4 ms·

Sometimes I'm surprised how cheap land is. You can get an acre of grazing land for maybe 5 grand in the right area (if you buy in bulk), in a place conducive to

Sometimes I'm surprised how cheap land is. You can get an acre of grazing land for maybe 5 grand in the right area (if you buy in bulk), in a place conducive to rainfall and reforestation (Ireland). I've looked at this and there are grants, but they're paltry (maybe a grand a year for 3 acres?) and you give up the right to do whatever you like with the land, like graze it.

circlefavshape 8y ago
I did some back-of-an-envelope calculations on converting beef grazing land (with its high methane emissions) to forest, specifically for Ireland tl;dr - it's not cheap, but it's doable A cow produces around 2.3 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year [1] You need 0.184 hectares of grazing land per cow [2] So each hectare of beef-grazing land emits around 12.5 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year Irish forests sequester on average 3.36 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year [3] So converting beef-grazing land to forest offsets around 15.86 tonnes of CO2 per year per hectare. Cost of grazing land is around €25k/hectare [4] Cost of planting a forest is around EUR3k per hectare [5] So the cost of offsetting 1 tonne of carbon per year by converting beef-grazing land to forest is around €1750 Ireland's total emissions are around 61 million tonnes per year [6] So to offset it ALL would cost over a hundred billion euro, and a little more grazing land than actually exists in the country (and not all of that is beef anyway) Or in other words, offsetting carbon by converting beef grazing land to forest would take around 1 billion euro per percent of our total current emissions. To put that in context - Irish govt spending is currently around EUR75 billion per year [7], and under the Paris Agreement we're committed to a 30% reduction of emissions by 2030 [8] [1] https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2 https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-m... [2] https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/statistics-and-links/frequently-asked-questions/grazing-infrastructure/ https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/statistics-and-links/fr... [3] http://woodenergy.ie/media/coford/content/publications/projectreports/cofordconnects/CarbonSequestration.pdf http://woodenergy.ie/media/coford/content/publications/proje... [4] https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/2018-agricultural-land-values-rose-steadily/ https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/2018-agricultural-land-... [5] https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/establishment/reforestation/ https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/establishment/r... [6] https://www.rte.ie/news/enviroment/2018/1205/1015300-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ https://www.rte.ie/news/enviroment/2018/1205/1015300-greenho... [7] https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/2018/ https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/2018/ [8] https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/topics/eu-and-international-climate-action/2020-eu-targets/Pages/default.aspx https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/topics/eu-and-...
- CalRobert 8y ago
  Thanks for that! Really appreciate it. It explains why most of the forestry is on land not suited to a lot else.

circlefavshape 8y ago

I did some back-of-an-envelope calculations on converting beef grazing land (with its high methane emissions) to forest, specifically for Ireland tl;dr - it's not cheap, but it's doable A cow produces around 2.3 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year [1] You need 0.184 hectares of grazing land per cow [2] So each hectare of beef-grazing land emits around 12.5 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year Irish forests sequester on average 3.36 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year [3] So converting beef-grazing land to forest offsets around 15.86 tonnes of CO2 per year per hectare. Cost of grazing land is around €25k/hectare [4] Cost of planting a forest is around EUR3k per hectare [5] So the cost of offsetting 1 tonne of carbon per year by converting beef-grazing land to forest is around €1750 Ireland's total emissions are around 61 million tonnes per year [6] So to offset it ALL would cost over a hundred billion euro, and a little more grazing land than actually exists in the country (and not all of that is beef anyway) Or in other words, offsetting carbon by converting beef grazing land to forest would take around 1 billion euro per percent of our total current emissions. To put that in context - Irish govt spending is currently around EUR75 billion per year [7], and under the Paris Agreement we're committed to a 30% reduction of emissions by 2030 [8] [1] https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2 https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-m... [2] https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/statistics-and-links/frequently-asked-questions/grazing-infrastructure/ https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/statistics-and-links/fr... [3] http://woodenergy.ie/media/coford/content/publications/projectreports/cofordconnects/CarbonSequestration.pdf http://woodenergy.ie/media/coford/content/publications/proje... [4] https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/2018-agricultural-land-values-rose-steadily/ https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/2018-agricultural-land-... [5] https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/establishment/reforestation/ https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/establishment/r... [6] https://www.rte.ie/news/enviroment/2018/1205/1015300-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ https://www.rte.ie/news/enviroment/2018/1205/1015300-greenho... [7] https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/2018/ https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/2018/ [8] https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/topics/eu-and-international-climate-action/2020-eu-targets/Pages/default.aspx https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/topics/eu-and-...

CalRobert 8y ago
Thanks for that! Really appreciate it. It explains why most of the forestry is on land not suited to a lot else.