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I think it would be far more manageable to just plant more trees. They were optimized for millions of years to pull CO2 out of the air and store it in the form

I think it would be far more manageable to just plant more trees. They were optimized for millions of years to pull CO2 out of the air and store it in the form of wood which is a fantastic material by the way. And trees are not only a simple but a scalable solution.

jartelt 8y ago
Trees are scalable in that you can keep planting them at low cost, but no where near effective enough at sequestering carbon. Even if you cover all agricultural land in the world with trees, you won't sequester enough carbon to prevent climate change.
- deleted 8y ago
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- bwreilly 8y ago
  We can achieve ⅓ of the global emissions reductions called for in The Paris Agreement with ‘Natural Climate Solutions’ - replanting trees, rangelands, and fire response and restoration. https://nature4climate.org/resource-centre/messaging/ https://nature4climate.org/resource-centre/messaging/
bwreilly 8y ago
The article mentions the difficulty of scaling reforestation and afforestation. It is currently a fairly manual (and physically brutal) task which usually involves (energy intensive) greenhouses/nurseries. That said, there are some groups that are working on addressing scaling reforestation right now (and we are hiring engineers). https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/26/that-night-a-forest-flew-droneseed-is-planting-trees-from-the-air/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/26/that-night-a-forest-flew-d... https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/08/drones-seeds-fires-how-droneseed-plants-trees-from-the-sky/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/08/drones-seeds-fires-how-... It’s also worth mentioning that rangeland vegetation can have a critical role to play. It doesn’t seems as obvious/flashy, but they tend to have an enormous root structure and can prevent state changes (e.g., desertification).
tasuki 8y ago
Plus they're nicer to look at than the CO2-capturing-factory on the pictures.

jartelt 8y ago

Trees are scalable in that you can keep planting them at low cost, but no where near effective enough at sequestering carbon. Even if you cover all agricultural land in the world with trees, you won't sequester enough carbon to prevent climate change.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bwreilly 8y ago
We can achieve ⅓ of the global emissions reductions called for in The Paris Agreement with ‘Natural Climate Solutions’ - replanting trees, rangelands, and fire response and restoration. https://nature4climate.org/resource-centre/messaging/ https://nature4climate.org/resource-centre/messaging/

bwreilly 8y ago

The article mentions the difficulty of scaling reforestation and afforestation. It is currently a fairly manual (and physically brutal) task which usually involves (energy intensive) greenhouses/nurseries. That said, there are some groups that are working on addressing scaling reforestation right now (and we are hiring engineers). https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/26/that-night-a-forest-flew-droneseed-is-planting-trees-from-the-air/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/26/that-night-a-forest-flew-d... https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/08/drones-seeds-fires-how-droneseed-plants-trees-from-the-sky/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/02/08/drones-seeds-fires-how-... It’s also worth mentioning that rangeland vegetation can have a critical role to play. It doesn’t seems as obvious/flashy, but they tend to have an enormous root structure and can prevent state changes (e.g., desertification).

tasuki 8y ago

Plus they're nicer to look at than the CO2-capturing-factory on the pictures.