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Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#61

Post by jartelt »

hahajk wrote: post #54
pmontra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one thing that I don't understand. I plant 1000 trees, I sequester the CO2 I create by driving, heating my home and all the activities done by third parties to keep me alive (food, hospitals, etc). But that CO2 is still under the sky and most of it will be released when the trees die. It's not like we're pumping it back into oil fields or coal mines and never see it again. So this 1T trees initiative is a st…

Don’t plants convert CO2 into O2 and sugar, meaning the CO2 no longer exists? When the tree dies what mechanism causes CO2 to be released?

Fungi, bugs, bacteria, etc. break down the tree. Some CO2 gets released during this process and then CO2 gets released when the bugs die and decompose. CO2 also gets released if the dead forest burns.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#62

Post by ShlomoS »

Iv wrote: post #53
pmontra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one thing that I don't understand. I plant 1000 trees, I sequester the CO2 I create by driving, heating my home and all the activities done by third parties to keep me alive (food, hospitals, etc). But that CO2 is still under the sky and most of it will be released when the trees die. It's not like we're pumping it back into oil fields or coal mines and never see it again. So this 1T trees initiative is a st…

The goal is to increase the biomass. There is no reason it stays constant. More soil, more forest, higher trees. I tried to find literature, but came back empty handed, on whether it is better to let tree grows on a parcel, or cut grass regularly and let it compost, adding biomass to it.

>whether it is better to let tree grows on a parcel, or cut grass regularly and let it compost, adding biomass to it.

Of those two options, trees. Compost does not sequester carbon in and of itself. That's a wishful thinking myth that is based on a lack of understanding of soil. Compost is organic matter, in various stages of life, death and decay. We want soil to have more organic matter. So people assumed adding compost to dirt would accomplish this. It does not. The organic matter is decomposed into CO2 and returns to the atmosphere. We need to increase STABLE organic matter in the soil, and compost does not do that simply by adding it to dirt. The only thing that creates stable organic matter is microbes living in the rhizosphere in symbiosis with plants. In order to increase soil SOM, we need more root mass. The way compost can help is to plant a forest or meadow and keep soaking it in compost tea so that the roots get deeper and deeper, expanding the rhizosphere and the depth of the soil. Normal roots will only grow as deep as there are symbiotic microbes, and yet those microbes will only live where there are roots, so there's a catch-22. We can use the microbes in compost, dissolved into water as compost tea, to get microbes deeper than the roots, so the roots go deeper, and then keep doing that. There's people with grass that has 20 foot deep roots from doing this.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#63

Post by repiret »

hahajk wrote: post #54
pmontra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one thing that I don't understand. I plant 1000 trees, I sequester the CO2 I create by driving, heating my home and all the activities done by third parties to keep me alive (food, hospitals, etc). But that CO2 is still under the sky and most of it will be released when the trees die. It's not like we're pumping it back into oil fields or coal mines and never see it again. So this 1T trees initiative is a st…

Don’t plants convert CO2 into O2 and sugar, meaning the CO2 no longer exists? When the tree dies what mechanism causes CO2 to be released?

Decomposition. Organisms that feed on the dead tree consume the sugars and O2 and make CO2.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#64

Post by aresant »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #47
aresant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No easy way to plot this - planting trees to sequester CO2 may or may not have a net positive impact at scale for a variety of reasons: 1) The timescale is very long - a single tree to drive carbon neutrality is MOST optimistically pegged at 40 - 100 years depending on species. With expanding populations planning or guaranteeing execution on that time scale is limited. AKA it's very unlikely that most efforts, unless…

This got voted down in a hurry. Every point seems valid and robust, so why?

Maybe sounds too much like spouting from the climate change denier camp?

Which I am the opposite of.

There are a lot of flower & daisy soft solutions to C02.

Drive to the suburban forest in your SUV, plant 100 trees that will inevitably be cut down long before they have a carbon negative impact, come home and run your AC.

You're still running 1000/1 in negative C02 balance.

Vs finds ways to dramatically cut use, double down on investigative hard solutions like nuclear and major infrastructure projects like mass transport, car banning, new taxation on major freight (sea and road) to force efficiency adoption etc.

Lots of hard solutions are readily available to solving the problem, but by definition they're hard.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#65

Post by tunesmith »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #47
aresant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No easy way to plot this - planting trees to sequester CO2 may or may not have a net positive impact at scale for a variety of reasons: 1) The timescale is very long - a single tree to drive carbon neutrality is MOST optimistically pegged at 40 - 100 years depending on species. With expanding populations planning or guaranteeing execution on that time scale is limited. AKA it's very unlikely that most efforts, unless…

This got voted down in a hurry. Every point seems valid and robust, so why?

I didn't downvote, but I suspect those counterpoints are second-order and very minor compared to the sequestration rates of a tree itself. I can't bring myself to believe that because of those counterpoints, every new tree on average sequesters zero carbon. The important stat is on average, how much carbon does each new tree sequester; that's what drives the models.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#66

Post by dleslie »

notatoad wrote: post #16
dleslie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rules require archeological, environmental, and civic planning assessments; as well as permission from the land owner.

did you read a different article? "In England, you would not need planning permission to plant less than two hectares (20,000 sq metres) in a low risk area, it said."

Of course I did.

How do you expect one determines an area to be low-risk? To do so requires assessment from all stakeholders who could deem it not to be low-risk.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#67

Post by tunesmith »

aresant wrote: post #64
tempguy9999 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This got voted down in a hurry. Every point seems valid and robust, so why?

Maybe sounds too much like spouting from the climate change denier camp? Which I am the opposite of. There are a lot of flower & daisy soft solutions to C02. Drive to the suburban forest in your SUV, plant 100 trees that will inevitably be cut down long before they have a carbon negative impact, come home and run your AC. You're still running 1000/1 in negative C02 balance. Vs finds ways to dramatically cut use, doub…

We've gotta get past the argument pattern of "don't reduce consumption; sequester!" and "don't sequester; reduce consumption!" A lot of both are needed.

I agree with the point that planting 100 trees should not leave anyone feeling they've done their part. Repeating the math until we're blue in the face is what helps there I guess.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#68

Post by jxcl »

Jolter wrote: post #43
TeMPOraL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a stupid thought yesterday that I need to run numbers on, but I wonder if following would be possible: Allocate some large area of ground for planting fast-growing trees. Dig a large and deep hole in the middle; something like 20 meters in diameter x 500 meters in depth. Let the trees grow; when they're mature, cut them down, throw into the hole, and throw a bunch of dirt (from the mound you made by digging the…

No, because the buried wood would decompose. Decomposing wood releases its stored carbon as carbon dioxide, which will slowly evaporate through the covering dirt. One scheme that actually would work is to convert the wood to coal, then burying it. That could be done without adding any energy by using old-fashioned methods for charcoal burning. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal_burner Because charcoal is chemic…

Converting wood to charcoal is a process that requires a lot of energy, so you'd need to keep that in mind when you make your carbon calculations.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#69

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

hillz wrote: post #34
pmontra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one thing that I don't understand. I plant 1000 trees, I sequester the CO2 I create by driving, heating my home and all the activities done by third parties to keep me alive (food, hospitals, etc). But that CO2 is still under the sky and most of it will be released when the trees die. It's not like we're pumping it back into oil fields or coal mines and never see it again. So this 1T trees initiative is a st…

If a tree is planted, grows, and then for example is burned down and paved over, that'd be true. But if a tree grows and eventually dies in a forest, it'll be replaced with new trees naturally, cancelling out the CO2 leaked from the tree dying. This C02 can also be stalled by harvesting the tree and using it in some way that stops C02 from being released for a longer time than natural.

I did some math on this, and if all the countries in the advanced world planted fast growing trees alongside all paved and unpaved roads, over 40 years, that could potentially be enough to sequester half of all carbon emitted by humans.

Given that carbon has a half life of between 20-200 years, and that we appear to be reaching peak emissions, and that a lot of estimates say our emissions should drop by 70% just given how often we replace power plants and how completive renewables are right now and are projected to be in the future -- it seems like planting trees really could be enough.

Re: Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

#70

Post by pmoriarty »

aresant wrote: post #64
tempguy9999 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This got voted down in a hurry. Every point seems valid and robust, so why?

Maybe sounds too much like spouting from the climate change denier camp? Which I am the opposite of. There are a lot of flower & daisy soft solutions to C02. Drive to the suburban forest in your SUV, plant 100 trees that will inevitably be cut down long before they have a carbon negative impact, come home and run your AC. You're still running 1000/1 in negative C02 balance. Vs finds ways to dramatically cut use, doub…

"Drive to the suburban forest in your SUV, plant 100 trees that will inevitably be cut down long before they have a carbon negative impact, come home and run your AC. You're still running 1000/1 in negative C02 balance."

So do 1000 times that, and don't plant them in a suburban forest but one that will stay around longer. Or contribute money to tree planting initiatives who do it right.

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