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Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

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Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#71

Post by 0xy »

gklitz wrote: post #55
ksec wrote: post #16

Before I go into rage mode, I suppose I should ask, why Farmland? Both Denmark and Netherland are big in agriculture export and they are very good at it. I am not against planting trees but it on top of farm land doesn't make any sense to me.

Because it’s becoming increasingly obviously dumb to be paying farmers money to pretend like they are farming their land. What I mean is that if we removed the subsidies the farmers wouldn’t farm their land, the market just doesn’t work to support their production. So we are essentially saying “if you pretend to farm your land we’ll make sure you profit” but even at that they of cause need to try to keep the pretend…

Do you think food production has national security implications or do you think "the market" will be happy to sell you food during another global conflict while their own citizens are starving?

Farming subsidies are a national security tool, not a handout.

Anyway, it's clear that your position is political in nature otherwise you'd be just as outraged by green subsidies.

Denmark set aside DKK 53.5 billion for green subsidies in 2022. But this isn't market distortion to the same degree as farming subsidies, is it? That's the flaw in your argument. It's inconsistently applied based on politics, isn't it?

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#72

Post by usrnm »

phil21 wrote: post #58
ksec wrote: post #16

Before I go into rage mode, I suppose I should ask, why Farmland? Both Denmark and Netherland are big in agriculture export and they are very good at it. I am not against planting trees but it on top of farm land doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm of the opinion food security - even at great expense - is the primary thing a nation should be concerned with as a society. At the level where producing enough calories to feed your total population if things truly hit the fan as a hard requirement for every nation on the planet. This is not something you leave to "free trade" or whatnot. Obviously that doesn't mean every calorie need be provided in the most luxu…

> That all said - farming has gotten vastly more productive both per man hour and per acre over the past 100 years

We also have way more people to feed and house than 100 years ago, you cannot look at productivity increase in isolation, demand for both food and land has also risen significantly.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#73

Post by microtonal »

cpursley wrote: post #60
microtonal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what the industry has been saying here for decades and they tried a lot of things, but the problem has only gotten worse. At some point you have to say - apparently you can't fix it, so we have to buy out farmers near nature reserves. But the farmers have been intimidating politicians by blocking highways and inner cities with tractors and other equipment. Funnily, if anyone else does this they get arrested, b…

How do we keep people fed after shutting down farming (at a reasonable cost)? The entire thing seems anti-human…

Eating less meat?

The questions are mainly targeted at the consumption of animal products: meat, dairy products and eggs. Their research shows that reducing the consumption of animal products, and therefore switching from a meat-eating to a vegetarian or vegan diet, reduces land requirements by two-thirds.

https://www.uu.nl/en/news/calculate-the-land-use-impact-of-y...

Not everyone even has to stop eating meat. Just reducing meat consumption to 1-2 days per week would go a long way.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#74

Post by kolinko »

zo1 wrote: post #42
sidcool wrote: post #3

Didn't Bill Gates once say that planting trees has no impact on global warming?

You could plant a trillion trees tomorrow but it won't help anything so long as places like China and India pollute the oceans with millions of tones of plastic waste trash every year. That's in the thousands of tones per day region. The sheer scale of pollution there makes Denmark's measly little contribution just that, peanuts. No wonder the farmers are upset. They're destroying their own industry and people's live…

Plastic pollution in the oceans has nothing to do with climate change.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#75

Post by fatuna »

cpursley wrote: post #60
microtonal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what the industry has been saying here for decades and they tried a lot of things, but the problem has only gotten worse. At some point you have to say - apparently you can't fix it, so we have to buy out farmers near nature reserves. But the farmers have been intimidating politicians by blocking highways and inner cities with tractors and other equipment. Funnily, if anyone else does this they get arrested, b…

How do we keep people fed after shutting down farming (at a reasonable cost)? The entire thing seems anti-human…

Nobody wants to shut down all the farming, just reduce it. For example, the Netherlands produces 250% of its own meat consumption. Since it's subsidized, the net financial gain is very low. You could say reducing the production to 125/150% of consumption would leave enough for local consumption plus a little export in good times or a buffer in bad times.

Unfortunately, big agricultural companies hired a marketing company to start a political party which claims to be pro local/small farmers, but is actually just pro big agriculture.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#76

Post by jltsiren »

pkulak wrote: post #11

No they won't. If they started tomorrow planting 100,000 trees a day, and never took a single day off, they would finish up in 2052. What kind of nursery can even grow 100,000 saplings of conifer a day? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-climate-deniers-pl...

It would take a couple of years at the scale Finnish forest industry is operating.

Large parts of Europe are basically forests that have been temporarily cut down. If you let the land be, the forest will often grow back with minimal effort.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#77

Post by nobodywillobsrv »

chickenbig wrote: post #47
timc3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just having farmland be fields is not very good for the land or the eco system. Breaking up farmland with hedges, woods, wetlands or whatever nature decides it should be is often a good idea. Next best thing is to manually plant trees. Edit: add planting trees

> Breaking up farmland One thing I have wondered was the relative benefits of a concentrated wilderness versus distributed habitat. The common agricultural policy set-aside distributes payments for the wilderness across many farms (for equity, one supposes), whereas a concentrated wilderness would benefit few (and probably only the landowners).

For a short period I looked into carbon stuff and while forests were good, wetlands were deemed much bigger sinks.

It feels like wetlands is a huge ignored area. If what I read at the time holds (I think it was like 6-12x sequestration rate in some regions), a simple thing like rising sea levels would have a huge impact.

And anthropogenic destruction of wetlands is also a huge issue and one that is relatively easy to reverse in a lot cases (dams, rerouted rivers). And in some cases, water can just be rerouted occasionally to create temperarly wetlands that are good ecosystems as well. Mossy Earth I think is doing some of these.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#78

Post by awjlogan »

0xy wrote: post #71
gklitz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s becoming increasingly obviously dumb to be paying farmers money to pretend like they are farming their land. What I mean is that if we removed the subsidies the farmers wouldn’t farm their land, the market just doesn’t work to support their production. So we are essentially saying “if you pretend to farm your land we’ll make sure you profit” but even at that they of cause need to try to keep the pretend…

Do you think food production has national security implications or do you think "the market" will be happy to sell you food during another global conflict while their own citizens are starving? Farming subsidies are a national security tool, not a handout. Anyway, it's clear that your position is political in nature otherwise you'd be just as outraged by green subsidies. Denmark set aside DKK 53.5 billion for green s…

There’s a big difference between supporting food security and subsidising otherwise unviable land usage and farming practices. In the UK, there are subsidies for upland farming for sheep with produces a negligible amount of food at high cost (monetary and environmental) for next to no return for the farmers even after the subsidy.

Re. green subsidies that is better characterised as investment in technology of the future. You might also like to compare subsidies to the fossil fuel sector as well.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#79

Post by _w1tm »

0xy wrote: post #71
gklitz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s becoming increasingly obviously dumb to be paying farmers money to pretend like they are farming their land. What I mean is that if we removed the subsidies the farmers wouldn’t farm their land, the market just doesn’t work to support their production. So we are essentially saying “if you pretend to farm your land we’ll make sure you profit” but even at that they of cause need to try to keep the pretend…

Do you think food production has national security implications or do you think "the market" will be happy to sell you food during another global conflict while their own citizens are starving? Farming subsidies are a national security tool, not a handout. Anyway, it's clear that your position is political in nature otherwise you'd be just as outraged by green subsidies. Denmark set aside DKK 53.5 billion for green s…

How does having such a large surplus that you’re an exporter of food jive with national security? It sounds like they already produce more than enough. Exposing food production entirely to market forces is, as you point out, a bad idea.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#80

Post by cpursley »

kolinko wrote: post #68
cpursley wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The math here is quite simple. A single cow can produce around 250 to 500 liters of methane per day through belching and farting. Let's take an average of 400 liters/day. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. 400 liters/day × 365 days = 146,000 liters/year. Convert to kilograms (since methane’s density is ~0.656 kg/m³): 146,000 liters = 146 m³ → 146 × 0.656 kg = 95.8 kg of methane/year per cow. Methane has a global war…

Cool. Now compare cow farts to all other sources, that’s the only metric that matters.
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