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Scientists Identify How Many Trees to Plant and Where to Stop Climate Crisis

432 points by ph0rque 7y ago

dalbasal 7y ago
Just as a political lesson, reforestation is fascinating.It seems to have casually gone from seeming unfeasible practically and politically to feasible... without much of a struggle. Impossible until it isn't.
- Angostura 7y ago
  Surely that's because its a suggest that we can "solve" an extistential crisis without changing the way we do business or live our lives in any meaningful way. Feels a bit too good to be true.
  - dalbasal 7y ago
    I disagree with the zero-sum assumption that often seem to permeate environmentalism, and climate politics in particular. Half the time it seems that effectiveness is judged by inconvenience, negative economic consequences and such. I sometimes think it hurts the cause more than outright anti-environmentalism. If the only "real" solutions are things like reducing human energy use long term, you might as well stop caring and just hope for the best. It won't happen, and even if it does than the long-term^ consequences might be worse than climate change. The actually sustainable solutions are those that are cheap, positive sum, and lead to humans thriving. IDK if this is a solution (or meaningful part thereof) for climate change. It's not really an easy solution though. Land politics are tough, to put it mildly. They always have been. ^Operative term.
    - baron_harkonnen 7y ago
      > If the only "real" solutions are things like reducing human energy use long term, you might as well stop caring and just hope for the best. It won't happen, and even if it does than the long-term^ consequences might be worse than climate change. But that's absolutely the path we're on and have repeatedly chosen. I don't think comments pointing this out are claiming they are environmentalists, just pointing out something that very few people really want to discuss. It's funny that we discuss "sustainability" as some sort of future goal, when, by definition, the alternative is a way of life that cannot be sustained. "Less unsustainable" is still unsustainable. Since serious sustainability is clearly seen as some sort of absurd joke, then we should at least stop pretending that things are going to be okay. The really interesting part will be when we feel the other pain of unsustainable living: resource depletion. Fighting the impact of climate changes is going to be even trickier when we have less energy to do it with.
      - goatlover 7y ago
        > The really interesting part will be when we feel the other pain of unsustainable living: resource depletion. Fighting the impact of climate changes is going to be even trickier when we have less energy to do it with. Energy is the one thing we shouldn't run low on given that we have the sun.
    - Angostura 7y ago
      > The actually sustainable solutions are those that are cheap, positive sum, and lead to humans thriving. You're assuming that there are cheap, positive-sum solutions that will lead to humans thriving. I would be absolutely DELIGHTED if such solutions by themselves will meet the goal (I would also like to see other organisms in the ecosphere thrive, by the way - not just humans). If such solutions exist, lets do it. However I'm both skeptical that they do exist and not yet ready to "stop caring and just hope for the best". I don;t find the counsel of despair to be particularly compelling.
      - dalbasal 7y ago
        Not assuming, more like hoping. I'm willing to bet on it, because I think it's a good bet and I think the alternative is a sure loser. Lets narrow this down to just energy consumption. I'm skeptical that we can reduce energy consumption^ enough to meaningfully impact anything. National/global energy austerity (like economic austerity) hits a wall very quickly. Whether that is at 5% or 20% doesn't matter. It certainly isn't near enough. Therefore, it is not a viable solution. If we are paying (via unemployment, etc) to avoid climate change. OTOH, clean energy obviously is possible. Reforestation is possible. Various geoengineering projects are possible. What makes them viable is, they carry the possibility of allowing us to massively increase our energy consumption. That is what cheap means, that we can afford more of it and be wealthier. ^Voluntarily. Obviously a major plague or somesuch could.
        Angostura 7y ago
        You'll note in my original post I talked about 'changing our lives' that doesn't necessarily mean wearing hair shirts. So, energy consumption can certainly be helped by mandating insulation standards in building codes, by outlawing incandescent light bulbs, by introducing stringent emission standards for cars or introducing carbon fee and divided regulations. None of those mean "austerity", or unemployment, but they do mean adjustments. Moreover fee and dividend produces a nice market-driven mechanism to speed up the adoption of clean energy.
        7y ago
  - goatlover 7y ago
    It's more realistic than thinking we're going to get a significant majority of the world's population to significantly reduce consumption while adding two more billion people and having the developed world catch up.
jansan 7y ago
Just to let you know, there has been considerable forestation taking place in Europe during the last 100 years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04/watch-how-europe-is-greener-now-than-100-years-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04... Yet, somehow people in Europe think that a huge deforestation is taking place.
- phito 7y ago
  In my overly-populated European country, I think most people think that "nature" is going away because we're building more and more houses where fields were. It's weird to me that people here seem to think of fields as nature, when it's actually huge zones where a single species of plant grows and where insects are killed with poison
- Dumblydorr 7y ago
  Globally, we are losing forests and have lost them for hundreds of years. Iceland, Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia, many places have lost huge amounts of trees due to humans.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Europe as well, actually. It was virtually covered in forests then largely deforested to make way for agriculture. In the last 100 years or so rural exodus and agriculture industrialisation have meant that forests have started to expand again. That actually highlights a global issue: We, in Europe, scold developing countries for doing what Europe has done (but it was centuries ago so people don't realise it). That is reasonable considering what we now know and modern technology but to avoid hypocrisy this should be accompanied by offers of help to achieve development and jobs without deforestation, and perhaps by no longer buying commodities that require deforestation.
    - Sharlin 7y ago
      To make room for agriculture, yes, but even moreso to produce charcoal for the almost insatiable steel industry, to be used both as a fuel and a carbon source. Once the trees were gone, we moved to coal.
ryanmercer 7y ago
Never mind the fact it takes trees decades to get to their maximum annual CO2 uptake levels and that species vary wildly in the levels of CO2 they take up... Planting trees isn't the answer, drastically reducing emissions immediately, drastically reducing construction levels (creating concrete is a huge source of CO2), cessation of paving over square mile after square mile of soil to create roads and housing additions, ceasing the practice of removing all of the top soil from ecologically diverse fields to sell and then throwing Kentucky blue grass sod down and putting up cookie-cutter houses, ceasing coastal fishing that has been damaging kelp and seaweed 'forests' and actively repopulating them via sustainable farming of kelp and seaweed which will drastically increase local marine species populations over time. Hell, abandoning foolish technologies like cryptocurrency will have IMMEDIATE impact. Bitcoin alone uses an insane amount of electricity. One estimate [1] puts a single bitcoin transaction at using as much electricity as it takes to stream 48,011 hours of YouTube which is nearly 21 days of average U.S. household electricity usage! The network has had an annualized carbon footprint equal to Denmark and an electricity consumption equal to Austria. For imaginary flippin' internet money that is largely used for speculation, ransomware and illicit drug trade!!! Yes, replacing the forests we've cut down in the past several centuries is imperative but it isn't a solution. You can plant all the trees you want but as long as you're producing nearly 40 gigatons of CO2 a year, you're just making yourself feel good and getting some PR for your company/party/country. [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  > You can plant all the trees you want but as long as you're producing nearly 40 gigatons of CO2 a year, you're just making yourself feel good and getting some PR for your company/party/country. Wouldn’t planting enough trees to gobble up 40+1 GT of carbon a year do the trick? I think this is the point of TFA.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    China is adding millions of new drivers a year (they've had to institute a lottery to see who gets to apply for a new license because of the demand), they almost have more drivers than the United States does people now. They are also actively constructing new coal power plants and creating insane numbers of new roads. All of these things are increasing their CO2 output and with creation of massive amounts of road, removing the ability of vast swaths of land to sequester CO2. That's just China. Never mind the fact that trees don't immediately start sucking up their maximum amount of CO2 as saplings, it takes a decade or more for them to start doing that depending on the species.
pxndxx 7y ago
Are there any NGOs working on reforestation based on this report I can donate to?
- ph0rque 7y ago
  I've been donating to Trees For the Future for the last few years. Here's a blog article I wrote on it recently: https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-change-with-trees.html https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-chang...
- rapnie 7y ago
  "If we can warm up the earth, we can also cool it down." https://justdiggit.org/ https://justdiggit.org/
  - ueue3243 7y ago
    Well you're going to have to account for the natural oscillations to[0], when it's quite complicated apparently for some people to understand the most basic one[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_oscillation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_oscillation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillat...
    - ueue3243 7y ago
      Downvote as much as you want, it's going to start a 65-70 year period of cooling down, and there's not much you little humans can do about it despite your blatant lack of humility, you'll then be able to claim that you saved the world (with Macron of course) because you planted some trees. AND plants were dying for CO2 and the excess generated by humans is actually great for their development, earth is getting greener every year as satellite data shows.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  I am sorry to say this but I am afraid NGOs are not going to solve the climate problem. I don't mean to dismiss anybody's efforts, but if we want to be honest with ourselves, the data on the global emissions for the last 30 years clearly show that all NGO's efforts so far have failed. I have come to the realization that the most effective way to spend your time and money is to invest in Extinction Rebellion or a similar group in your country.
zeofig 7y ago
Trees aren't bad, but they're a solution like how a bandage is a solution to a systematic bacterial infection...
vfc1 7y ago
It's not either one solution or another, or what is the best solution, there is not one single solution for solving climate change, it's not that simple. This is a thought fallacy that leads us nowhere, it's a complex problem with many causes and lots of moving parts. We can't just plant a bunch of trees and keep living like before, growing to 10 billions and beyond. We need to plant a bunch of trees AND reduce traveling AND stop eating so much meat, AND stop fishing so much, AND stop creating to much waste, AND keep the world population under control, etc. It's not OR, its AND. Thinking "Oh well someone is just going to plant a bunch of trees and fix it, I'll just back to eating my cheeseburger" is not a productive message at this point in time, when so much is still to be done to convince the general public that lifestyle changes are urgently needed.
- noiv 7y ago
  However, planting all these trees may add enough value to the environment, so that mentioned ANDs are easier to tackle with less resistance.
  - avip 7y ago
    I think what OP argues (and I agree with), is there’s no solution, or even partial mitigation, to climate crisis, wherein we keep the party going and due to some magic science in Alaska things are suddenly ok. This is a lie. If this lie is needed “to get a message across” so be it.
- paulsutter 7y ago
  Nowhere in the article does it suggest abandoning other efforts. Yes of course we should plant all those trees plus every other effort. It’s insane to want to suppress good ideas, i’m not sure you’d accomplishing what you intend with your criticism EDIT: if you don’t like the title, criticize the title. Titles are written by clickbait artists, not the authors
  - Ensorceled 7y ago
    Well, except the actual article's title says planting these trees in this way will stop the climate crisis. They are criticizing this wording. This won't stop the climate crisis but sounds like a great first step.
de_watcher 7y ago
But if we manage to mess up the oceans badly then we'll need a lot more trees than ever was.
The_rationalist 7y ago
Would it be more effective than growing the number of phytoplanktons? If so, by how much?
- cryoshon 7y ago
  based on my research into phytoplanktons and cyanobacteria-based climate change mitigation for the purposes of commercialization, my take on this is that planting trees is probably a significantly easier approach in terms of the amount of effort involved on an ongoing basis. in terms of efficacy, i'd say it depends on how productive your phyto/cyano farm is versus planting trees over a 10-year course per dollar. phyto/cyano farms will be super dense in terms of sequestration, capacity but you'll be investing hundreds of dollars per unit.
shademaan 7y ago
Trees help, but alone won't "stop" the climate crisis, and wont do anything to combat the worst greenhouse gases.
- cjmcqueen 7y ago
  The study has data to back up it's findings and suggests tree growth can help; what data are you using to back up your statement? From the article: "The Crowther Lab of ETH Zurich has published a study in the journal Science that shows this would be the most effective method to combat climate change."
  - shademaan 7y ago
    So where exactly does the article say this method will stop the climate crisis? It doesn't, because it's not true as the ETH reseachers are well aware and will readily tell you. As I mentioned in my post, trees ALONE will not stop the climate crisis because the only thing they'll really help with is CO2 absorption, and climate change is driven by more than just C)2 levels.
    - vcdimension 7y ago
      Yes, but CO2 levels are the main driver of anthropomorphic climate change, so reducing them by 2/3 (since industrial times) will likely help quite a lot.
    - stuaxo 7y ago
      Ah the old absolutist "doing something doesn't get us 100% of the way there, so we should sit on our hands" argument.
      - vonmoltke 7y ago
        This is a pretty uncharitable read on the post you are replying to. I see nothing in it stating or implying that nothing should be done. That said, it's wrong because it significantly understates what portion of climate change is driven by CO3 concentration, and thus understates the impact the tree planting idea would have.
lazyjones 7y ago
Pretty much the same as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360513 ...
hannob 7y ago
This has been debunked at plenty of places, but I guess it needs repeating. Quote from the article: "Around 0.9 billion hectares (2.2 billion acres) of land worldwide would be suitable for reforestation, which could ultimately capture two thirds of human-made carbon emissions." This is wrong. The reason is a bit technical. The issue here is that about half of the emissions going into the atmosphere get soaked up by natural sinks, e.g. the oceans. However if you take carbon dioxide out of the air the reverse happens: The oceans and other sinks re-release the carbon. This needs to be taken into account, but hasn't happened here. So the effect is only about half the size of what is claimed. Sources by some climate scientists explaining this: https://twitter.com/pepcanadell/status/1147066574299377664 https://twitter.com/pepcanadell/status/1147066574299377664 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 To be clear: There's nothing wrong with planting trees as one solution to the climate crisis. However this study was presented in a way that overestimated the effect massively. (Also I have some doubts that planting trees is "easy" given the political situation in the countries that have the largest potential.)
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  And it doesn't take into account the ecologies that you'd be replacing with massive plantings of trees.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    If you planted in the vast amounts of land we've deforested in the past few centuries, you'd be restoring habitats though. But then you'd lose a lot of farmland, and have to destroy a lot of cities and homes.
- cryoshon 7y ago
  if CO2 is removed from the oceans and other CO2 sinks, won't that still leave us in the position of having less free CO2 to release into the atmosphere in the aftermath? i'm trying to understand multiple angles of this issue because i'm interested in making a company to plant trees as a service.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cryoshon 7y ago
i'm currently looking into tree-planting as a climate change solution with the aim of making it into either a nonprofit or a for-profit organization, but my research so far has not been promising. the trouble with planting trees is that it's difficult to turn into a virtuous economic loop without government intervention because the cost of land is so high. nobody wants to buy a tree that is planted somewhere else, and very few individuals or companies are interested in purchasing trees for the creation of a carbon offset certificate or personal carbon offset. in other words, people don't value carbon sequestration, they value things that sequestration can produce downstream, like air that isn't jam packed with CO2. in a vacuum, you can plant one tree for 20 cents of effort -- assuming you own the land you're standing on. but in the real world, land is expensive, and it has both up-front purchase costs as well as ongoing land tax costs. and trees aren't exactly productive assets unless the government assigns an economic value to carbon sequestration via a carbon tax or something similar. all of these concerns occur well before you can even start to approach the idea of scaling tree-planting to the point where it makes a dent in the climate crisis. for the idea to work economically, it needs a lot of subsidization, at least under the present conditions. of course, this is where philanthropy could step in and make a massive difference. if a billionaire or two would set aside a few billions to purchase deforested lands and replant them, we could make major progress. but they won't, so that leaves us hunting for a market capitalist solution to a problem caused by collective ignorance of externalities during economic activity.
- Beltiras 7y ago
  I would be willing to invest on the order of 1000$ per year in massive forestation projects, especially ones that are in remote areas.
- tathougies 7y ago
  You don't need to buy land specifically. In fact, that's probably counter productive. A better bet would be to seek a lease or an easement in someone's plot for a fee.
  - cryoshon 7y ago
    if you don't own the land, you can't stop the owner from chopping down all the trees you planted and letting the CO2 exhaust into the air again. i guess you could try putting it into a contract, but it would de facto be unenforceable because you wouldn't know if the land owner was cutting down trees on their property anyway.
mfer 7y ago
Setting aside whether this is a solution (even a partial one), I applaud the effort to come up with solutions like this. It's hard and sometimes impossible to get other people to change. Especially when they are in other countries where legislative changes aren't even possible. This means it can take a long time, at best. It's easier to change ourselves. Come up with things we can do that have a positive impact is a great idea.
- neuronic 7y ago
  Meat consumption is the number one issue and as someone who likes to consume meat I think that > It's easier to change ourselves is a bold statement. Maybe some of us can muster up the will to resist $5 meat packages in the supermarket every single day. I am sure not all and especially not enough people can do that off their own free will. So what we need is to make meat a luxury item again and ban any and all mass production of meat. It basically amounts to torture anyway and the meat quality is somewhere near garbage. It would be a lot easier if the meat options in supermarkets were restricted to expensive "organic" meat from animals who lived in acceptable conditions. Cheap mass produced meat is an incredible ecological killer. Ok, so there will be people who don't want to lose their meat. I don't want to. But even others will resist that notion. It's not like the production is sustainable so sooner or later it will happen anyways. The question is, how much damage will we produce along the way?
  - mfer 7y ago
    > So what we need is to make meat a luxury item again and ban any and all mass production of meat. It basically amounts to torture anyway and the meat quality is somewhere near garbage. How do you change meat to be luxury item in Russia, China, Brazil, and countries all over the world? If the people in one country decided to do it they can't legislate all of the other countries to do so. Changing others is harder than changing yourself.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    >is a bold statement. Maybe some of us can muster up the will to resist $5 meat packages in the supermarket every single day. I am sure not all and especially not enough people can do that off their own free will. Simply switching from beef to chicken results in a dramatic reduction of greenhouse gasses you are personally responsible for. I ditched about 90% of my beef for chicken last year and barely noticed.
ueue3243 7y ago
The "Climate Crisis" has been debunked by UN Chief Climate Scientist[0] and by IPCC itself[1] [0] http://co2coalition.org/2019/09/27/chief-un-climate-scientist-calls-the-climate-crisis-narrative-religious-extremism/ http://co2coalition.org/2019/09/27/chief-un-climate-scientis... [1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-failure-of-the-climate-models https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-...
- paublyrne 7y ago
  The article you link to does not support what you claim it does.
- FrojoS 7y ago
  The first article is referring to an interview that is hardly a “debunk”. It’s just one persons opinion on how grave the issue is (e.g. should you stop having kids?). The second piece is classical climate change denial, e.g. the “pause/hiatus” in warming This animation shows well that it’s just an artifact of a hand picked timeframe https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leugnung_der_menschengemachten_globalen_Erwärmung#/media/Datei%3ATemperaturanstieg-vergleich-zwischen-ausschnitt-und-gesamtverlauf.gif https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leugnung_der_menschengemacht... More info here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
  - justsubmit 7y ago
    Here's a quote from the article he cited: > Atmospheric scientist John Christy developed a global temperature record of the lower atmosphere using highly accurate satellite soundings. NASA honored him for this achievement, and he was an author for a previous edition of the U.N. report. He told a House Science Committee hearing in March 2017 that the U.N. climate models have failed badly. > Christy compared the average model projections since 1979 to the most reliable observations — those made by satellites and weather balloons over the vast tropics. The result? In the upper levels of the lower atmosphere, the models predicted seven times as much warming as has been observed. Overprediction also occurred at all other levels. Christy recently concluded that, on average, the projected heating by the models is three times what has been observed. You characterize that as "classical climate change denial" and "just an artifact of a hand picked timeframe." Then you link to a Wikipedia article about "Climate change denial," as if he just needs to read it to understand what an ignorant denialist he is, and then he'll agree with you. So, according to you, is John Christy in denial?
sarthakjshetty 7y ago
https://twitter.com/katherinegould/status/1175497420504846338 https://twitter.com/katherinegould/status/117549742050484633... the lead of the paper in question
Tepix 7y ago
This article is from July, I belive it has been discussed here previously.
spodek 7y ago
Trees don't solve our other environmental problems of plastic, carcinogens, extinctions, etc. Yes, plant trees as a partial solution. Consider it a starting point, nowhere near an endpoint. We can dance around it all we like, partial solutions like planting trees don't address that the environment reacts to our population and behavior. Ultimately we must lower our birth rate and produce less or we will override partial solutions. Projections about or population leveling off would change when assumptions change, like the world being cleaner from planting all these trees. Unless we change our cultural values, goals, and behavior away from growth and externalizing costs.
- corodra 7y ago
  I do agree, and I do agree about over population is a problem. But question, who must lower their birth rate? And how do you implement such a plan? How do you punish people that makes sense? That's a super tricky problem and can't just be waved around. China attempted this... and there's a term that comes to mind on how that turned out... cluster fuck. I mean, I'm not going to vote for any law that says if you have a child outside your allowed quota, then the child is "disposed" or taken away. Thus, how do you enforce it? Tax the piss out of someone? Just to make them poorer and then those kids have a piss poor life even worse than normal? The population level off isn't tied to the climate being cleaned. It's based on the concept that if countries go from developing to first world status, they adopt 1st world birthing rates of 2 kids or less. Do I buy that argument? Eh? Maybe, to an extent. But knowing human nature. There's going to be a country or two that will propaganda to have more kids to out beat the rest of the world. Humans have a habit trying to gain an advantage over other people. If there's one to be had, they'll have it.
  - redisman 7y ago
    They will adopt 1st world birthing rates and 1st world consumption rates.
- skosch 7y ago
  > Projections about or population leveling off would change when assumptions change, like the world being cleaner from planting all these trees. You have it backwards. People in clean, wealthy countries tend to have fewer kids than even the 2.1 required to maintain stable numbers. It's people in developing places, where the environment is often dirty and unhealthy, who have the most children. Planting trees will not lead to overpopulation.
stillbourne 7y ago
So, where can I plant some near me? Edit: They have a tool, sort of: https://www.crowtherlab.com/maps-2/ https://www.crowtherlab.com/maps-2/
asaegyn 7y ago
Wow, people are desperate for good news. Well, this is a July article, and the idea that this "stops" the climate crisis is nonesense. The treest would remove about 10-15 years worth of emissions over 40-100. Emissions are increasing (in fact, accelerating). Moreover, that carbon would be removed over 40-100 years, and in that time, none of those trees could be cut, nor could they burn. Now, it should be done! But it is by no means a way of stopping climate. Fundamental systemic change is requied.
jnmandal 7y ago
Link to the pdf of the actual study: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/365/6448/76.full.pdf https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/365/6448/76.full....
philliphaydon 7y ago
> stop eating so much meat Do people actually read the reports and study’s around climate change or do they just follow what they see in the news?
Merrill 7y ago
The recommendation is to reforest 103 million hectares of the US. That is about 400,000 square miles in a country of about 4,000,000 square miles, i.e. 10% of the surface area. It's not clear where there is that much land suitable for forest that is not being used for ag and other purposes. Of course, we could decrease the amount of land used for agriculture, since we are continually in surplus and export a lot of foodstuffs. Some parts, such as New England, were farmed more intensively and have been allowed to go back to forest. In other areas, such as the midwest, poor or swampy land that was used for dairy farming pastures is no longer needed, since dairying is now concentrated in fewer huge herds. However, in these cases land had been allowed to go back to forests naturally, with scrubby transition shrubs and trees that are pretty poor forests. We could get both more carbon capture and more forest products by better forest management in the US. Invasive species such as kudzu, asian bittersweet, and porcelain berry make transitioning back to mature terminal stage forest difficult and expensive.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  The article does mention that it takes into account land already in use by humans. I can only assume that "use" includes agriculture.
known 7y ago
I think the solution to climate crisis is in Oceans since 95% of the world's oceans and 99% of the ocean floor are unexplored
turk73 7y ago
I would like to stop talking about this as a "crisis." It certainly has no appearance that any crisis level has been reached. This is communists trying to collective us and I'm not having any part of it. Submit your plan to reduce human population by 4 billion or so odd people. Otherwise, STFU.
jefft255 7y ago
What I don’t like about planting trees for carbon absorption is that is leads to really boring forests: in Canada they’ll plant mono species stands of white spruce, which typically absorb the most carbon. This is however not the best in terms of biodiversity... Doing something as complex as forestry while optimizing for one objective is not the best approach IMHO.
decasteve 7y ago
The prevailing view in my culture is that planting trees does not necessarily equate to 'reforestation'. I've seen forests decimated first-hand and then replanted as monoculture tree plantations.
JulianMorrison 7y ago
People need to start thinking of natural regeneration / rewilding as an option because "planting trees" per se does not create a self sustaining balanced forest ecosystem. Forestry plantations are often pretty much green deserts, like any other agricultural monoculture. There's a pernicious influence from government here. It's unhelpfully easier to get funding for "plant 1000 saplings" than for "leave an area to transform into thorny scrub, pioneer tree woodland, and finally full woodland". https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/wildwoods-britain-climate-change-northern-forest https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/wildwo...
- atourgates 7y ago
  One of my favorite "case studies" related to this is the Selah ranch in Texas. The TL;DR: version is that because it was choked with trees and brush, the groundwater had been removed. The owners restored it to primarily native grassland, and in the process restored natural water holes, and streams. National Geographic did a really good 8-minute video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPkcpGmflE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPkcpGmflE More info on the ranch: https://bambergerranch.org https://bambergerranch.org Trees are great in some environments, but not appropriate for all environments.
- Merrill 7y ago
  It would be nice if natural regeneration worked, but in this area an idle plot quickly becomes overrun with invasive species. Some of these are foreign trees, such as alianthus, and some are US trees not native to this area, such as black locust. Even these fast growing and short lived species become quickly entangled in non-native vines and dragged down in windstorms. The result is a tangled mess nothing like the theoretical progression from thorny scrub, pioneer tree woodland, and full woodland. Getting to something like a natural woodland may be possible naturally, but it takes many decades, and the resultant species will certainly not be the mixed oak and chestnut forest, since there are no more chestnuts. Nature only goes forward, never back.
yohann305 7y ago
i actually asked a NOAA weather scientists about what would happen if we plant billions of tree where the winds of hurricanes root from? He told me it's always good to plant trees BUT know that by altering the environment, chances are you will be redirecting hurricanes to other countries and be ready to get sued!
- defterGoose 7y ago
  Just...what?
logfromblammo 7y ago
International standards for shipping pollution are a few decades out of date. It's been about 40 years. International trade organizations need to address the pollution happening in international waters, including combustion gases, dumping, and all the national subsidies for environmentally hostile activities relating to shipping. The article does not actually present an actionable plan for tree-planting. It seems to be saying that deserts, mountains, and tundra are viable targets for afforestation--a.k.a. land area not already forested that is not used by cities or agriculture.
isthispermanent 7y ago
With all these smart people reading Hacker News, why is the the top comment so negative. This is a legitimately doable thing. The vast majority of us on here are some type of engineer. We can answer the question of "How do we efficiently plant 1bil hectare of trees within 5 years?" Yes, we need to do other things too. But if we wait for some panacea plan to emerge it will be too late. Just do it. Just imagine if we accomplished this within 5 years. How glad would we be in 30 years once they really started to mature? Let's be good to future us.
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  > engineer. nature can plant trees instead. Trees, if left alone for a couple of years will naturally reproduce and plant themselves. The key bit is leaving the space alone. It is not something that really needs engineering on the whole. There is a small amount of places where trees would not be able to colonise if left alone - and we need to use the science of Ecology to examine why. it's here where geotechnology can come into play, but for the vast vast majority of the billions needed, we just need to leave alone . Now, saying that, there is a great benefit in getting children interested in nature and planting trees and so we shouldn't stop planting efforts for that sake. But there is a deeply troubling idea that we can engineer nature to save nature when it's nature that can save itself and us.
blobs 7y ago
Planting trees is good, but it won't solve our problems. It would be nice if governments first halt and prohibit the destruction of our existing forests in case that happens for a profit. Same counts for all other resources like gas, oil, minerals, etc.. It should not be possible to farm that for profit, it should only be allowed when there is a real proven need where the loss can be calculated and compensated to assure future life and to prevent the extinction of species. If this depletion of resources continues at the current rate, we are in fact committing suicide at a planetary scale. The sad thing is that we can only look and talk about it, there is no control by anyone. We wanted democracy, well this is one of the traits of democracy. No control, but above all discussion and corruption(for profit). I'm afraid that if our governing systems remain dictatorial, communist, democratic, etc.. we won't make it into the next century. Mankind will eventually destroy itself(and other species) because of a lack of an intelligent governing system.
CodeTheInternet 7y ago
Is Western China really so mountainous to have that large area with relatively no trees?
yboris 7y ago
Individually, we can also give our money to offset our (and others') carbon emissions. By donating to cost-effective charities (ones that are experts at doing the offsetting), we can do more good than through other individual actions. Read the Founders Pledge Climate Change Executive Summary: https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-executive-summary https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-executive-...
stevespang 7y ago
Even if the entire planet converted over to electric vehicles you would still have to build / maintain roadways which too often are made of asphalt, which is full of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These chemicals are also found where ever combustion occurs and are highly linked to cancer and cardiovascular disease.Everytime it rains guess where asphalt oils and compounds go ? Wear of rubber tires also contribute to microplastics/microrubber particles that never biodegrade, much of which washes down into the oceans. If you institute steep enough container and bag deposit charges, poor and middle class people will have a higher incentive to recycle to get their money back . . . while the filthy rich continue driving golf balls off their yachts into the ocean . . .
meerita 7y ago
Whe you read the entire article they state they don't know the output. They're not sure that would make significantly change.
robbrown451 7y ago
I thought forests were carbon neutral, at least if the trees are allowed to rot. Is there a plan to remove the dead trees so this doesn't happen? Even if you turn it into lumber and make buildings with it, eventually it tends to rot or burn. What am I missing?
Mikeb85 7y ago
Things like this article describes, the fact the world is getting greener as a result of human activity[1] not to mention the constant advance of technology is why I'm still optimistic for our future despite all the doomsday predictions. [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...
adampk 7y ago
Can someone here make some kind of an app/platform that let's me know where I can go to plant a tree and how to do it? I would be a big fan of a long weekend/vacation planting trees part of industrial scale joint operations where I am making an actual difference. Maybe include payment and and donations for seeds/land/water/etc. I worry about climate change all the time but I don't know how to affect change at an impact level.
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  if you have a tree it will spread itself if left alone. You don't need technology just a bit of ground around and existing one, or some acorns, or something from a local garden centre. Getting humans to leave the earth to nature is more of a challenge than getting humans interested in apps and schemes to meddle around in nature to make them feel they are doing natures work for it.
- ph0rque 7y ago
  > I worry about climate change all the time but I don't know how to affect change at an impact level. I would encourage you to donate to Trees For the Future, as I have done for the last several years. Here's a blog post I wrote about it: https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-change-with-trees.html https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-chang...
HaukeHi 7y ago
"I have not looked at this deeply, so take all of this with a grain of salt, but a quick scan makes me believe that this is very hyped. Having skimmed the paper it seems the only thing the authors do and what is peer-reviewed is estimate earth's theoretical maximum capacity for reforestation. There are few problems: 1) Feasibility: "200 GtC is a technical potential assuming every hectare of forestland on earth is increased to 100% forest cover" https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 "An assessment of the biophysical capacity for restoring global tree cover provides a necessary but insufficient foundation for evaluating where tree cover can be feasibly increased. The kinds of trees as well as how and where they are grown determine how and which people benefit. In some contexts, increasing tree cover can elevate fire risk, decrease water supplies, and cause crop damage by wildlife. Reforestation programs often favor single-species tree plantations over restoring native forest ecosystems. This approach can generate negative consequences for biodiversity and carbon storage (5), threaten food and land security, and exacerbate social inequities. How restored lands are governed determines how reforestation costs and benefits are distributed." https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/24 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/24 There are no dollar signs or economic feasibility analysis in that paper. So the people who wrote it just cited some number that is not peer-reviewed and even if loosely based on previous numbers might not work at the scale. -- 2) There seems to be no scientific consensus how much (or even if!) new trees are a GHG sink on net. Some legitimate papers even suggests that new trees could be a net GHG source. (the paper does not make any new contributions to this question and I think just assumes that trees absorb GHG). For instance, see this recent paper in Nature communications: a) "Limited capacity of tree growth to mitigate the global greenhouse effect under predicted warming" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10174-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10174-4 b) this recent paper in PNAS (top journal as well) "On-going carbon uptake due to forest demography is large, but much smaller than previous influential estimates have suggested. Contrary to previous findings, these latest data sources indicate that the sink is predominantly in mid-high latitude, rather than tropical, forests. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4382.short" https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4382.short" from https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xY3iSgDRHidue8J7C/new-study-in-science-implies-that-tree-planting-is-the?commentId=wSZm2PQh4iWZ5Qra2 https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xY3iSgDRHidue8J7C/...
stubish 7y ago
Where does the water come from to reforest 58 million hectares of Australia? It does not seem at all practical in the remaining time left, unless they are looking at very light forestation.
robomartin 7y ago
I’ve been talking about this for years. This could conclusion is beyond obvious to anyone who has looked at the realities of climate change rather than the politically fed frenzy the thing has become. Plant trees.

432 points by ph0rque 7y ago

Just as a political lesson, reforestation is fascinating.It seems to have casually gone from seeming unfeasible practically and politically to feasible... without much of a struggle. Impossible until it isn't.

Angostura 7y ago
Surely that's because its a suggest that we can "solve" an extistential crisis without changing the way we do business or live our lives in any meaningful way. Feels a bit too good to be true.
- dalbasal 7y ago
  I disagree with the zero-sum assumption that often seem to permeate environmentalism, and climate politics in particular. Half the time it seems that effectiveness is judged by inconvenience, negative economic consequences and such. I sometimes think it hurts the cause more than outright anti-environmentalism. If the only "real" solutions are things like reducing human energy use long term, you might as well stop caring and just hope for the best. It won't happen, and even if it does than the long-term^ consequences might be worse than climate change. The actually sustainable solutions are those that are cheap, positive sum, and lead to humans thriving. IDK if this is a solution (or meaningful part thereof) for climate change. It's not really an easy solution though. Land politics are tough, to put it mildly. They always have been. ^Operative term.
  - baron_harkonnen 7y ago
    > If the only "real" solutions are things like reducing human energy use long term, you might as well stop caring and just hope for the best. It won't happen, and even if it does than the long-term^ consequences might be worse than climate change. But that's absolutely the path we're on and have repeatedly chosen. I don't think comments pointing this out are claiming they are environmentalists, just pointing out something that very few people really want to discuss. It's funny that we discuss "sustainability" as some sort of future goal, when, by definition, the alternative is a way of life that cannot be sustained. "Less unsustainable" is still unsustainable. Since serious sustainability is clearly seen as some sort of absurd joke, then we should at least stop pretending that things are going to be okay. The really interesting part will be when we feel the other pain of unsustainable living: resource depletion. Fighting the impact of climate changes is going to be even trickier when we have less energy to do it with.
    - goatlover 7y ago
      > The really interesting part will be when we feel the other pain of unsustainable living: resource depletion. Fighting the impact of climate changes is going to be even trickier when we have less energy to do it with. Energy is the one thing we shouldn't run low on given that we have the sun.
  - Angostura 7y ago
    > The actually sustainable solutions are those that are cheap, positive sum, and lead to humans thriving. You're assuming that there are cheap, positive-sum solutions that will lead to humans thriving. I would be absolutely DELIGHTED if such solutions by themselves will meet the goal (I would also like to see other organisms in the ecosphere thrive, by the way - not just humans). If such solutions exist, lets do it. However I'm both skeptical that they do exist and not yet ready to "stop caring and just hope for the best". I don;t find the counsel of despair to be particularly compelling.
    - dalbasal 7y ago
      Not assuming, more like hoping. I'm willing to bet on it, because I think it's a good bet and I think the alternative is a sure loser. Lets narrow this down to just energy consumption. I'm skeptical that we can reduce energy consumption^ enough to meaningfully impact anything. National/global energy austerity (like economic austerity) hits a wall very quickly. Whether that is at 5% or 20% doesn't matter. It certainly isn't near enough. Therefore, it is not a viable solution. If we are paying (via unemployment, etc) to avoid climate change. OTOH, clean energy obviously is possible. Reforestation is possible. Various geoengineering projects are possible. What makes them viable is, they carry the possibility of allowing us to massively increase our energy consumption. That is what cheap means, that we can afford more of it and be wealthier. ^Voluntarily. Obviously a major plague or somesuch could.
      - Angostura 7y ago
        You'll note in my original post I talked about 'changing our lives' that doesn't necessarily mean wearing hair shirts. So, energy consumption can certainly be helped by mandating insulation standards in building codes, by outlawing incandescent light bulbs, by introducing stringent emission standards for cars or introducing carbon fee and divided regulations. None of those mean "austerity", or unemployment, but they do mean adjustments. Moreover fee and dividend produces a nice market-driven mechanism to speed up the adoption of clean energy.
        7y ago
- goatlover 7y ago
  It's more realistic than thinking we're going to get a significant majority of the world's population to significantly reduce consumption while adding two more billion people and having the developed world catch up.

jansan 7y ago

Just to let you know, there has been considerable forestation taking place in Europe during the last 100 years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04/watch-how-europe-is-greener-now-than-100-years-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04... Yet, somehow people in Europe think that a huge deforestation is taking place.

phito 7y ago
In my overly-populated European country, I think most people think that "nature" is going away because we're building more and more houses where fields were. It's weird to me that people here seem to think of fields as nature, when it's actually huge zones where a single species of plant grows and where insects are killed with poison
Dumblydorr 7y ago
Globally, we are losing forests and have lost them for hundreds of years. Iceland, Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia, many places have lost huge amounts of trees due to humans.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Europe as well, actually. It was virtually covered in forests then largely deforested to make way for agriculture. In the last 100 years or so rural exodus and agriculture industrialisation have meant that forests have started to expand again. That actually highlights a global issue: We, in Europe, scold developing countries for doing what Europe has done (but it was centuries ago so people don't realise it). That is reasonable considering what we now know and modern technology but to avoid hypocrisy this should be accompanied by offers of help to achieve development and jobs without deforestation, and perhaps by no longer buying commodities that require deforestation.
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    To make room for agriculture, yes, but even moreso to produce charcoal for the almost insatiable steel industry, to be used both as a fuel and a carbon source. Once the trees were gone, we moved to coal.

ryanmercer 7y ago

Never mind the fact it takes trees decades to get to their maximum annual CO2 uptake levels and that species vary wildly in the levels of CO2 they take up... Planting trees isn't the answer, drastically reducing emissions immediately, drastically reducing construction levels (creating concrete is a huge source of CO2), cessation of paving over square mile after square mile of soil to create roads and housing additions, ceasing the practice of removing all of the top soil from ecologically diverse fields to sell and then throwing Kentucky blue grass sod down and putting up cookie-cutter houses, ceasing coastal fishing that has been damaging kelp and seaweed 'forests' and actively repopulating them via sustainable farming of kelp and seaweed which will drastically increase local marine species populations over time. Hell, abandoning foolish technologies like cryptocurrency will have IMMEDIATE impact. Bitcoin alone uses an insane amount of electricity. One estimate [1] puts a single bitcoin transaction at using as much electricity as it takes to stream 48,011 hours of YouTube which is nearly 21 days of average U.S. household electricity usage! The network has had an annualized carbon footprint equal to Denmark and an electricity consumption equal to Austria. For imaginary flippin' internet money that is largely used for speculation, ransomware and illicit drug trade!!! Yes, replacing the forests we've cut down in the past several centuries is imperative but it isn't a solution. You can plant all the trees you want but as long as you're producing nearly 40 gigatons of CO2 a year, you're just making yourself feel good and getting some PR for your company/party/country. [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

hyperbovine 7y ago
> You can plant all the trees you want but as long as you're producing nearly 40 gigatons of CO2 a year, you're just making yourself feel good and getting some PR for your company/party/country. Wouldn’t planting enough trees to gobble up 40+1 GT of carbon a year do the trick? I think this is the point of TFA.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  China is adding millions of new drivers a year (they've had to institute a lottery to see who gets to apply for a new license because of the demand), they almost have more drivers than the United States does people now. They are also actively constructing new coal power plants and creating insane numbers of new roads. All of these things are increasing their CO2 output and with creation of massive amounts of road, removing the ability of vast swaths of land to sequester CO2. That's just China. Never mind the fact that trees don't immediately start sucking up their maximum amount of CO2 as saplings, it takes a decade or more for them to start doing that depending on the species.

pxndxx 7y ago

Are there any NGOs working on reforestation based on this report I can donate to?

ph0rque 7y ago
I've been donating to Trees For the Future for the last few years. Here's a blog article I wrote on it recently: https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-change-with-trees.html https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-chang...
rapnie 7y ago
"If we can warm up the earth, we can also cool it down." https://justdiggit.org/ https://justdiggit.org/
- ueue3243 7y ago
  Well you're going to have to account for the natural oscillations to[0], when it's quite complicated apparently for some people to understand the most basic one[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_oscillation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_oscillation [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillat...
  - ueue3243 7y ago
    Downvote as much as you want, it's going to start a 65-70 year period of cooling down, and there's not much you little humans can do about it despite your blatant lack of humility, you'll then be able to claim that you saved the world (with Macron of course) because you planted some trees. AND plants were dying for CO2 and the excess generated by humans is actually great for their development, earth is getting greener every year as satellite data shows.
perfunctory 7y ago
I am sorry to say this but I am afraid NGOs are not going to solve the climate problem. I don't mean to dismiss anybody's efforts, but if we want to be honest with ourselves, the data on the global emissions for the last 30 years clearly show that all NGO's efforts so far have failed. I have come to the realization that the most effective way to spend your time and money is to invest in Extinction Rebellion or a similar group in your country.

zeofig 7y ago

Trees aren't bad, but they're a solution like how a bandage is a solution to a systematic bacterial infection...

vfc1 7y ago

It's not either one solution or another, or what is the best solution, there is not one single solution for solving climate change, it's not that simple. This is a thought fallacy that leads us nowhere, it's a complex problem with many causes and lots of moving parts. We can't just plant a bunch of trees and keep living like before, growing to 10 billions and beyond. We need to plant a bunch of trees AND reduce traveling AND stop eating so much meat, AND stop fishing so much, AND stop creating to much waste, AND keep the world population under control, etc. It's not OR, its AND. Thinking "Oh well someone is just going to plant a bunch of trees and fix it, I'll just back to eating my cheeseburger" is not a productive message at this point in time, when so much is still to be done to convince the general public that lifestyle changes are urgently needed.

noiv 7y ago
However, planting all these trees may add enough value to the environment, so that mentioned ANDs are easier to tackle with less resistance.
- avip 7y ago
  I think what OP argues (and I agree with), is there’s no solution, or even partial mitigation, to climate crisis, wherein we keep the party going and due to some magic science in Alaska things are suddenly ok. This is a lie. If this lie is needed “to get a message across” so be it.
paulsutter 7y ago
Nowhere in the article does it suggest abandoning other efforts. Yes of course we should plant all those trees plus every other effort. It’s insane to want to suppress good ideas, i’m not sure you’d accomplishing what you intend with your criticism EDIT: if you don’t like the title, criticize the title. Titles are written by clickbait artists, not the authors
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  Well, except the actual article's title says planting these trees in this way will stop the climate crisis. They are criticizing this wording. This won't stop the climate crisis but sounds like a great first step.

de_watcher 7y ago

But if we manage to mess up the oceans badly then we'll need a lot more trees than ever was.

The_rationalist 7y ago

Would it be more effective than growing the number of phytoplanktons? If so, by how much?

cryoshon 7y ago
based on my research into phytoplanktons and cyanobacteria-based climate change mitigation for the purposes of commercialization, my take on this is that planting trees is probably a significantly easier approach in terms of the amount of effort involved on an ongoing basis. in terms of efficacy, i'd say it depends on how productive your phyto/cyano farm is versus planting trees over a 10-year course per dollar. phyto/cyano farms will be super dense in terms of sequestration, capacity but you'll be investing hundreds of dollars per unit.

shademaan 7y ago

Trees help, but alone won't "stop" the climate crisis, and wont do anything to combat the worst greenhouse gases.

cjmcqueen 7y ago
The study has data to back up it's findings and suggests tree growth can help; what data are you using to back up your statement? From the article: "The Crowther Lab of ETH Zurich has published a study in the journal Science that shows this would be the most effective method to combat climate change."
- shademaan 7y ago
  So where exactly does the article say this method will stop the climate crisis? It doesn't, because it's not true as the ETH reseachers are well aware and will readily tell you. As I mentioned in my post, trees ALONE will not stop the climate crisis because the only thing they'll really help with is CO2 absorption, and climate change is driven by more than just C)2 levels.
  - vcdimension 7y ago
    Yes, but CO2 levels are the main driver of anthropomorphic climate change, so reducing them by 2/3 (since industrial times) will likely help quite a lot.
  - stuaxo 7y ago
    Ah the old absolutist "doing something doesn't get us 100% of the way there, so we should sit on our hands" argument.
    - vonmoltke 7y ago
      This is a pretty uncharitable read on the post you are replying to. I see nothing in it stating or implying that nothing should be done. That said, it's wrong because it significantly understates what portion of climate change is driven by CO3 concentration, and thus understates the impact the tree planting idea would have.

lazyjones 7y ago

Pretty much the same as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360513 ...

hannob 7y ago

This has been debunked at plenty of places, but I guess it needs repeating. Quote from the article: "Around 0.9 billion hectares (2.2 billion acres) of land worldwide would be suitable for reforestation, which could ultimately capture two thirds of human-made carbon emissions." This is wrong. The reason is a bit technical. The issue here is that about half of the emissions going into the atmosphere get soaked up by natural sinks, e.g. the oceans. However if you take carbon dioxide out of the air the reverse happens: The oceans and other sinks re-release the carbon. This needs to be taken into account, but hasn't happened here. So the effect is only about half the size of what is claimed. Sources by some climate scientists explaining this: https://twitter.com/pepcanadell/status/1147066574299377664 https://twitter.com/pepcanadell/status/1147066574299377664 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 To be clear: There's nothing wrong with planting trees as one solution to the climate crisis. However this study was presented in a way that overestimated the effect massively. (Also I have some doubts that planting trees is "easy" given the political situation in the countries that have the largest potential.)

EdwardDiego 7y ago
And it doesn't take into account the ecologies that you'd be replacing with massive plantings of trees.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  If you planted in the vast amounts of land we've deforested in the past few centuries, you'd be restoring habitats though. But then you'd lose a lot of farmland, and have to destroy a lot of cities and homes.
cryoshon 7y ago
if CO2 is removed from the oceans and other CO2 sinks, won't that still leave us in the position of having less free CO2 to release into the atmosphere in the aftermath? i'm trying to understand multiple angles of this issue because i'm interested in making a company to plant trees as a service.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

cryoshon 7y ago

i'm currently looking into tree-planting as a climate change solution with the aim of making it into either a nonprofit or a for-profit organization, but my research so far has not been promising. the trouble with planting trees is that it's difficult to turn into a virtuous economic loop without government intervention because the cost of land is so high. nobody wants to buy a tree that is planted somewhere else, and very few individuals or companies are interested in purchasing trees for the creation of a carbon offset certificate or personal carbon offset. in other words, people don't value carbon sequestration, they value things that sequestration can produce downstream, like air that isn't jam packed with CO2. in a vacuum, you can plant one tree for 20 cents of effort -- assuming you own the land you're standing on. but in the real world, land is expensive, and it has both up-front purchase costs as well as ongoing land tax costs. and trees aren't exactly productive assets unless the government assigns an economic value to carbon sequestration via a carbon tax or something similar. all of these concerns occur well before you can even start to approach the idea of scaling tree-planting to the point where it makes a dent in the climate crisis. for the idea to work economically, it needs a lot of subsidization, at least under the present conditions. of course, this is where philanthropy could step in and make a massive difference. if a billionaire or two would set aside a few billions to purchase deforested lands and replant them, we could make major progress. but they won't, so that leaves us hunting for a market capitalist solution to a problem caused by collective ignorance of externalities during economic activity.

Beltiras 7y ago
I would be willing to invest on the order of 1000$ per year in massive forestation projects, especially ones that are in remote areas.
tathougies 7y ago
You don't need to buy land specifically. In fact, that's probably counter productive. A better bet would be to seek a lease or an easement in someone's plot for a fee.
- cryoshon 7y ago
  if you don't own the land, you can't stop the owner from chopping down all the trees you planted and letting the CO2 exhaust into the air again. i guess you could try putting it into a contract, but it would de facto be unenforceable because you wouldn't know if the land owner was cutting down trees on their property anyway.

mfer 7y ago

Setting aside whether this is a solution (even a partial one), I applaud the effort to come up with solutions like this. It's hard and sometimes impossible to get other people to change. Especially when they are in other countries where legislative changes aren't even possible. This means it can take a long time, at best. It's easier to change ourselves. Come up with things we can do that have a positive impact is a great idea.

neuronic 7y ago
Meat consumption is the number one issue and as someone who likes to consume meat I think that > It's easier to change ourselves is a bold statement. Maybe some of us can muster up the will to resist $5 meat packages in the supermarket every single day. I am sure not all and especially not enough people can do that off their own free will. So what we need is to make meat a luxury item again and ban any and all mass production of meat. It basically amounts to torture anyway and the meat quality is somewhere near garbage. It would be a lot easier if the meat options in supermarkets were restricted to expensive "organic" meat from animals who lived in acceptable conditions. Cheap mass produced meat is an incredible ecological killer. Ok, so there will be people who don't want to lose their meat. I don't want to. But even others will resist that notion. It's not like the production is sustainable so sooner or later it will happen anyways. The question is, how much damage will we produce along the way?
- mfer 7y ago
  > So what we need is to make meat a luxury item again and ban any and all mass production of meat. It basically amounts to torture anyway and the meat quality is somewhere near garbage. How do you change meat to be luxury item in Russia, China, Brazil, and countries all over the world? If the people in one country decided to do it they can't legislate all of the other countries to do so. Changing others is harder than changing yourself.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >is a bold statement. Maybe some of us can muster up the will to resist $5 meat packages in the supermarket every single day. I am sure not all and especially not enough people can do that off their own free will. Simply switching from beef to chicken results in a dramatic reduction of greenhouse gasses you are personally responsible for. I ditched about 90% of my beef for chicken last year and barely noticed.

ueue3243 7y ago

The "Climate Crisis" has been debunked by UN Chief Climate Scientist[0] and by IPCC itself[1] [0] http://co2coalition.org/2019/09/27/chief-un-climate-scientist-calls-the-climate-crisis-narrative-religious-extremism/ http://co2coalition.org/2019/09/27/chief-un-climate-scientis... [1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-failure-of-the-climate-models https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-...

paublyrne 7y ago
The article you link to does not support what you claim it does.
FrojoS 7y ago
The first article is referring to an interview that is hardly a “debunk”. It’s just one persons opinion on how grave the issue is (e.g. should you stop having kids?). The second piece is classical climate change denial, e.g. the “pause/hiatus” in warming This animation shows well that it’s just an artifact of a hand picked timeframe https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leugnung_der_menschengemachten_globalen_Erwärmung#/media/Datei%3ATemperaturanstieg-vergleich-zwischen-ausschnitt-und-gesamtverlauf.gif https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leugnung_der_menschengemacht... More info here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
- justsubmit 7y ago
  Here's a quote from the article he cited: > Atmospheric scientist John Christy developed a global temperature record of the lower atmosphere using highly accurate satellite soundings. NASA honored him for this achievement, and he was an author for a previous edition of the U.N. report. He told a House Science Committee hearing in March 2017 that the U.N. climate models have failed badly. > Christy compared the average model projections since 1979 to the most reliable observations — those made by satellites and weather balloons over the vast tropics. The result? In the upper levels of the lower atmosphere, the models predicted seven times as much warming as has been observed. Overprediction also occurred at all other levels. Christy recently concluded that, on average, the projected heating by the models is three times what has been observed. You characterize that as "classical climate change denial" and "just an artifact of a hand picked timeframe." Then you link to a Wikipedia article about "Climate change denial," as if he just needs to read it to understand what an ignorant denialist he is, and then he'll agree with you. So, according to you, is John Christy in denial?

sarthakjshetty 7y ago

https://twitter.com/katherinegould/status/1175497420504846338 https://twitter.com/katherinegould/status/117549742050484633... the lead of the paper in question

Tepix 7y ago

This article is from July, I belive it has been discussed here previously.

spodek 7y ago

Trees don't solve our other environmental problems of plastic, carcinogens, extinctions, etc. Yes, plant trees as a partial solution. Consider it a starting point, nowhere near an endpoint. We can dance around it all we like, partial solutions like planting trees don't address that the environment reacts to our population and behavior. Ultimately we must lower our birth rate and produce less or we will override partial solutions. Projections about or population leveling off would change when assumptions change, like the world being cleaner from planting all these trees. Unless we change our cultural values, goals, and behavior away from growth and externalizing costs.

corodra 7y ago
I do agree, and I do agree about over population is a problem. But question, who must lower their birth rate? And how do you implement such a plan? How do you punish people that makes sense? That's a super tricky problem and can't just be waved around. China attempted this... and there's a term that comes to mind on how that turned out... cluster fuck. I mean, I'm not going to vote for any law that says if you have a child outside your allowed quota, then the child is "disposed" or taken away. Thus, how do you enforce it? Tax the piss out of someone? Just to make them poorer and then those kids have a piss poor life even worse than normal? The population level off isn't tied to the climate being cleaned. It's based on the concept that if countries go from developing to first world status, they adopt 1st world birthing rates of 2 kids or less. Do I buy that argument? Eh? Maybe, to an extent. But knowing human nature. There's going to be a country or two that will propaganda to have more kids to out beat the rest of the world. Humans have a habit trying to gain an advantage over other people. If there's one to be had, they'll have it.
- redisman 7y ago
  They will adopt 1st world birthing rates and 1st world consumption rates.
skosch 7y ago
> Projections about or population leveling off would change when assumptions change, like the world being cleaner from planting all these trees. You have it backwards. People in clean, wealthy countries tend to have fewer kids than even the 2.1 required to maintain stable numbers. It's people in developing places, where the environment is often dirty and unhealthy, who have the most children. Planting trees will not lead to overpopulation.

stillbourne 7y ago

So, where can I plant some near me? Edit: They have a tool, sort of: https://www.crowtherlab.com/maps-2/ https://www.crowtherlab.com/maps-2/

asaegyn 7y ago

Wow, people are desperate for good news. Well, this is a July article, and the idea that this "stops" the climate crisis is nonesense. The treest would remove about 10-15 years worth of emissions over 40-100. Emissions are increasing (in fact, accelerating). Moreover, that carbon would be removed over 40-100 years, and in that time, none of those trees could be cut, nor could they burn. Now, it should be done! But it is by no means a way of stopping climate. Fundamental systemic change is requied.

jnmandal 7y ago

Link to the pdf of the actual study: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/365/6448/76.full.pdf https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/365/6448/76.full....

philliphaydon 7y ago

> stop eating so much meat Do people actually read the reports and study’s around climate change or do they just follow what they see in the news?

Merrill 7y ago

The recommendation is to reforest 103 million hectares of the US. That is about 400,000 square miles in a country of about 4,000,000 square miles, i.e. 10% of the surface area. It's not clear where there is that much land suitable for forest that is not being used for ag and other purposes. Of course, we could decrease the amount of land used for agriculture, since we are continually in surplus and export a lot of foodstuffs. Some parts, such as New England, were farmed more intensively and have been allowed to go back to forest. In other areas, such as the midwest, poor or swampy land that was used for dairy farming pastures is no longer needed, since dairying is now concentrated in fewer huge herds. However, in these cases land had been allowed to go back to forests naturally, with scrubby transition shrubs and trees that are pretty poor forests. We could get both more carbon capture and more forest products by better forest management in the US. Invasive species such as kudzu, asian bittersweet, and porcelain berry make transitioning back to mature terminal stage forest difficult and expensive.

bagacrap 7y ago
The article does mention that it takes into account land already in use by humans. I can only assume that "use" includes agriculture.

known 7y ago

I think the solution to climate crisis is in Oceans since 95% of the world's oceans and 99% of the ocean floor are unexplored

turk73 7y ago

I would like to stop talking about this as a "crisis." It certainly has no appearance that any crisis level has been reached. This is communists trying to collective us and I'm not having any part of it. Submit your plan to reduce human population by 4 billion or so odd people. Otherwise, STFU.

jefft255 7y ago

What I don’t like about planting trees for carbon absorption is that is leads to really boring forests: in Canada they’ll plant mono species stands of white spruce, which typically absorb the most carbon. This is however not the best in terms of biodiversity... Doing something as complex as forestry while optimizing for one objective is not the best approach IMHO.

decasteve 7y ago

The prevailing view in my culture is that planting trees does not necessarily equate to 'reforestation'. I've seen forests decimated first-hand and then replanted as monoculture tree plantations.

JulianMorrison 7y ago

People need to start thinking of natural regeneration / rewilding as an option because "planting trees" per se does not create a self sustaining balanced forest ecosystem. Forestry plantations are often pretty much green deserts, like any other agricultural monoculture. There's a pernicious influence from government here. It's unhelpfully easier to get funding for "plant 1000 saplings" than for "leave an area to transform into thorny scrub, pioneer tree woodland, and finally full woodland". https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/wildwoods-britain-climate-change-northern-forest https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/wildwo...

atourgates 7y ago
One of my favorite "case studies" related to this is the Selah ranch in Texas. The TL;DR: version is that because it was choked with trees and brush, the groundwater had been removed. The owners restored it to primarily native grassland, and in the process restored natural water holes, and streams. National Geographic did a really good 8-minute video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPkcpGmflE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPkcpGmflE More info on the ranch: https://bambergerranch.org https://bambergerranch.org Trees are great in some environments, but not appropriate for all environments.
Merrill 7y ago
It would be nice if natural regeneration worked, but in this area an idle plot quickly becomes overrun with invasive species. Some of these are foreign trees, such as alianthus, and some are US trees not native to this area, such as black locust. Even these fast growing and short lived species become quickly entangled in non-native vines and dragged down in windstorms. The result is a tangled mess nothing like the theoretical progression from thorny scrub, pioneer tree woodland, and full woodland. Getting to something like a natural woodland may be possible naturally, but it takes many decades, and the resultant species will certainly not be the mixed oak and chestnut forest, since there are no more chestnuts. Nature only goes forward, never back.

yohann305 7y ago

i actually asked a NOAA weather scientists about what would happen if we plant billions of tree where the winds of hurricanes root from? He told me it's always good to plant trees BUT know that by altering the environment, chances are you will be redirecting hurricanes to other countries and be ready to get sued!

defterGoose 7y ago
Just...what?

logfromblammo 7y ago

International standards for shipping pollution are a few decades out of date. It's been about 40 years. International trade organizations need to address the pollution happening in international waters, including combustion gases, dumping, and all the national subsidies for environmentally hostile activities relating to shipping. The article does not actually present an actionable plan for tree-planting. It seems to be saying that deserts, mountains, and tundra are viable targets for afforestation--a.k.a. land area not already forested that is not used by cities or agriculture.

isthispermanent 7y ago

With all these smart people reading Hacker News, why is the the top comment so negative. This is a legitimately doable thing. The vast majority of us on here are some type of engineer. We can answer the question of "How do we efficiently plant 1bil hectare of trees within 5 years?" Yes, we need to do other things too. But if we wait for some panacea plan to emerge it will be too late. Just do it. Just imagine if we accomplished this within 5 years. How glad would we be in 30 years once they really started to mature? Let's be good to future us.

thinkingemote 7y ago
> engineer. nature can plant trees instead. Trees, if left alone for a couple of years will naturally reproduce and plant themselves. The key bit is leaving the space alone. It is not something that really needs engineering on the whole. There is a small amount of places where trees would not be able to colonise if left alone - and we need to use the science of Ecology to examine why. it's here where geotechnology can come into play, but for the vast vast majority of the billions needed, we just need to leave alone . Now, saying that, there is a great benefit in getting children interested in nature and planting trees and so we shouldn't stop planting efforts for that sake. But there is a deeply troubling idea that we can engineer nature to save nature when it's nature that can save itself and us.

blobs 7y ago

Planting trees is good, but it won't solve our problems. It would be nice if governments first halt and prohibit the destruction of our existing forests in case that happens for a profit. Same counts for all other resources like gas, oil, minerals, etc.. It should not be possible to farm that for profit, it should only be allowed when there is a real proven need where the loss can be calculated and compensated to assure future life and to prevent the extinction of species. If this depletion of resources continues at the current rate, we are in fact committing suicide at a planetary scale. The sad thing is that we can only look and talk about it, there is no control by anyone. We wanted democracy, well this is one of the traits of democracy. No control, but above all discussion and corruption(for profit). I'm afraid that if our governing systems remain dictatorial, communist, democratic, etc.. we won't make it into the next century. Mankind will eventually destroy itself(and other species) because of a lack of an intelligent governing system.

CodeTheInternet 7y ago

Is Western China really so mountainous to have that large area with relatively no trees?

yboris 7y ago

Individually, we can also give our money to offset our (and others') carbon emissions. By donating to cost-effective charities (ones that are experts at doing the offsetting), we can do more good than through other individual actions. Read the Founders Pledge Climate Change Executive Summary: https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-executive-summary https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-executive-...

stevespang 7y ago

Even if the entire planet converted over to electric vehicles you would still have to build / maintain roadways which too often are made of asphalt, which is full of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These chemicals are also found where ever combustion occurs and are highly linked to cancer and cardiovascular disease.Everytime it rains guess where asphalt oils and compounds go ? Wear of rubber tires also contribute to microplastics/microrubber particles that never biodegrade, much of which washes down into the oceans. If you institute steep enough container and bag deposit charges, poor and middle class people will have a higher incentive to recycle to get their money back . . . while the filthy rich continue driving golf balls off their yachts into the ocean . . .

meerita 7y ago

Whe you read the entire article they state they don't know the output. They're not sure that would make significantly change.

robbrown451 7y ago

I thought forests were carbon neutral, at least if the trees are allowed to rot. Is there a plan to remove the dead trees so this doesn't happen? Even if you turn it into lumber and make buildings with it, eventually it tends to rot or burn. What am I missing?

Mikeb85 7y ago

Things like this article describes, the fact the world is getting greener as a result of human activity[1] not to mention the constant advance of technology is why I'm still optimistic for our future despite all the doomsday predictions. [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...

adampk 7y ago

Can someone here make some kind of an app/platform that let's me know where I can go to plant a tree and how to do it? I would be a big fan of a long weekend/vacation planting trees part of industrial scale joint operations where I am making an actual difference. Maybe include payment and and donations for seeds/land/water/etc. I worry about climate change all the time but I don't know how to affect change at an impact level.

thinkingemote 7y ago
if you have a tree it will spread itself if left alone. You don't need technology just a bit of ground around and existing one, or some acorns, or something from a local garden centre. Getting humans to leave the earth to nature is more of a challenge than getting humans interested in apps and schemes to meddle around in nature to make them feel they are doing natures work for it.
ph0rque 7y ago
> I worry about climate change all the time but I don't know how to affect change at an impact level. I would encourage you to donate to Trees For the Future, as I have done for the last several years. Here's a blog post I wrote about it: https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-change-with-trees.html https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-chang...

HaukeHi 7y ago

"I have not looked at this deeply, so take all of this with a grain of salt, but a quick scan makes me believe that this is very hyped. Having skimmed the paper it seems the only thing the authors do and what is peer-reviewed is estimate earth's theoretical maximum capacity for reforestation. There are few problems: 1) Feasibility: "200 GtC is a technical potential assuming every hectare of forestland on earth is increased to 100% forest cover" https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496 "An assessment of the biophysical capacity for restoring global tree cover provides a necessary but insufficient foundation for evaluating where tree cover can be feasibly increased. The kinds of trees as well as how and where they are grown determine how and which people benefit. In some contexts, increasing tree cover can elevate fire risk, decrease water supplies, and cause crop damage by wildlife. Reforestation programs often favor single-species tree plantations over restoring native forest ecosystems. This approach can generate negative consequences for biodiversity and carbon storage (5), threaten food and land security, and exacerbate social inequities. How restored lands are governed determines how reforestation costs and benefits are distributed." https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/24 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/24 There are no dollar signs or economic feasibility analysis in that paper. So the people who wrote it just cited some number that is not peer-reviewed and even if loosely based on previous numbers might not work at the scale. -- 2) There seems to be no scientific consensus how much (or even if!) new trees are a GHG sink on net. Some legitimate papers even suggests that new trees could be a net GHG source. (the paper does not make any new contributions to this question and I think just assumes that trees absorb GHG). For instance, see this recent paper in Nature communications: a) "Limited capacity of tree growth to mitigate the global greenhouse effect under predicted warming" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10174-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10174-4 b) this recent paper in PNAS (top journal as well) "On-going carbon uptake due to forest demography is large, but much smaller than previous influential estimates have suggested. Contrary to previous findings, these latest data sources indicate that the sink is predominantly in mid-high latitude, rather than tropical, forests. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4382.short" https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4382.short" from https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xY3iSgDRHidue8J7C/new-study-in-science-implies-that-tree-planting-is-the?commentId=wSZm2PQh4iWZ5Qra2 https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xY3iSgDRHidue8J7C/...

stubish 7y ago

Where does the water come from to reforest 58 million hectares of Australia? It does not seem at all practical in the remaining time left, unless they are looking at very light forestation.

robomartin 7y ago

I’ve been talking about this for years. This could conclusion is beyond obvious to anyone who has looked at the realities of climate change rather than the politically fed frenzy the thing has become. Plant trees.