4 ms·

A glimmer of hope? Waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of "it will cost too much", "politically it's not possible", or some such...

kibwen 7y ago
I think part of the appeal of this plan, aside from its theorized effectiveness, is that it doesn't require any political buy-in. People can plant trees all on their own. That said, a trillion is a quantity larger than any human has the ability to intuitively grasp. It really depends if by "planting trees" they mean "scattering seeds by aircraft" or if they mean "hand-planting saplings".
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  Maybe this helps: if most Americans plant 3 trees, that's about a billion trees. When I was young and part of a crew, each us planted -several hundred- trees over 3 eight-hour days. So at least a thousand per person in 10 days. A nation-wide volunteer org -with access to enough seedlings- ... that's the tricky part ... could quickly multiply that to 300 per American - 10% of that trillion.
- seltzered_ 7y ago
  "scattering seeds by aircraft" FWIW, There are startups doing this idea like BioCarbon Engineering https://www.biocarbonengineering.com/services https://www.biocarbonengineering.com/services (found via video by one of it's investors Tom Chi https://vimeo.com/294975140 https://vimeo.com/294975140 (at 11 minute mark) ) The concept of seed drops / seedballs seemingly goes back to the 'zero budget farming' ideas of Masanobu Fukuoka (an older video that goes into seedball making - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-bwW8PWI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-bwW8PWI0 )
empath75 7y ago
It won’t matter if we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the air, once the forests are grown, unless we bury them all deep underground and grow them again. It’s a one time thing.
- krageon 7y ago
  It will definitely matter (and potentially quite a lot). Whether or not it will matter enough to offset every problem is up for debate, but this is tractable and practical and we should therefore be doing it. As well as doing everything else we can do to solve this issue.

kibwen 7y ago

I think part of the appeal of this plan, aside from its theorized effectiveness, is that it doesn't require any political buy-in. People can plant trees all on their own. That said, a trillion is a quantity larger than any human has the ability to intuitively grasp. It really depends if by "planting trees" they mean "scattering seeds by aircraft" or if they mean "hand-planting saplings".

8bitsrule 7y ago
Maybe this helps: if most Americans plant 3 trees, that's about a billion trees. When I was young and part of a crew, each us planted -several hundred- trees over 3 eight-hour days. So at least a thousand per person in 10 days. A nation-wide volunteer org -with access to enough seedlings- ... that's the tricky part ... could quickly multiply that to 300 per American - 10% of that trillion.
seltzered_ 7y ago
"scattering seeds by aircraft" FWIW, There are startups doing this idea like BioCarbon Engineering https://www.biocarbonengineering.com/services https://www.biocarbonengineering.com/services (found via video by one of it's investors Tom Chi https://vimeo.com/294975140 https://vimeo.com/294975140 (at 11 minute mark) ) The concept of seed drops / seedballs seemingly goes back to the 'zero budget farming' ideas of Masanobu Fukuoka (an older video that goes into seedball making - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-bwW8PWI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-bwW8PWI0 )

empath75 7y ago

It won’t matter if we keep pumping carbon dioxide into the air, once the forests are grown, unless we bury them all deep underground and grow them again. It’s a one time thing.

krageon 7y ago
It will definitely matter (and potentially quite a lot). Whether or not it will matter enough to offset every problem is up for debate, but this is tractable and practical and we should therefore be doing it. As well as doing everything else we can do to solve this issue.