3 ms·

Trees Are a Faster Solution to Climate Change Than Technology

15 points by blacksqr 5y ago

sharemywin 5y ago
wonder why we don't have a plat a tree tax credit?
- sp332 5y ago
  There used to be a tax credit, but I think it has expired. You can at least deduct up to $10,000 per year for reforestation/afforestation costs. https://www.landcan.org/article/Federal-Reforestation-Deduction-and-Amortization/2544/ https://www.landcan.org/article/Federal-Reforestation-Deduct...
webmaven 5y ago
Reforestation (and similar biological carbon capture and sequestration techniques) have an advantage over the short and medium term (the next several decades), but then reforestation hits a wall in terms of land availability. It is going to be very difficult (economically and politically) to convert agricultural land to forests. In theory, you could harvest the timber and figure out a way to sequester the captured carbon and just keep repeating the process, but having carbon capture methods that scale up beyond the land availability bottleneck will be needed regardless.
- meristohm 5y ago
  Forested areas can be agricultural land. Rivers that run through forests are better environments for fish. Forests help keep water around. Coffee and other plants that do well out of full-sun can be grown in forests. If we in the USA stopped converting corn into ethanol we'd have some land to return to prairie/wetland/woodland/etc., and if/when we change our diets to eating higher-quality food less often (which involves being okay with going a day without snacking, knowing there's a wonderful, wholesome meal eventually) I think we'll be able to adjust to eating more of the things that grow in forests. We'll need to restrict ourselves to effectiveness rather than efficiency, though, harvesting little enough so that the ecosystem stays resilient.
  - FrenchAmerican 5y ago
    Meat is by far the production that require land. 1 cow requires 2.5 acres of land, if my memory is right. If we cut meat consumption, then we have plenty of space available. We should eat much less meat in all cases, that's one of the few points that meta-analyses of effect of diet on health have pointed out. We really need one piece of red meat like beef per week to get the vitamin B12. And no more than one meal with meat every other day. Or we can have the same amount per week but with half portion everyday - for example if the dish requires meat for its taste. With much fewer cows, we can then let them roam freely in forests, which they prefer by far. Grass without shade is good for golf, not for cows. In the US, most cows don't even have grass ; they walk all day in their own shit, parked in overpopulated enclosure, and fed with soja. That's so disgusting that cattle breeders went to court - and won - to forbid any photo of their enclosures. I'm not a vegan, not even a vegetarian and I consider humans to be omnivorous by nature. But I want to eat the meat of happy cows, happy pigs and happy chicken. Without hormones, without antibiotics, without GMOs feed. That means a more expensive meat but it tastes so much better, really. Chicken are super tasty when raised in natural conditions. Pork is unbelievably better.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  The US grows corn on 90 million acres of land [1], and a third of the corn production is used to produce ethanol [2]. That’s 30 million acres that we use right now to supposedly combat climate change. Except that all the carbon that that corn scrubs from the air is then put in gas tanks and promptly burned. If we replace that with forrests, you could get 3 billion trees. This just by repurposing land that was already dedicated to carbon capture. They say we need 1 trillion trees to get to net zero emissions. [1] https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/usda-anticipates-corn-acres-remain-steady-soybeans-dip-2022 https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/usda-antici... [2] https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10339 https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10339
GrundyVander 5y ago
Pretty sure the trees would just release captured CO2 back into the atmosphere once they die.

15 points by blacksqr 5y ago

sharemywin 5y ago

wonder why we don't have a plat a tree tax credit?

sp332 5y ago
There used to be a tax credit, but I think it has expired. You can at least deduct up to $10,000 per year for reforestation/afforestation costs. https://www.landcan.org/article/Federal-Reforestation-Deduction-and-Amortization/2544/ https://www.landcan.org/article/Federal-Reforestation-Deduct...

webmaven 5y ago

Reforestation (and similar biological carbon capture and sequestration techniques) have an advantage over the short and medium term (the next several decades), but then reforestation hits a wall in terms of land availability. It is going to be very difficult (economically and politically) to convert agricultural land to forests. In theory, you could harvest the timber and figure out a way to sequester the captured carbon and just keep repeating the process, but having carbon capture methods that scale up beyond the land availability bottleneck will be needed regardless.

meristohm 5y ago
Forested areas can be agricultural land. Rivers that run through forests are better environments for fish. Forests help keep water around. Coffee and other plants that do well out of full-sun can be grown in forests. If we in the USA stopped converting corn into ethanol we'd have some land to return to prairie/wetland/woodland/etc., and if/when we change our diets to eating higher-quality food less often (which involves being okay with going a day without snacking, knowing there's a wonderful, wholesome meal eventually) I think we'll be able to adjust to eating more of the things that grow in forests. We'll need to restrict ourselves to effectiveness rather than efficiency, though, harvesting little enough so that the ecosystem stays resilient.
- FrenchAmerican 5y ago
  Meat is by far the production that require land. 1 cow requires 2.5 acres of land, if my memory is right. If we cut meat consumption, then we have plenty of space available. We should eat much less meat in all cases, that's one of the few points that meta-analyses of effect of diet on health have pointed out. We really need one piece of red meat like beef per week to get the vitamin B12. And no more than one meal with meat every other day. Or we can have the same amount per week but with half portion everyday - for example if the dish requires meat for its taste. With much fewer cows, we can then let them roam freely in forests, which they prefer by far. Grass without shade is good for golf, not for cows. In the US, most cows don't even have grass ; they walk all day in their own shit, parked in overpopulated enclosure, and fed with soja. That's so disgusting that cattle breeders went to court - and won - to forbid any photo of their enclosures. I'm not a vegan, not even a vegetarian and I consider humans to be omnivorous by nature. But I want to eat the meat of happy cows, happy pigs and happy chicken. Without hormones, without antibiotics, without GMOs feed. That means a more expensive meat but it tastes so much better, really. Chicken are super tasty when raised in natural conditions. Pork is unbelievably better.
credit_guy 5y ago
The US grows corn on 90 million acres of land [1], and a third of the corn production is used to produce ethanol [2]. That’s 30 million acres that we use right now to supposedly combat climate change. Except that all the carbon that that corn scrubs from the air is then put in gas tanks and promptly burned. If we replace that with forrests, you could get 3 billion trees. This just by repurposing land that was already dedicated to carbon capture. They say we need 1 trillion trees to get to net zero emissions. [1] https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/usda-anticipates-corn-acres-remain-steady-soybeans-dip-2022 https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/usda-antici... [2] https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10339 https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10339

GrundyVander 5y ago

Pretty sure the trees would just release captured CO2 back into the atmosphere once they die.