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(disclaimer, I am part of a Climate&Energy R&D lab) The goal is not really to produce a set of big trees, but to maximize the amount of carbon you can suck out

(disclaimer, I am part of a Climate&Energy R&D lab) The goal is not really to produce a set of big trees, but to maximize the amount of carbon you can suck out of the atmosphere per year, heavily weighted to the near future. As a result, producing an old growth forest is not the correct metric (if you are optimizing purely for climate). A stable forest (from purely a climate perspective) is also not the right optimization. Ideally, you'd lock away the carbon outside of the biosphere, instead of letting it get recycled.

Joakal 6y ago
Have you considered something different for climate; mass production of climate change resistant (ie heat/acid) photosynthetic plankton and releasing to ocean? How does it compare to trees?
- ImprovedSilence 6y ago
  i'm always a skeptic of muddling too much with nature (as opposed to just getting out of natures way and letting it do it's thing) Maybe its because I've read too much science fiction, but the first scenario that pops into my head is that we engineer some super plankton that grows out of control and smothers the ocean, not letting light filter down, and basically killing all ocean life. Kinda like a green ice-9 if you will...
  - dTal 6y ago
    A comforting thought for this sort of thing is that it would have happened naturally already, if it were possible at all. We can assume that we're broadly in a 'low energy state', and there's no tiny change that will cause a massive permanent shift. Similarly, Ice-9 can't be real or Earth would be covered in it, and we weren't going to set the atmosphere on fire at Trinity because Earth's already been hit by huge asteroids that didn't.
hedora 6y ago
We have a mixed redwood, pine and misc forest. What do we do to (1) get rid of the non-native species, and (2) capture lots of carbon in the process? We’d like to make sure the redwoods survive. They’re all under 100 years old, so some are big, but not massive, and we have lots of seedlings. I’m worried if we cut all the pine down at once, it’ll ruin the microclimate. It’s 10-20F cooler in the forest than in the field, with much more water from fog drip, etc.
- quixoticelixer- 6y ago
  What species of pine are they? Pines tend to grow fast but are short lived but I would only remove them if they are >40cm dbh. For the rewood the only thing you could do would be to thin and remove competition if there are trees to close, you could also prune if you want. (I study forestry science in New Zealand where we grow a lot of Californian species)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
staplers 6y ago
So sending in logging trucks, tractor saws, and burning all that fossil fuel to "reduce atmospheric carbon" only to have weakling brush landscapes that easily burn is the solution?
heimatau 6y ago
Hi Chris, do you happen to know of the optimal ways that Mother Nature removes carbon from the air? Something that we could recreate/automate.
- ogrisel 6y ago
  I don't know about Mother Nature, but silicate rich (or carbonate rich) rocks weather by sucking C02 out of the atmosphere (or oceans) and it can apparently be accelerated by spreading crushed rocks on fields or beaches. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreading-rock-dust-on-fields-could-remove-vast-amounts-of-co2-from-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreadin... - https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/
- harpiaharpyja 6y ago
  I wonder how many tons of biomass in foliage regrows every single year. All that plant matter is primarily carbon by mass, and most of it probably comes from the atmosphere.
stinos 6y ago
Doesn't hurt explicitly mentioning the biodiversity crisis is, just like the climate one, also a pressing issue. And when it comes to solutions revolving around forests (or a collection of trees if you wish), it's the area where both clash: optimizing for one will be less ideal for the other. Personally I feel like in such cases it would be wise to strive for a solution which is sliglty in favor of biodiversity, just because for the climate there are a number of other solutions which have a larger potential effect.
- harpiaharpyja 6y ago
  I'm saddened that the concern over carbon in the atmosphere seems to eclipse the biodiversity crisis in the public eye. In my opinion biodiversity is a far more pressing issue and loss of biodiversity is much harder to recover.

Joakal 6y ago

Have you considered something different for climate; mass production of climate change resistant (ie heat/acid) photosynthetic plankton and releasing to ocean? How does it compare to trees?

ImprovedSilence 6y ago
i'm always a skeptic of muddling too much with nature (as opposed to just getting out of natures way and letting it do it's thing) Maybe its because I've read too much science fiction, but the first scenario that pops into my head is that we engineer some super plankton that grows out of control and smothers the ocean, not letting light filter down, and basically killing all ocean life. Kinda like a green ice-9 if you will...
- dTal 6y ago
  A comforting thought for this sort of thing is that it would have happened naturally already, if it were possible at all. We can assume that we're broadly in a 'low energy state', and there's no tiny change that will cause a massive permanent shift. Similarly, Ice-9 can't be real or Earth would be covered in it, and we weren't going to set the atmosphere on fire at Trinity because Earth's already been hit by huge asteroids that didn't.

hedora 6y ago

We have a mixed redwood, pine and misc forest. What do we do to (1) get rid of the non-native species, and (2) capture lots of carbon in the process? We’d like to make sure the redwoods survive. They’re all under 100 years old, so some are big, but not massive, and we have lots of seedlings. I’m worried if we cut all the pine down at once, it’ll ruin the microclimate. It’s 10-20F cooler in the forest than in the field, with much more water from fog drip, etc.

quixoticelixer- 6y ago
What species of pine are they? Pines tend to grow fast but are short lived but I would only remove them if they are >40cm dbh. For the rewood the only thing you could do would be to thin and remove competition if there are trees to close, you could also prune if you want. (I study forestry science in New Zealand where we grow a lot of Californian species)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

staplers 6y ago

So sending in logging trucks, tractor saws, and burning all that fossil fuel to "reduce atmospheric carbon" only to have weakling brush landscapes that easily burn is the solution?

heimatau 6y ago

Hi Chris, do you happen to know of the optimal ways that Mother Nature removes carbon from the air? Something that we could recreate/automate.

ogrisel 6y ago
I don't know about Mother Nature, but silicate rich (or carbonate rich) rocks weather by sucking C02 out of the atmosphere (or oceans) and it can apparently be accelerated by spreading crushed rocks on fields or beaches. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreading-rock-dust-on-fields-could-remove-vast-amounts-of-co2-from-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/08/spreadin... - https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/
harpiaharpyja 6y ago
I wonder how many tons of biomass in foliage regrows every single year. All that plant matter is primarily carbon by mass, and most of it probably comes from the atmosphere.

stinos 6y ago

Doesn't hurt explicitly mentioning the biodiversity crisis is, just like the climate one, also a pressing issue. And when it comes to solutions revolving around forests (or a collection of trees if you wish), it's the area where both clash: optimizing for one will be less ideal for the other. Personally I feel like in such cases it would be wise to strive for a solution which is sliglty in favor of biodiversity, just because for the climate there are a number of other solutions which have a larger potential effect.

harpiaharpyja 6y ago
I'm saddened that the concern over carbon in the atmosphere seems to eclipse the biodiversity crisis in the public eye. In my opinion biodiversity is a far more pressing issue and loss of biodiversity is much harder to recover.