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Actually, it's possible to remove all the extra CO2 just by planting trees (not to detract from all the other things we should be doing). Furthermore, it's aff

Actually, it's possible to remove all the extra CO2 just by planting trees (not to detract from all the other things we should be doing). Furthermore, it's affordable: $15/average US resident/year. I wrote a blog post about it recently: https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-change-with-trees.html https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-chang...

_rpd 8y ago
> Actually, it's possible to remove all the extra CO2 just by planting trees The linked, peer-reviewed paper in Nature says otherwise. Perhaps you could review it and point out their mistake?
- ph0rque 8y ago
  Here's a paper saying there is room for 1.2 trillion more trees to be planted: https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/ez-pcc021119.php https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/ez-pcc021119.php Perhaps you could track down the discrepancy in the statements?
xyzzyz 8y ago
So, to offset his carbon emissions, American must plant 150 trees a year, ensure that they grow for at least 10 years, and then ensure that the CO2 captured by them doesn’t get rereleased. This means that we need space for at least 3 trillion trees, which is three times the space available, based on the figure in your link. Ensuring that the CO2 doesn’t get rereleased means that all that lumber needs to be buried or sunk, since this is way more lumber than the humanity actually uses productively. Additionally, this would mean doing heavy industrial management of all this immense forest area to cut and bury all these hundreds of billions of trees a year. This would require digging huge pits, transporting lots of heavy material to them, at extra emissions. And that’s for American emission only, which are only a fraction of global emissions. And of course we ignore the question why would you want to bury all this wood while keeping digging out all the fossils, when you could be using the same wood to generate energy instead. So no, while this might work to pacify the conscience of an individual, it makes absolutely no sense to do it at scale.
- ph0rque 8y ago
  Actually, if the trees are burned or otherwise re-release their carbon, the subsequent re-planting will take care of re-re-capturing that carbon. If any of the trees die or are cut down, a new one can be planted in its place. If it still living and thriving, it should be naturally left alone. Also, for ten years, 327 million Americans each planting 1.5k trees comes out to half a trillion trees. The link in my blog says there is room for 1.2 trillion trees to be planted, so the math works out.
  - timClicks 8y ago
    When the trees die, won't the carbon be re-introduced to the atmosphere over time via microbial decomposition of the wood? That is, once the microbes that eat the trees die, they'll be eaten by something that is eventually eaten by something on the surface, thus releasing the carbon sequestered by the tree.
    - ph0rque 8y ago
      Yes, that could happen. Replacing the dead tree with a seedling will re-capture that carbon and return to a net-zero atmospheric carbon balance. Also, there are many situations where a net-negative amount of carbon could be released into the atmosphere: the tree could be used as lumber to build something, thus not decomposing. Or it could be partially or fully buried, sequestering some or most of the carbon in the soil.
      - xyzzyz 8y ago
        Using it as lumber will only extend the time period when the carbon is sequestered, but won’t sequester it permanently. You need to bury it for that, and bury it deep enough so that it doesn’t decompose. More importantly, the actual lumber consumption is trivial. America consumes half of a single tree per capita annually[1]. Even if you assume that this half of a single tree gets sequestered permanently (which is not realistic), that’s a far, far cry from 150 trees yearly. Really, this is all so silly: if you can grow so much biomass to offset all carbon emissions, why wouldn’t you burn that biomass instead of burning fossils and burying the biomass? It makes no sense, like most of the feel-good green plans. [1] - https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/50895 https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/50895

_rpd 8y ago

> Actually, it's possible to remove all the extra CO2 just by planting trees The linked, peer-reviewed paper in Nature says otherwise. Perhaps you could review it and point out their mistake?

ph0rque 8y ago
Here's a paper saying there is room for 1.2 trillion more trees to be planted: https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/ez-pcc021119.php https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/ez-pcc021119.php Perhaps you could track down the discrepancy in the statements?

xyzzyz 8y ago

So, to offset his carbon emissions, American must plant 150 trees a year, ensure that they grow for at least 10 years, and then ensure that the CO2 captured by them doesn’t get rereleased. This means that we need space for at least 3 trillion trees, which is three times the space available, based on the figure in your link. Ensuring that the CO2 doesn’t get rereleased means that all that lumber needs to be buried or sunk, since this is way more lumber than the humanity actually uses productively. Additionally, this would mean doing heavy industrial management of all this immense forest area to cut and bury all these hundreds of billions of trees a year. This would require digging huge pits, transporting lots of heavy material to them, at extra emissions. And that’s for American emission only, which are only a fraction of global emissions. And of course we ignore the question why would you want to bury all this wood while keeping digging out all the fossils, when you could be using the same wood to generate energy instead. So no, while this might work to pacify the conscience of an individual, it makes absolutely no sense to do it at scale.

ph0rque 8y ago
Actually, if the trees are burned or otherwise re-release their carbon, the subsequent re-planting will take care of re-re-capturing that carbon. If any of the trees die or are cut down, a new one can be planted in its place. If it still living and thriving, it should be naturally left alone. Also, for ten years, 327 million Americans each planting 1.5k trees comes out to half a trillion trees. The link in my blog says there is room for 1.2 trillion trees to be planted, so the math works out.
- timClicks 8y ago
  When the trees die, won't the carbon be re-introduced to the atmosphere over time via microbial decomposition of the wood? That is, once the microbes that eat the trees die, they'll be eaten by something that is eventually eaten by something on the surface, thus releasing the carbon sequestered by the tree.
  - ph0rque 8y ago
    Yes, that could happen. Replacing the dead tree with a seedling will re-capture that carbon and return to a net-zero atmospheric carbon balance. Also, there are many situations where a net-negative amount of carbon could be released into the atmosphere: the tree could be used as lumber to build something, thus not decomposing. Or it could be partially or fully buried, sequestering some or most of the carbon in the soil.
    - xyzzyz 8y ago
      Using it as lumber will only extend the time period when the carbon is sequestered, but won’t sequester it permanently. You need to bury it for that, and bury it deep enough so that it doesn’t decompose. More importantly, the actual lumber consumption is trivial. America consumes half of a single tree per capita annually[1]. Even if you assume that this half of a single tree gets sequestered permanently (which is not realistic), that’s a far, far cry from 150 trees yearly. Really, this is all so silly: if you can grow so much biomass to offset all carbon emissions, why wouldn’t you burn that biomass instead of burning fossils and burying the biomass? It makes no sense, like most of the feel-good green plans. [1] - https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/50895 https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/50895