5 ms·

A study in North Carolina of dying trees

soared 5y ago
Oddly enough this made me think of the Great Wall of China. A Great Ocean Wall of some sort sounds like it would be effective. Finance it with waterproof apartments in some areas.
The_rationalist 5y ago
In other news: 11 March: A review finds that the Amazon basin currently emits more greenhouse gases than it absorbs overall.[204]
- icoder 5y ago
  Clarification as I totally misunderstood your comment (possibly due to not knowing the relevance of the term basin here): The BBC article covering this article describes this as being caused by deforrestation / dying trees. Part of the Anazon rainforrest is still a carbon sink and as a whole it is as well. But for how long? Note that the scientific paper (at least at the time of the BBC article) is yet to be published.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  I would not expect any steady-state forest to be a net carbon remover. But it is a large sink.
Robotbeat 5y ago
I honestly wonder if creating dikes to protect these areas might someday make sense. Humans created this mess, and perhaps humans can help repair and/or save some of it. If the Dutch can reclaim land from the sea, perhaps we must as well.
andyxor 5y ago
Plant trees. Never thought of becoming a "tree hugger" but I've recently setup a recurring donation to a few charities - Ecologi, EdenProjects.org, OneTreePlanted, TreeNation, NationalForests.org. Spreading it across several orgs as I don't know yet which ones are more efficient than others. It's nice to think that somewhere in Amazonia my small forest will be offsetting tons of CO2 produced by driving around and consuming products, and it will live long after I'm gone. I wish that $100M "Carbon Capture" prize by Musk would go to planting a billion trees, the perfect carbon capture machines.
- enriquto 5y ago
  > trees, the perfect carbon capture machines. Why? plants are carbon neutral. They capture some carbon while they live, then liberate all that carbon when they die and are decomposed. No carbon ever leaves the biosphere. Carbon capture would happen if you cut down a whole forest (regardless of who planted it) and buried it a few miles underground, sealing the mine. That way the carbon leaves the biosphere.
  - asplake 5y ago
    More trees, more biosphere
  - gear54rus 5y ago
    as I understand, the jury is still out on that one: https://news.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-carbon-into-atmosphere-than-expected https://news.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-car...
  - kortilla 5y ago
    You assume the dying trees did not reproduce.
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    > then liberate all that carbon when they die and are decomposed. No carbon ever leaves the biosphere. No. They liberate very little. Bury or sink wood and it will stay put.
    - wearywanderer 5y ago
      (I am not a geologist:) From what I understand, burying wood stopped being particularly effective a few hundred million years ago at the end of the carboniferous era. Before then, plants were producing tons of lignin, which few fungi or bacteria were able to break down. Most coal comes from carbon sequestered in this era. Peat bogs seem to be an exception to this; certainly there are still some scenarios/environments where burying wood will sequester the carbon. Maybe conditions like that could be artificially engineered in other locations.
bpodgursky 5y ago
I wonder if there's potentially in trying to seed some of these coastal wetlands with potentially non-native Mangroves which thrive on brackish water. It's not a native species, but at a point, surely unnatural but living trees are better than dead swamps.
ehnto 5y ago
I learned all about salinity and it's effects on our land in school in the 90s, it was a very big issue to us even then. The cause for us at the time was deforestation over the decades. I welcome anyone to jump on to Google Maps and take a wander across the Australian coastal areas, then wander inland. Marvel at just how much land was cleared for agriculture. It's a patchwork quilt of farmland. We only have 25 million people, so to have cleared so much land is truly saddening. We cleared land we couldn't even farm. Clearing the land was our first order of business when settlers arrived. The good news is there are numerous national parks, growing every year, and revegetation is something we are doing a lot of. Let's hope it's not too little too late.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  If I was President, I'd double the size of the national parks, connect them with wildlife corridors, and make national parks out of several marine offshore environments. Of course, I'd never be elected!
  - ehnto 5y ago
    My city did at least one of those last year! There is some hope. There is a national park corridor that cuts from the mountains, right through suburbia, and down to the coast. It was disparate nature reserves that are now connected into a fully fledged national park thanks to some land purchases. Not a little sliver between the highways either, pretty decent size land portions!
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Ah, marvelous!
- meristohm 5y ago
  In the early 2000s an acquaintance told me about the time they joined as spectator a crew who were dragging down a forest with a massive chain between two huge tracked vehicles. The downed trees were then burned. Is this still practiced? Edit: this was in Australia
jl6 5y ago
A related article on the challenges of decommissioning coastal towns: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/this-is-a-wake-up-call-the-villagers-who-could-be-britains-first-climate-refugees https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/this-is-...
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Are a list of these places tracked somewhere?
linuxftw 5y ago
Sea levels have been rising since the end of the ice age. Nothing on the Earth is permanent. If you've ever been to eastern NC or VA, it's all sand near the coast. The ocean is reclaiming what was once hers.

Oddly enough this made me think of the Great Wall of China. A Great Ocean Wall of some sort sounds like it would be effective. Finance it with waterproof apartments in some areas.

The_rationalist 5y ago

In other news: 11 March: A review finds that the Amazon basin currently emits more greenhouse gases than it absorbs overall.[204]

icoder 5y ago
Clarification as I totally misunderstood your comment (possibly due to not knowing the relevance of the term basin here): The BBC article covering this article describes this as being caused by deforrestation / dying trees. Part of the Anazon rainforrest is still a carbon sink and as a whole it is as well. But for how long? Note that the scientific paper (at least at the time of the BBC article) is yet to be published.
bpodgursky 5y ago
I would not expect any steady-state forest to be a net carbon remover. But it is a large sink.

Robotbeat 5y ago

I honestly wonder if creating dikes to protect these areas might someday make sense. Humans created this mess, and perhaps humans can help repair and/or save some of it. If the Dutch can reclaim land from the sea, perhaps we must as well.

andyxor 5y ago

Plant trees. Never thought of becoming a "tree hugger" but I've recently setup a recurring donation to a few charities - Ecologi, EdenProjects.org, OneTreePlanted, TreeNation, NationalForests.org. Spreading it across several orgs as I don't know yet which ones are more efficient than others. It's nice to think that somewhere in Amazonia my small forest will be offsetting tons of CO2 produced by driving around and consuming products, and it will live long after I'm gone. I wish that $100M "Carbon Capture" prize by Musk would go to planting a billion trees, the perfect carbon capture machines.

enriquto 5y ago
> trees, the perfect carbon capture machines. Why? plants are carbon neutral. They capture some carbon while they live, then liberate all that carbon when they die and are decomposed. No carbon ever leaves the biosphere. Carbon capture would happen if you cut down a whole forest (regardless of who planted it) and buried it a few miles underground, sealing the mine. That way the carbon leaves the biosphere.
- asplake 5y ago
  More trees, more biosphere
- gear54rus 5y ago
  as I understand, the jury is still out on that one: https://news.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-carbon-into-atmosphere-than-expected https://news.arizona.edu/story/dead-forests-release-less-car...
- kortilla 5y ago
  You assume the dying trees did not reproduce.
- raverbashing 5y ago
  > then liberate all that carbon when they die and are decomposed. No carbon ever leaves the biosphere. No. They liberate very little. Bury or sink wood and it will stay put.
  - wearywanderer 5y ago
    (I am not a geologist:) From what I understand, burying wood stopped being particularly effective a few hundred million years ago at the end of the carboniferous era. Before then, plants were producing tons of lignin, which few fungi or bacteria were able to break down. Most coal comes from carbon sequestered in this era. Peat bogs seem to be an exception to this; certainly there are still some scenarios/environments where burying wood will sequester the carbon. Maybe conditions like that could be artificially engineered in other locations.

bpodgursky 5y ago

I wonder if there's potentially in trying to seed some of these coastal wetlands with potentially non-native Mangroves which thrive on brackish water. It's not a native species, but at a point, surely unnatural but living trees are better than dead swamps.

ehnto 5y ago

I learned all about salinity and it's effects on our land in school in the 90s, it was a very big issue to us even then. The cause for us at the time was deforestation over the decades. I welcome anyone to jump on to Google Maps and take a wander across the Australian coastal areas, then wander inland. Marvel at just how much land was cleared for agriculture. It's a patchwork quilt of farmland. We only have 25 million people, so to have cleared so much land is truly saddening. We cleared land we couldn't even farm. Clearing the land was our first order of business when settlers arrived. The good news is there are numerous national parks, growing every year, and revegetation is something we are doing a lot of. Let's hope it's not too little too late.

WalterBright 5y ago
If I was President, I'd double the size of the national parks, connect them with wildlife corridors, and make national parks out of several marine offshore environments. Of course, I'd never be elected!
- ehnto 5y ago
  My city did at least one of those last year! There is some hope. There is a national park corridor that cuts from the mountains, right through suburbia, and down to the coast. It was disparate nature reserves that are now connected into a fully fledged national park thanks to some land purchases. Not a little sliver between the highways either, pretty decent size land portions!
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Ah, marvelous!
meristohm 5y ago
In the early 2000s an acquaintance told me about the time they joined as spectator a crew who were dragging down a forest with a massive chain between two huge tracked vehicles. The downed trees were then burned. Is this still practiced? Edit: this was in Australia

jl6 5y ago

A related article on the challenges of decommissioning coastal towns: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/this-is-a-wake-up-call-the-villagers-who-could-be-britains-first-climate-refugees https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/this-is-...

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Are a list of these places tracked somewhere?

linuxftw 5y ago

Sea levels have been rising since the end of the ice age. Nothing on the Earth is permanent. If you've ever been to eastern NC or VA, it's all sand near the coast. The ocean is reclaiming what was once hers.