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I have been donating some money every month to an Icelandic tree planting project to offset my carbon emissions after reading an article on HN about how the Vik
by toto444 4y ago
I have been donating some money every month to an Icelandic tree planting project to offset my carbon emissions after reading an article on HN about how the Vikings cut all trees of the island. I find the numbers fascinating :
> Forests and bushes now cover over 2% of Iceland, Vísir reports. That number may not seem like much, but since 1990, the surface area covered by forest or shrubs in Iceland has increased more than six times over – from 7,000 hectares to 45,000. In 20 years, the number is expected to be 2.6%.
And from another article :
> The Forest Service intends to deliver six million plants this year, says Þröstur, which is equivalent to pre-crash levels of production. “It was around five million last year, and four million the year before that. This is a rapid increase. Then we need seven to eight million next year, which we may not manage, and ten to twelve in 2025.”
- asdff 4y agoThere are also islands in croatia and all over the med that are barren from venetian shipbuilding centuries ago as well. Shipbuilding stripped a lot of forests in europe.
- pasiaj 4y agoFor comparison: Finland (338,440 km²) is three times the size of Iceland (103,000 km²) Finland has 23 million hectares (76%) of forest cover. http://www.metla.fi/metinfo/sustainability/finnish.htm http://www.metla.fi/metinfo/sustainability/finnish.htm
- BurningFrog 4y agoA hectare is 0.01 km², so Finland has 230,000 km² of forest.
- lucb1e 4y agoFrankly I find both of these really hard to wrap my head around. Not like football fields or olympic swimming pools are better, but the country of Finland being ¾ covered gives me a much better sense of scale than x million hectolometers. Probably that only works for people that are from nearby Finland and/or into geography, though. For huge scales like these, I'm thinking degrees might theoretically be a better unit, since it's easier to visualize a fraction of the globe (presuming people know there's 360 degrees around the globe) than picturing hundreds of thousands of some other unit.
- frxx 4y agoCan you let me know the project you're donating to? I'm interested as well.
- seunosewa 4y agoWhat percentage of your carbon footprint do you reckon that your donation is offsetting?
- toto444 4y agoI don't really know and I've been wondering for a while. HN might be the best place to get an informed answer. Here is my reasoning. Say I give enough to plant 10 trees a month. In 10 years that's 1,200 trees. Let's say half of them die, we're left with 600. Assuming a tree absorb 1 ton of CO2 throughout its life, that 600 tons. I live in a place where CO2 emissions per capita are about 6 tons a year (check for yourself here and don't forget to compare with the US https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... ). According to this back of the enveloppe calculation after 10 years I would have planted enough trees to offset 100 years of carbon emissions.
- simongray 4y agoI just "bought" 21 trees as a gift to someone (to be planted in Denmark, not Iceland). This amount supposedly offsets what the average Danish person emits in a month according to the organisation I bought it from. Not sure where you're from, but the average American emits something like 2.5 times what the average Dane does, so that would work out to ~60 trees that need to planted monthly (if you're American). Obviously, your mileage may vary. In any case, it really puts into perspective how messed up our continued use of fossil fuels is.
- yownie 4y agoAnother interesting metric for you, the average Icelander wastes 8x the electricity an EU mainland counterpart does.
- toto444 4y agoThanks for the correction. Just found this estimate 'the average tree absorbs an average of 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, of carbon dioxide per year for the first 20 years.' My quick calculation of 1 ton of CO2 being absorbed is off by a factor of five then (200kg over 20 years).
- mynameishere 4y agoThat is insane. Why not just spew less carbon? Cut out the middleman.
- TrueGeek 4y agoMaybe he does both
- bloppe 4y agoI love spewing carbon
- dfxm12 4y agoMost of us live in capitalist societies, where it is ingrained into people that capital can solve all of our problems & that short term capital gain is more important than anything else. This is a case where it will not, since we can't buy our way to a new planet. :(
- baryphonic 4y agoPeople are free to do what they want in the privacy of their homes on their own time, but I for one do not enjoy asphyxiation.
- bloppe 4y agoIf the goal is to sequester as much CO2 as possible, it's much better to support tropical rainforest than planting trees near the arctic circle. The Coalition of Rainforest Nations is consistently cited as one of the most impactful NGO's in terms of carbon saved. I'm all for planting more Icelandic trees, but I don't think you're getting as much bang for your buck as you could.
- 11235813213455 4y agoor both
- CuriousCosmic 4y agoSure for the purpose of sequestering CO2 it may not be the most "economically efficient" but in general attempting to restore Iceland back to the pre-settlement forest coverage of 40% seems a worthwhile goal in of itself.
- throwaway894345 4y agoAgreed. I’m also of the impression that cutting down the trees led to intense soil erosion (winds and rains washing the topsoil off of the relatively flat island). In addition to minimizing soil erosion, I also wonder if forests will help regenerate topsoil. Also, I wouldn’t mind retiring early and doing some tree planting in Iceland or similar volunteer work to pay my way around a country.
- TravelPiglet 4y agoLess wood they need to import as well
- koheripbal 4y agoIn general, mature forests are net CO2 neutral as they exist in a balanced carbon cycle. Only when they are initially planted and growing is there a net CO2 sequestration going on. Burning fossil fuels is the problem we need to fix.
- 4y ago
- bmitc 4y agoJust a note that two of the best things you can do for your own carbon emissions is to compost all organic material instead of throwing it out and planting native plants, trees, shrubs, and reducing the size of your lawn while also mowing what's left less frequently.
- Schiendelman 4y agoThat’s like a 1% impact compared to biking instead of driving.
- woodruffw 4y agoWhich means that you should prioritize it relative to cycling instead of driving, not ignore it entirely. (More concretely: individuals cycle, while household units generally compost together. A household of 4 produces a nontrivial amount of compostable waste and diverting it can be a significant ecological outcome, especially if it's replacing purchases of topsoil or artificial fertilizer. It also makes taking the trash out more pleasant, since it doesn't spend days rotting indoors before being tossed to the curb.)
- Schiendelman 4y agoA household of 4 also drives at least twice as much as a single person. 2%. If you’re spending your limited time and effort on 2% measures we’ve all already lost.
- woodruffw 4y agoMy household drives 0%, because we live in a major city. I don't even have a valid drivers' license. I already bike or take public transit to work every day. > If you’re spending your limited time and effort on 2% measures we’ve all already lost. We're talking about one measure, one that's specifically coextensive with managing your waste (assuming you don't throw your trash into a pile in the corner of your room). It takes me no extra time to throw a banana peel in the compost bin instead of the trash can; they're right next to each other.