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Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

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Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#101

Post by village-idiot »

jweir wrote: post #94
ChuckMcM wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuts into my solar power generation through. So its a trade-off. Interestingly enough, from an energy production perspective the solar panels on the roof result in more reduction in CO2 than the trees do.

Can you prove that or back that up with some facts?

That’s pretty trivial to prove. Grid tied systems sell excess electricity back at bulk rates, at least in some states, which means that the solar panels are producing more electricity than the home needs for cooling. Thus such a house is actually spending negative carbon on cooling, since they’re providing green energy for their neighbors.

A shade tree can reduce your need for electricity, but it can’t turn you into a net producer.

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#103

Post by village-idiot »

jweir wrote: post #57

But, wait... some places are clearing forest for solar farms. Georgetown https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/01/georgetow... Rhode Island https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190414/proposed-ri-... Prineville Oregon(I dont' know how many trees will be cleared for this, maybe it will be on existing farmland) https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2018/07/massive_so...

All things considered, clearing a forest to help wean us of natural gas and oil is probably a net positive.

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#104

Post by village-idiot »

dota_fanatic wrote: post #93
jandrese wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only 160 trees for every man, woman, and child on Earth... It doesn't seem like a particularly practical solution.

How hard is it to plant a tree? Especially if it's young and there is very clear guidance as to which native trees should be planted in which contexts you have available to you locally (account for full size growth and sunlight / water needs). If over one year everyone planted 3 trees per week, and we employed a work force of people to cultivate them further, we would make a huge dent in our catastrophic risk exposur…

It’s cheap to plant baby trees, and baby trees are the ones that are about to go through their main carbon absorption cycle anyways.

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#105

Post by jweir »

village-idiot wrote: post #101
jweir wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you prove that or back that up with some facts?

That’s pretty trivial to prove. Grid tied systems sell excess electricity back at bulk rates, at least in some states, which means that the solar panels are producing more electricity than the home needs for cooling. Thus such a house is actually spending negative carbon on cooling, since they’re providing green energy for their neighbors. A shade tree can reduce your need for electricity, but it can’t turn you into…

Depending on the tree(s), it could be consuming CO2 24 hours a day, year round, solar is just part of the day and only reaches capacity for a brief moment. I don't know the numbers to show the difference. That is why I asked for some facts which the OP seems to know.

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#106

Post by DesiLurker »

vbuwivbiu wrote: post #102

https://www.trilliontreecampaign.org/ https://onetreeplanted.org/ anyone got any other suggestions for organizations to donate to to get trees planted fast ? Because I love trees regardless of whether they going to help save our home planet

Here is one I like: https://www.projectgreenhands.org

they have Guinness record for most tree saplings planted in a day, over 28M planted so far.

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#107

Post by DanBC »

jayd16 wrote: post #36
m0zg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor the emissions when those trees burn because they were planted in a place where waterbed can't support their density. This is happening in CA nearly every year.

The burning an decay of a planted tree would at worst be carbon neutral.

And burning trees is better than letting them rot, which releases methane.

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#108

Post by jessriedel »

jandrese wrote: post #76
burlesona wrote: post #61

Not to be too snarky, but my first reaction to the headline was, “ only 1.2 trillion? What are we waiting for!” More seriously, though: the article claims there’s “ample acreage” for such an endeavor but I didn’t see where exactly they’re referring to. Are we supposed to imagine these are sprinkled here and there around the earth, and that there’s plenty of space just waiting for a tree to be planted, or is this some…

That's only 160 trees for every man, woman, and child on Earth... It doesn't seem like a particularly practical solution.

The cost of global warming and the benefits we've reaped from its cause (cheap power) are both a significant fraction of world GDP. Planting 160 trees per person would be cheap, and even easily do-able by an individual in a few weekends (though it's obviously way more efficient to hire specialists to do it en mass).

The total suitable land area needed (more than the area of the USA, by my estimate) is much more likely to be the limiting factor than the per-person difficulty.

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#109

Post by 11235813213455 »

village-idiot wrote: post #103
jweir wrote: post #57

But, wait... some places are clearing forest for solar farms. Georgetown https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/01/georgetow... Rhode Island https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190414/proposed-ri-... Prineville Oregon(I dont' know how many trees will be cleared for this, maybe it will be on existing farmland) https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2018/07/massive_so...

All things considered, clearing a forest to help wean us of natural gas and oil is probably a net positive.

nuclear power is significantly more (space-, energy-, ..) efficient and clean than solar farms https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...

Re: Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions

#110

Post by mikestew »

jandrese wrote: post #76
burlesona wrote: post #61

Not to be too snarky, but my first reaction to the headline was, “ only 1.2 trillion? What are we waiting for!” More seriously, though: the article claims there’s “ample acreage” for such an endeavor but I didn’t see where exactly they’re referring to. Are we supposed to imagine these are sprinkled here and there around the earth, and that there’s plenty of space just waiting for a tree to be planted, or is this some…

That's only 160 trees for every man, woman, and child on Earth... It doesn't seem like a particularly practical solution.

One could plant that many pine saplings in a weekend with good hand tools. Mechanize it, spread the cost amongst many, I believe it wouldn’t cost, relative to what it offsetting, all that much. Land acquisition would probably be the larger obstacle.
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