Planting 1.2T Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by nichos » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #115

Panino wrote: post #46

A good way to take part in increasing the number of trees, if you own your own home, is to improve the state of your shade trees. The trees absorb atmospheric carbon while also reducing home temperatures in summer, which in turn reduces the electricity people use for cooling. (And you save money!!) So a shade tree is a particularly effective way to reduce both atmospheric CO2 and electric bills. You might think of sh…

Where do you live where shade trees are a thing?

Here in North Florida, shade trees are very desirable when buying a home. Water and live oaks, magnolia and pines are very common here.

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

#152

Post by JesseAldridge » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #125

cure wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for those two huge externalities that are never priced in and always overlooked by people who say nuclear is 'clean': the waste that will remain toxic for a very long time, and the risk of accidents (slim, but the consequences are really, really, really bad).

Installing solar panels kills more people than nuclear ever has by orders of magnitude. We have the tech to deal with nuclear waste, we’ve just never spent the money to productionalize it. Look into “sub-critical nuclear reactors”, which “burn” nuclear waste for even more electricity!

> Installing solar panels kills more people than nuclear ever has by orders of magnitude.

Wait, what? Really?

“With solar, people fall off roofs installing panels — the health and safety standards are not the same.”

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/sa-business-journal/...

Haha, didn't know that one.

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

#153

Post by IvanK_net » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

I think we need a system, where the rest of the world will pay countries like Brazil or Indonesia to keep their current rainforests.

Currently, we are paying them to cut down rainforests and plant oil palms, so that we can buy cheap oil from them.

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

#154

Post by rebuilder » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

filleokus wrote: post #77

My gut reaction to suggestions like this one is that it seems so hard to do stuff that is as geographically distributed as this. I mean, to plant a billion trees we need to find suitable locations that have an enormous area (twice the US per some comment here). The odds, I'm guessing, are that this will be spread among many/all the continents over multiple countries, involving so many local stakeholders and potential…

The problem with a push-button solution like you describe is that anyone trying it would be fighting an exponential growth curve. Economic growth remains closely correlated with increased demand for energy. Any solution that doesn't address the consumption side of the equation will run into a brick wall sooner or later.

At the current rate of growth, we're not that far from directly producing more heat than the earth can radiate into space.

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

#155

Post by ww520 » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

I wish the government gives money or tax credit to home owners for planting trees, like X amount for first year and a little bit more every year for the next 5 years, instead of the punitive approach some cities taking now.

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

#156

Post by bjourne » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

I made some rough calculations yesterday and user strainer corrected me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701879 It would seem that even with his corrections and this article's data capturing carbon isn't feasible. 1.2T trees increases earth's forestation by 40% but only nets us 10 years of emissions. It seems very inefficient in relation to trying to reduce emissions.

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

#157

Post by gigatexal » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

If there’s land for them to be planted let’s do it!

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

#158

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#159

Post by sooham » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

At one tree per second It would take 38000 years to plant 1.2 trillion trees. This proposition is beyond our currently available resources.

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

#160

Post by dev_dull » Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

sooham wrote: post #159

At one tree per second It would take 38000 years to plant 1.2 trillion trees. This proposition is beyond our currently available resources.

That sounds more doable than current legislation that would cost more money than exist in the entire world.