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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

#81

Post by cpursley »

inglor_cz wrote: post #4

In many parts of Europe, forested areas have actually grown since the 20th and especially the 19th century. People no longer use wood as a fuel, or in very small amounts compared to the past, and some former pastures have been re-colonized by trees. Czechia is currently 34 per cent forest. Used to be less than 20 per cent in the Theresian cadastre (mid 18-th century).

It’s the same in America, there’s actually more trees now than at the time of European settlement. A combo of the large buffalo herds that used to roam and native land management that often involved burning entire forests.

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

#82

Post by cpursley »

Sabinus wrote: post #10

Good luck. In the less cohesive Western countries efforts like this are met with both protest by farmers who view their providing calories as almost a sacred task, and by foreign agitprop that proposes any effort that makes it harder to farm is an attempt at subjugating the people.

Feeding people is a sacred task. Food is literally the base pillar of various human needs pyramids.

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

#83

Post by skrause »

whitehexagon wrote: post #50

Southern Europe seems to be converting farmland into solar farms. And new forests seem to be all monoculture Eucalyptus, fast growing for commercial reasons, but sadly empty of wildlife. As much as I'd love for Europe to be reforested, the reduced food security might come back to bite us.

Food security is not an issue at all. For example in Germany around 20% of all farmland is used for "energy plants" (biogas etc.). Even in Germany solar planels have around a 28 times higher efficiency per area than biogas plants, so there is a lot of potential to repurpose farm land without changing food production at all.

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

#84

Post by eesmith »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #52
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.

Haiti cut down all their trees. When a hurricane passes through it moves what little top soil they have into the ocean.[1] Haiti overfished their costal waters. Now they do not have fish to eat and worse can not participate in the single biggest economic driver in the Caribbean, scuba diving. Planting trees on farms is incredibly important for maintaining and protecting the soil. The Americans learned that the hard w…

> The Americans learned that the hard way in the 1930s.

Grasses, not trees, maintained and protected the soil for what became the US Dust Bowl.

The "Great American Desert" was essentially treeless. As your [2] links points out, European agricultural methods "[exposed] the bare, over-plowed farmland. Without deep-rooted prairie grasses to hold the soil in place, it began to blow away."

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

#85

Post by rightbyte »

Epa095 wrote: post #69
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the least productive 10% of land represents a much smaller percentage of food production. This is often land in areas that are most environmentally sensitive. In the UK we pay farmers to raise lamb on marginal land yet they still aren't competitive with lamb shipped from the other side of the world. I'm not sure why we should be subsidising that, especially when there is a lot of environmental damaged associated…

Could food security in case of another global crisis be a good enough reason? I don't know anything about the British situation AT ALL, but I think many in Europe think slightly different about the market-based solution when it comes to both food, medicines, and other essentials after corona. It turns out that when shit hits the fan, countries need to handle the basic needs of their population themselves.

You'd need firewood too.

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

#86

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

cpursley wrote: post #80
kolinko wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A quick search shows that global c02 emissions are about 35 billion tons.

So the cow farts are a bit less than 8%. That isn't insignificant.

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

#87

Post by StackRanker3000 »

cpursley wrote: post #31
mdorazio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where else would you like them to plant trees? Tearing up residential areas to convert to forest would be massively expensive and likely unpopular.

Places that used to be forested and are not productive farmland. There’s lots of places like this, just maybe not in Denmark.

That last bit is correct, there aren’t many places like that in Denmark. So the original question remains, where would be a better place for them specifically to plant these trees?

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

#88

Post by aziaziazi »

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…

The project aims at shit to no only a portions of the farms, and especially one from the meat industry. They’ll still have plenty of food.

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

#89

Post by pvaldes »

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 think that there is an official and an unofficial reason. The official is that something must be returned to nature before climate change destroys everything. The unofficial is, in my opinion, that EU politicians are terrified by US elections.

In all western countries, far right groups are crawling to grab more and more power gradually. Those groups feed basically on farmer followers, ruthlessly brainwashed with fake news, antiscience and outrage, and the system has proven to work well (See US).

Until now traditional parties believed that could control the situation and appease the farmers with more money, and maybe even benefit of some votes of grateful people on return. The wake up has being brutal. Each euro given to farmers is just a victory reclaimed by this groups, that nurture a higher discontent.

So now that they are coming for they political heads and the time is running out, traditional politicians feel the pressure to take some delayed unpleasant decisions before is too late, and getting rid of the fake farmers to build a market from there is a first step. If fake farmers can sell subsidized meat for a lower price, the real farmers suffer for it.

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

#90

Post by pvaldes »

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…

Destroying fisheries goes directly against food security. Fishes are more efficient as source of food by energetic reasons.
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