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This topic is relevant in South Africa as well. More than 100 years ago, many of the indigenous forest were deforested to make way for pine and eucalyptus plant
by mikorym 7y ago
This topic is relevant in South Africa as well. More than 100 years ago, many of the indigenous forest were deforested to make way for pine and eucalyptus plantations. The former is less than ideal, but the latter is even worse.
The water use issue of eucalyptus far outweighs its carbon sequestration and the other problem is that after its cycle of 7 to 25 years (depending on use) a lot of that carbon ends up in the atmosphere anyway, for instance through burning for silicon mining.
The other important factor is the plant matter that composes the top soil and how this decomposes or otherwise interacts with the soil. A major part of CO2 release is through decomposition of plant matter. In fact, the recent article [1] that I read (on HN?) made me realise that a plant can be carbon neutral (rather than carbon negative). In the article, there is actually no difference between having a plant in that bottle or just having charcoal in the bottle—it's a completely closed system. This invites a question about afforestation and how important carbon capture via plantation is vs. re-establishing indigenous forest and on the other hand simply subterranean C02 sequestration.
[1]
- icebraining 7y agoPortugal has the same problem with the eucalyptus[1]; it's a dreadful choice for a dry country like ours. There was brave popular resistance[2], but it wasn't enough. [1] https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/june/1370181600/michaela-mcguire/eucalypt-invasion-portugal https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/june/1370181600/mic... [2] https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/portugal-28-years-ago-a-village-fought-against-eucalyptus-the-land-never-burned-again/ https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/p...
- mikorym 7y agoA viable alternative (if you don't have qualms with this instead) is avocado farming. Depending on climate (i.e., such as colder regions) the net water use can actually be similar (or say 2:1) when switching from eucalyptus to avocados; there still needs to be some amount of research done on this. EDIT: To be clear, in warmer microclimates the irrigation is more water intensive because your loss of water due to irrigation is high. Some advances such as drip irrigation can mitigate this, and in theory things like mulching and super absorbent materials can get the water use down even further.
- wil421 7y agoI have a 10 foot 5 year old Avocado tree that would like to have a word you about calling them “viable”. Also, I believe the eucalyptus is used for pulpwood not fruit-nuts like avocado’s. What would replace Portugal’s pulpwood farms? IMHO, Avocado’s in Europe are terrible and have no taste. Hass from California and Mexico are the best.
- mikorym 7y agoSorry, here is a reference (or just google sealed bottle garden since 1972): [1] https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/06/18/80-year-old-man-hasnt-watered-this-sealed-bottle-garden-since-1972-still-going-strong/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/06/18/80-year-old-man-ha....