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NASA Says Earth Is Greener Today Than 20 Years Ago Thanks to China, India
- fouc 7y agoSome more information on the actual amount of tree planting in china. >China has been conducting what the United Nations has said is the world’s largest tree planting crusade, which increased its forest coverage from 8.6 per cent in 1949 to 21.7 per cent last year. >By March this year, the total area covered by China’s artificial forests reached 69.3 million hectares, larger than the size of France, according to the State Forestry Administration. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2162083/more-trees-more-smog-how-beijings-huge-planting-campaign-may-be https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2162083/more...
- ohso 7y agoIsn't it facing a massive desertification which this is trying to slow / stop?
- mikorym 7y agoAre these commercial plantations? And what is the biodiversity in the forests?
- glyxbaer 7y agoThe Wikipedia article about the green great wall[0], has some interesting information about that. I was blown away when I first found out about it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_Pro...
- niyaven 7y agoThis is including crops: > Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops. And there isn't enough biodiversity to balance damage done elsewhere: > The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world and dominated by India and China does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia. The consequences for sustainability and biodiversity in those ecosystems remain. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-an...
- beilabs 7y agoI recall them speaking about this a decade ago. There were huge dust storms in Beijing due to the desertification around the city. I've been out of Beijing for some time now, are the storms as bad as they used to be? Is this replanting have an impact?
- gibolt 7y agoI was in rural Yunnan earlier this year. Drove for multiple hours on the highway. Everywhere was entire mountains covered in rows of a single species of trees. I'm not sure what the long term effects of such a widespread forest monoculture with no plant competition will result in.
- TomK32 7y agoNo longterm effect, one specialized bug with good conditions and that monoculture is dead. But that will give room for other species which would have a chance to root if it wasn't for the monocultures being so tightly planted
- saiya-jin 7y agoWe have this back home, pine monoculture planted some 50-60 years ago to make parts of mountains more visually appealing (and probably more good reasons like cleaner air). In 2004 there was a freak storm with quite strong winds, half of that forest was destroyed, in many cases trees literally snapped in the middle of the trunk. Still pretty bad sight 25 years later. They said it was freak accident that happens every few hundred years. Well there was another one few years after, and few other smaller ones since then. Now its largely left on its own as being national park with highest protection level, but this has some (hopefully relatively short term) negative effects - population of bugs eating trees exploded and they are destroying remaining trees. Monocultures sucks, we should know better.
- psynapse 7y agoMy guess is that you are talking about Slovakia here. My weak Slovak makes it hard for me to research facts, so I tend to rely on my wife; but I understand that unfortunately the parkland is not "left on its own". The state fells a lot of timber in the parks. They use the borers as an excuse, but cut down more than they need to control them. There's yet another sad story for forests among the negative externalities from the transition from socialism. There were and still are large areas of land divided up and owned by general public, which has a legacy today, see [1]. One opportunist where I live went and bought as many of these as he could, often cheaply off old people and made bank by letting people come and fell the forest on them. You can see it all around here - big swathes of bare earth cut through forested hills/mountains with no regard to sustainability. It really upsets me. [1] http://4liberty.eu/land-consolidation-in-slovakia-chance-for-real-reform/ http://4liberty.eu/land-consolidation-in-slovakia-chance-for...
- SubiculumCode 7y agoI am impressed that China is making this effort, I wish we would do the same, but with an aim of building communities of plants and trees, not a monoculture.
- hanniabu 7y agoI don't like these articles for the simple fact that climate change deniers use it as "evidence" that climate change is fake
- eloff 7y agoWhat on earth does reforestation by humans have to do with climate change?
- King-Aaron 7y agoSigh, clearly nothing if you aren't one of those people the previous comment was referring to
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_Program#Relations_to_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_Pro...
- TeMPOraL 7y ago"You see, Earth is getting greener! Things are getting better! Maybe we don't need to cut down on fossil fuels and wasteful consumption after all!"
- hanniabu 7y agoExactly, this is precisely the kind of stuff I hear. Also not sure why so many downvotes lol, I think many misunderstood what I was saying
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThey must have, yes. You have my upvote, FWIW.
- eloff 7y agoThat does sound like the kind of dumb thing people say (or thing dumb people say - seems equivalent in this case.) But logically the two are completely unconnected. Earth getting greener or browner doesn't say anything about climate change.
- chrsstrm 7y agoI was speaking to someone employed as a state forester recently and we were comparing maps we had brought to the meeting. He talked about how he had access to all sorts of cool maps like infrared and even aerial maps dating back to the early 1910's and 20's. I joked that those maps must just be the tops of endless forests (this was in a northern state known for its forests) and he said the images seen were the opposite. He explained that farming back then was incredibly inefficient and farmers would clear cut as many trees as they could and till as much soil as possible on any piece of flat land they could access. The forester said that with advancements in farming and increases in efficiency, the countryside contained more forest land now than any previous point in time starting from when farmers grew crops for more than just their own family. It was a fact that I found interesting and had not considered before as I had always imagined the woods in olden times to be a larger percentage of all available land.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoWoods were a larger percentage of land, but you're not thinking far back enough.
- kbad1000 7y agoYour point of well explained in the book 'Rational Optimist' The intensive farming actually increased wilderness. With tech of 1960, it would have required 86% of land to be farmed to feed current world population.
- Gravityloss 7y agoA lot of the "forests" we have at least here are planted monocultures which are periodically completely cut down. Also known as "tree farms". All trees are the same age. Also the forest is full of ditches that makes it hard to pass for animals. The ecosystem and the species living there are quite different to real more natural forests. Most people have never even been to a multi century old forest anymore. Also we get invasions of pests like Diprion Pini etc. But yeah it looks green from a satellite or even airplane.
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- peterlk 7y agoI was curious haw this is actually measured, so to make it easier for others, LAI stands for "Leaf Area Index" [0], and is measured as "the one-sided green leaf area per unit ground surface area (LAI = leaf area / ground area, m2 / m2) in broadleaf canopies.[1] In conifers, three definitions for LAI have been used" I'm a bit surprised to see the greening in the Rockies, and in North America in general given the devastation that the bark beetle has caused over the last 20 years. But it's nice to read that some trends are in the right direction. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_area_index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_area_index
- est 7y agofrom the actual article https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-an... > China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops.
- singlewind 7y agoI think it is kind of "lucky" for the pollution becomes really bad and people suddenly realize this is a big problem for the future. And the government actually doesn't need a vote to execute the plan with all the effort they can put.
- freetime2 7y agoSomewhat related - there was a study recently that proposed planting a trillion trees as a way to combat climate change: https://time.com/5620706/plant-trillion-trees-climate-change/ https://time.com/5620706/plant-trillion-trees-climate-change... I wonder how these reforestations efforts in India and China compare in absolute numbers to the "trillion" figure cited in the study.
- rolltiide 7y agoThat would be a productive competition: putting our national pride behind planting trees “We can’t let CHINA beat US on reforestation!” Might be the trick
- trickstra 7y agoAnd on solar panels installations, and on plastic recycling (actual recycling, not shipping it elsewhere), and on electric buses, etc etc...
- niyaven 7y agoI find the title misleading, the main reason Earth is getting greener is mainly because of higher CO2 emissions[0]. Saying the earth is getting greener thanks to China and India, is forgetting that ~84% of the increase is not related to these countries[1]. What is truly new, is that human activity in India and China alone is responsable of a 16% increase of leaf area. So, to quote original article: > now that we know direct human influence is a key driver of the greening Earth, we need to factor this into our climate models [0] https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-green... [1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-an...
- deaddrop 7y agoCorrect, as the NASA link clearly delineates: >The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world and dominated by India and China does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia. The consequences for sustainability and biodiversity in those ecosystems remain. Thinking that China and India have "got this" would be a catastrophic assumption (obligatory xkcd[0]). [0] - https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- vixen99 7y agoCorrect of course. "Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect, said co-author Ranga Myneni, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. “The second most important driver is nitrogen, at 9 percent. " https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer... The greening is also observed in areas unaffected by man's agricultural activities.
- known 7y agoThis goes for a toss when correlated with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...
- govg 7y agoWhy not do it per capita instead?
- jobigoud 7y agoClimate Change doesn't care about per capita.
- omk 7y agoClimate change doesn't care about which country either. I agree with the fact that China and India need to focus on their emissions, but it seems ridiculously convenient for someone from a western country to ask a couple billion people to reduce their emissions while they themselves will find every opportunity to reduce their own accountability. FYI - A US per capita emission is almost 20 times more than that of India. https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Environment/CO2-Emissions-per-1000 https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Environment/...
- trickstra 7y agoOur production of emissions is per capita. It's "human induced emission"
- Paradigma11 7y agoCC cares even less about how we structure our abitrary political systems.
- playing_colours 7y agoChina is also the biggest contributor to CO2 emission by a large margin.
- isostatic 7y agoWestern countries outsource CO2 emissions to China
- VvR-Ox 7y agoYes. It's easier to blame China this way and what would the West do if their favorite nemesis was gone?
- yk 7y agoIt's also the largest country, by a large margin.
- rimliu 7y agoWhere does this leave Russia which is almost twice as big and Canada which is only slightly bigger? And China is less than 1% larger than USA. Population-wise China is the largest, but India is not that far behind.
- trickstra 7y agoSiberia
- dredmorbius 7y agoChina is only slightly larger than India by population; 1.39 billion vs. 1.35 billion. https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=XE23 https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=... (And yes, "slightly" is 40 million people, more than the population of California.)
- trickstra 7y agoNot per capita, by far.
- nibblerbro 7y agoIt's because of all the outdoor defecation, thank you poojets!
- satyenr 7y agoPreviously discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20029966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20029966
- pcdoodle 7y agoThanks, Thought I was going crazy. Lol about it being crops and not trees, what a crap article.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoForest coverage has been increasing in several European countries as well (e.g. UK and France off the top of my head)
- hkai 7y agoExcellent step. I'm still a bit concerned about these countries' oversized share in the plastic pollution of oceans. While countries such as the US contribute almost nothing to plastic waste in the oceans, the majority of it comes from China, India, Indonesia and Africa. I wonder if there are plans to redirect any funds spent on recycling and eco-conscious consumption in developed countries towards better collection of plastic waste in developing countries.
- garganshum 7y agoThe claim "While countries such as the US contribute almost nothing to plastic waste in the oceans" is laughable. Where do you think all that single use plastic from US goes? It's an externality that US doesn't pay for but likes to talk about a lot. https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2019/3/6/157000-shipping-containers-of-us-plastic-waste-exported-to-countries-with-poor-waste-management-in-2018 https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2019/3/6/15700....
- hkai 7y agoI find it surprising that you would think that plastic trash goes into the ocean. In fact, it goes to the landfills. The trash in the ocean comes from poor waste management in Asia and Africa (none of the top 20 most plastic-polluting rivers are in the US), and a small portion (20%) comes from natural disasters such as the Sendai tsunami. USA's trash goes to landfills, from where only a tiny part of it can accidentally get into the water. Other places just dump trash into the water.
- garganshum 7y agoDid you bother to open the link?