5 ms·

If a machine were invented that scrubbed carbon from the atmosphere and turned it into useful food, construction materials, animal feedstocks, and fibers, all w

If a machine were invented that scrubbed carbon from the atmosphere and turned it into useful food, construction materials, animal feedstocks, and fibers, all while rebuilding topsoil, it would be on the cover of every tech magazine in the world and its inventor would be a celebrity millionaire. Yet I’ve never seen a tree on the cover of Wired. https://hipcrime.blogspot.com/2012/06/vertical-farms-and-lab-grown-meat-have.html https://hipcrime.blogspot.com/2012/06/vertical-farms-and-lab... Sometimes we overlook the simplest approaches. We should plant trees. Lots of them. It's not a perfect solution, but it's the simplest, can be adapted to every environment, has costs that are relative to local economies, doesn't depend upon global supply chains, doesn't require human maintenance after initial planting, etc.

hh3k0 5y ago
> Sometimes we overlook the simplest approaches. We should plant trees. Lots of them. It's not a perfect solution That's because it's not a solution at all: https://www.wired.com/story/trees-regenerative-agriculture-climate-change/ https://www.wired.com/story/trees-regenerative-agriculture-c...
- tastyfreeze 5y ago
  Trees alone might not be. However, photosynthesis is the answer. Plants exude sugars and carbohydrates, made from atmospheric CO2, into the soil feeding massive amounts of bacteria and fungi(carbon). The bulk of carbon in the soil comes from plant exudates, not plant matter. As long as this ecosystem is healthy the carbon stays in the soil. When the soil ecosystem is healthy plants are healthier which makes everything up the food chain healthier. The majority of our crop and pasture land soil is dead. The previous year's carbon that was pumped into the soil by plants is released when tilling happens in the spring. We need to stop tilling and grow diverse, more than 8, species wherever we can. Five tenants of soil health https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A NASA CO2 https://youtu.be/x1SgmFa0r04 https://youtu.be/x1SgmFa0r04
  - PicassoCTs 5y ago
    Could creating algea flowering allow for large scale photosynthesis binding?
- barathr 5y ago
  This is all or nothing thinking. No one solution will solve everything, but trees plus emissions reductions are probably the two easiest and biggest.
  - cloverich 5y ago
    Its not about that. Its about the cold hard reality: Planting tree's will not be a significant factor in fixing climate change. Its not that its worthless, its that its not worth discussing relative to the other items on the list. Because (for arguments sake) of the 20 or so other ideas we have for fixing climate change, we need roughly all of them to work, and they will all have 100-1000x the impact of planting tree's. And we don't have a concrete plan to get them going. We need focused discussion and action and a lot of innovation.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  Your link claims the 1 trillion tree estimate is wrong. But it doesn't propose an alternate number. Here's a back of the envelope calculation: a tree absorbs about 48 pounds of CO2/year [1], which is 22kg. So, one trillion trees absorb 22 GT/year. The world puts out 36 GT/year (or about 50 GT of CO2-equivalent if you include methane and other greenhouse gases). One trillion might not be enough, but 2 could do the trick. [1] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2015/03/17/power-one-tree-very-air-we-breathe https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2015/03/17/power-one-tree-ve...
sershe 5y ago
Isn't the issue with trees is that they release the carbon back after they die and decompose? You have to actually sequester carbon somehow. No idea how easy it is to do with trees (presumably you'd have to cut them and put them somewhere they don't degrade?).
- marcusverus 5y ago
  In terms of getting the most capture for your buck, it seems like you could just harvest the logs, ship them by rail to an arid area, pile them loosely to facilitate drying, and (optionally) treat them with an anti-fungal agent.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  Right, trees provide a buffer. If you can plant faster than the trees are dying, you gain ground.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    And as large scale planting projects have shown: planting trees fast and getting them to survive in a cost effective way is a hard problem.
  - lostapathy 5y ago
    Technically you need to plant trees faster than they rot, not faster than they die. All the trees that were cut down to built my house are not rotting - that carbon is captured and out of the system until/unless my house is burned down or left to rot. It's funny to think - right now "green building" tries to minimize the amount of wood in a structure, but are we approaching a future where green building means locking up as much wood product in a structure as possible, to get it out of the carbon cycle?
- rabidrat 5y ago
  ...can we build houses with them?
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  Isn't that offset by the fact that trees replicate?

hh3k0 5y ago

> Sometimes we overlook the simplest approaches. We should plant trees. Lots of them. It's not a perfect solution That's because it's not a solution at all: https://www.wired.com/story/trees-regenerative-agriculture-climate-change/ https://www.wired.com/story/trees-regenerative-agriculture-c...

tastyfreeze 5y ago
Trees alone might not be. However, photosynthesis is the answer. Plants exude sugars and carbohydrates, made from atmospheric CO2, into the soil feeding massive amounts of bacteria and fungi(carbon). The bulk of carbon in the soil comes from plant exudates, not plant matter. As long as this ecosystem is healthy the carbon stays in the soil. When the soil ecosystem is healthy plants are healthier which makes everything up the food chain healthier. The majority of our crop and pasture land soil is dead. The previous year's carbon that was pumped into the soil by plants is released when tilling happens in the spring. We need to stop tilling and grow diverse, more than 8, species wherever we can. Five tenants of soil health https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A NASA CO2 https://youtu.be/x1SgmFa0r04 https://youtu.be/x1SgmFa0r04
- PicassoCTs 5y ago
  Could creating algea flowering allow for large scale photosynthesis binding?
barathr 5y ago
This is all or nothing thinking. No one solution will solve everything, but trees plus emissions reductions are probably the two easiest and biggest.
- cloverich 5y ago
  Its not about that. Its about the cold hard reality: Planting tree's will not be a significant factor in fixing climate change. Its not that its worthless, its that its not worth discussing relative to the other items on the list. Because (for arguments sake) of the 20 or so other ideas we have for fixing climate change, we need roughly all of them to work, and they will all have 100-1000x the impact of planting tree's. And we don't have a concrete plan to get them going. We need focused discussion and action and a lot of innovation.
credit_guy 5y ago
Your link claims the 1 trillion tree estimate is wrong. But it doesn't propose an alternate number. Here's a back of the envelope calculation: a tree absorbs about 48 pounds of CO2/year [1], which is 22kg. So, one trillion trees absorb 22 GT/year. The world puts out 36 GT/year (or about 50 GT of CO2-equivalent if you include methane and other greenhouse gases). One trillion might not be enough, but 2 could do the trick. [1] https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2015/03/17/power-one-tree-very-air-we-breathe https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2015/03/17/power-one-tree-ve...

sershe 5y ago

Isn't the issue with trees is that they release the carbon back after they die and decompose? You have to actually sequester carbon somehow. No idea how easy it is to do with trees (presumably you'd have to cut them and put them somewhere they don't degrade?).

marcusverus 5y ago
In terms of getting the most capture for your buck, it seems like you could just harvest the logs, ship them by rail to an arid area, pile them loosely to facilitate drying, and (optionally) treat them with an anti-fungal agent.
tomjakubowski 5y ago
Right, trees provide a buffer. If you can plant faster than the trees are dying, you gain ground.
- vidarh 5y ago
  And as large scale planting projects have shown: planting trees fast and getting them to survive in a cost effective way is a hard problem.
- lostapathy 5y ago
  Technically you need to plant trees faster than they rot, not faster than they die. All the trees that were cut down to built my house are not rotting - that carbon is captured and out of the system until/unless my house is burned down or left to rot. It's funny to think - right now "green building" tries to minimize the amount of wood in a structure, but are we approaching a future where green building means locking up as much wood product in a structure as possible, to get it out of the carbon cycle?
rabidrat 5y ago
...can we build houses with them?
FooBarWidget 5y ago
Isn't that offset by the fact that trees replicate?