumulative matters the most. China is by far the leading emitter. Over double of the US as of 2023 (latest available data I can find). China's emissions also aren't falling, they are skyrocketing. The US emissions ARE falling. The US dominates in cumulative, which is essentially the measure o…

In the "we only have one planet" angle, I think it's worth considering that China is not just burning coal for domestic purposes for fun. The fossil fuel consumption is an input to some output, a lot of that going abroad. If China is the factory for all of these products sold in the US (and elsewhere of course), then isn't China just accounting for even more US emissions? In that sense, some sort of eco-Trump could p…

Theres going to be a very entertaining set of mental gymnastics people will start doing once China's emissions growth peaks and starts falling compared to the US. They're building a lot of renewables, a lot of nuclear plants and are very obviously tooling up to replicate fusion from whoever nails it.

Whereas the US is trying to increase its fossil fuel industry and cancelling renewable projects.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#204

Post by paulcole »

zahlman wrote: post #203

> Since 1990 ... surpassed by China, which managed to add a staggering 173 million acres.... > Over the last three and a half decades China has planted roughly 120 million acres of forest Where did the rest come from?

When a mommy tree and a daddy tree love each other very much…

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#205

Post by jimbokun »

tzs wrote: post #110
porknaut wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't even come close to China. So if we're a nightmarish monster, I would hate to think what that makes China.

China has 4 times the population. In any rational divvying up of the world's total emissions allowance by country China's share would be 4 times that of the US, but they are only emitting twice what the US is emitting. Both are over their fair share, but the US is over by a larger factor so is farther behind on getting to where they need to be. (This is not taking into account trade. Divvying up the world emissions b…

Assigning blame and guilt is pointless. Just look at how well it has worked to motivate the US to change. That is to say, not at all.

The only thing moving the needle is renewables and nuclear generating power more cheaply than fossil fuels, so it becomes stupid to not switch to them even if you have no regard for the long term health of the environment.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#206

Post by zahlman »

paulcole wrote: post #204
zahlman wrote: post #203

> Since 1990 ... surpassed by China, which managed to add a staggering 173 million acres.... > Over the last three and a half decades China has planted roughly 120 million acres of forest Where did the rest come from?

When a mommy tree and a daddy tree love each other very much…

I would have expected that to cause infill rather than spreading.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#207

Post by thesmtsolver »

gnarlouse wrote: post #58

I'm starting to think that we're the baddies.

Great quality comment.

We shouldn't consider the fact China did much more deforestation to start with and even after all this reforestation China has lesser forest area than the US despite being larger in size:

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

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54719577

> The US claims: "China is the world's largest consumer of illegal timber products." > And, according to studies, that is true.

> The Environmental Investigation Agency says: "The immense scale of China's sourcing [of wood] from high-risk regions [of the world] means that a significant proportion of its timber and wood product imports were illegally harvested." And research by Global Witness last year said there were "worrying" levels of illegality in countries from which China sources more than 80% of its timber.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#208

Post by galagawinkle489 »

cyberax wrote: post #51
deadbabe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are the forests growing faster

The TLDR is that they aren't. Global warming made some areas more hospitable to forests (warmer, more precipitation) and increased drought resistance counteracts some of the increased aridity in other ares: https://e360.yale.edu/features/greening-drylands-carbon-diox...

The atmosphere has so far barely changed in temperature compared to natural variations in temperature over time that had smaller and lesser effects than the effect we are seeing.

The abnormally rapid rise in CO2 levels we are seeing is unusual and accords better with the unusualness of rapid global greening. It isn't climate change that is causing it. It is CO2, directly.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#209

Post by thesmtsolver »

rtpg wrote: post #170
mdeeks wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the places where per capita doesn't matter as much as total emissions. We have one planet. The yearly total and cumulative matters the most. China is by far the leading emitter. Over double of the US as of 2023 (latest available data I can find). China's emissions also aren't falling, they are skyrocketing. The US emissions ARE falling. The US dominates in cumulative, which is essentially the measure o…

In the "we only have one planet" angle, I think it's worth considering that China is not just burning coal for domestic purposes for fun. The fossil fuel consumption is an input to some output, a lot of that going abroad. If China is the factory for all of these products sold in the US (and elsewhere of course), then isn't China just accounting for even more US emissions? In that sense, some sort of eco-Trump could p…

>If China is the factory for all of these products sold in the US (and elsewhere of course), then isn't China just accounting for even more US emissions?

China can't have it both ways, they are glibly blaming the rest of the world for their emissions while reforesting due to importing timber from rest of the world illegally.

> The Environmental Investigation Agency says: "The immense scale of China's sourcing [of wood] from high-risk regions [of the world] means that a significant proportion of its timber and wood product imports were illegally harvested." And research by Global Witness last year said there were "worrying" levels of illegality in countries from which China sources more than 80% of its timber.

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54719577

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#210

Post by lvturner »

switchbak wrote: post #193
gnarlouse wrote: post #58

I'm starting to think that we're the baddies.

Ahem: "China consumes over half of the world’s coal and contributes more than 20% of global CO2 emissions from coal combustion." But trees are nice. Source: https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.918

Your point reads strangely, it's almost like saying "Why even bother when CO2 emissions are so high" - surely ANYTHING that they are doing to turn that around should be celebrated and encouraged rather than saying "Yeah but..." - Rome wasn't built in a day and all.
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