6 ms·

If 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 o

by bloppe 4y ago

If 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 ago
or both
CuriousCosmic 4y ago
Sure 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 ago
  Agreed. 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 ago
Less wood they need to import as well
koheripbal 4y ago
In 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.
- snewman 4y ago
  We need to do many many many things. Halting the combustion of fossil fuels is absolutely #1 on the list, but it's a long list. That initial sequestration can't make up for ongoing use of fossil fuels, sure, but it still has nonzero value.
- jazzyjackson 4y ago
  if your only metric is CO2, you miss the forest for the trees ;) the problem with climate change is the wild swings in weather - if you want to stabilize and buffer these swings, you need to maximize biomass. having a mature forest ecosystem acting as a carbon/nitrogen buffer does a lot of good, but in a way that is difficult to measure I think we get tunnel vision on CO2 ppm because it's a metric with a nice clean causative effect (greenhouse), but more energy on earth is not what's actually causing us grief, we've destroyed most of the mature ecosystems and decimated total biomass, and we are surprised that this causes issues with the total ecosystem because we consider atmospheric problems somehow unrelated to all the living things participating in chemical cycles with that atmosphere. we need more buffer wherever we can get it, and I hate to see someone poo-pooing ecosystem restoration in favor of carbon sequestration.
  - soco 4y ago
    Carbon sequestration is a technological problem so technology people will absolutely love it - unlike something as mundane and boring as planting trees or breeding frogs.
    - jazzyjackson 4y ago
      personally my favorite is coral propagation, just take some coral and split it into smaller chunks and let those chunks grow up - they are self replicators, what more could a techie want?
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  > In general, mature forests are net CO2 neutral as they exist in a balanced carbon cycle. Can we cut down forests and store them deep in former mines?
melling 4y ago
The old “Wait, wait, stop what you are doing. I’ve got a better idea.” You know what would really be better than planting trees? For the world to stop burning so much coal. 40% of global electricity is from coal. Europe needs to increase coal usage because of the war. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/germany-coal-renewable-energy-climate-russia-1.6500354 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/germany-coal-renewable-energ... There are 8 billion people on the planet. “Hey, everyone stop what you’re doing, let’s all do this” is quite ineffective. We don’t need to stop planting trees in Iceland in order to save the rain forests.
- scifibestfi 4y ago
  > 40% of global electricity is from coal. Europe needs to increase coal usage because of the war. Or put another way, because they didn't bother to become energy independent and shut down nuclear plants instead of investing in more.
- hedora 4y ago
  I wonder if there's a charity that will pay for / subsidize heat pumps in Europe this winter. The war in Ukraine is an actual existential crisis for many countries over there, and ending gas imports is the easiest way for them to defend against future Russian invasion. I'd expect the politicians to be launching a WWII-style industrial mobilization to ramp up heat pump installations. Even if they can't switch away from coal / natural gas this year, typical heat pump coefficients of power are well above 4. Going from 100% gas furnaces to 100% heat pumps powered off of natural gas peaker plants would more than halve natural gas demand! (And, in coming years, the natural gas plants could be replaced with greener options.)
  - fleddr 4y ago
    Note that in moderate/colder countries (taking the Netherlands as an example), heat pumps are not a solution when your house is not up to modern insulation standards. Which is true for almost all houses older than say 15-20 years. The insulation needs to happen first for those houses, and this can be a massive undertaking costing tens of thousands of euros. The next best thing is a hybrid heat pump. Although there's some subsidies here and there, you're very much right that we need something way more aggressive. For the houses I mentioned (which is almost all), a total sum of ~50K EUR is just not something the average family can afford. Those that do probably up their mortgage to finance it. Also take into account the shortages. I have a family member that installs heat pumps, he orders them by the dozens. Currently he's afraid to place orders as the delivery time is a minimum of 6 months with no guaranteed final date nor is the price fixed. It's "6K but we will charge you whatever it will actually be when we deliver". "I don't know when it is coming or what it will cost" is not a great message towards home owners.
ipqk 4y ago
The easiest way to support tropical rainforest is to eat less beef. The amazon is cleared for cattle grazing, much of which is imported into America.
- greedo 4y ago
  Source? From what I've seen, most beef imports into the US come from Canada, Mexico, then Australia. https://www.beefmagazine.com/beef-quality/update-us-cattle-exports-and-imports https://www.beefmagazine.com/beef-quality/update-us-cattle-e...
  - kawsper 4y ago
    Denmark imports 1650000 metric tons soya from south america yearly to feed to animals.
  - lucb1e 4y ago
    This "my particular country doesn't import most of its cattle from Brazil" doesn't mean that you're not creating demand and perhaps also influencing the market in a way that someone's beef is. (Collectively, obviously.) The argument sounds similar to "but my country isn't polluting, it's China where we order all our stuff!" And, yeah, animal feed like others already said. It's all not quite as simple as "source? I don't believe I'm part of the problem by creating demand for meat here" coming from the country where the average person contributes the most to global warming
    - greedo 4y ago
      The OP was clearly saying that the importation of beef into America was causing clearing of the Amazon, when the link is a bit more complicated. Yes, some things are a bit fungible in the world economy, some trade tariffs encourage things like soya from Brazil for food etc. But just nailing the US for it when the EU, Japan, and China is just as culpable is silly.
      - lucb1e 4y ago
belorn 4y ago
If the goal is to sequester CO2 then its not enough to just grow trees, you also need to prevent them from being cut down and burned. One thing that I would argue in favor of using iceland and other areas around the arctic circle is that people has demonstrated in the last several decades that it isn't economical worth to grow and farm the land for anything, which include trees. That might then mean that people will leave the trees alone for a long enough time that the sequester of CO2 matters.
spenczar5 4y ago
It’s complicated. Iceland is less corrupt than many nations with tropical rainforests, so your dollars are more likely to actually be used as you intended. There is very little logging industry competing against you and virtually no poaching so your effort is more durable, too. It’s hard to quantify these things and get a conclusive answer on which is better; I think we can leave it at “both are good.”
- lucb1e 4y ago
  > There is very little logging industry I wonder why :P When I was in Iceland, they told me the reason they don't have forests anymore is that the vikings and other later settlers logged it. (Of course, a random horse tour person isn't the best source so I could very well be misinformed.)
  - yownie 4y ago
    you were correctly informed, it was a combination of early settlers logging heavily plus long forest regrow times due to sparse sunlight plus sheep overgrazing saplings.

by bloppe 4y ago

11235813213455 4y ago

or both

CuriousCosmic 4y ago

Sure 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 ago
Agreed. 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 ago

Less wood they need to import as well

koheripbal 4y ago

In 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.

snewman 4y ago
We need to do many many many things. Halting the combustion of fossil fuels is absolutely #1 on the list, but it's a long list. That initial sequestration can't make up for ongoing use of fossil fuels, sure, but it still has nonzero value.
jazzyjackson 4y ago
if your only metric is CO2, you miss the forest for the trees ;) the problem with climate change is the wild swings in weather - if you want to stabilize and buffer these swings, you need to maximize biomass. having a mature forest ecosystem acting as a carbon/nitrogen buffer does a lot of good, but in a way that is difficult to measure I think we get tunnel vision on CO2 ppm because it's a metric with a nice clean causative effect (greenhouse), but more energy on earth is not what's actually causing us grief, we've destroyed most of the mature ecosystems and decimated total biomass, and we are surprised that this causes issues with the total ecosystem because we consider atmospheric problems somehow unrelated to all the living things participating in chemical cycles with that atmosphere. we need more buffer wherever we can get it, and I hate to see someone poo-pooing ecosystem restoration in favor of carbon sequestration.
- soco 4y ago
  Carbon sequestration is a technological problem so technology people will absolutely love it - unlike something as mundane and boring as planting trees or breeding frogs.
  - jazzyjackson 4y ago
    personally my favorite is coral propagation, just take some coral and split it into smaller chunks and let those chunks grow up - they are self replicators, what more could a techie want?
KptMarchewa 4y ago
> In general, mature forests are net CO2 neutral as they exist in a balanced carbon cycle. Can we cut down forests and store them deep in former mines?

melling 4y ago

The old “Wait, wait, stop what you are doing. I’ve got a better idea.” You know what would really be better than planting trees? For the world to stop burning so much coal. 40% of global electricity is from coal. Europe needs to increase coal usage because of the war. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/germany-coal-renewable-energy-climate-russia-1.6500354 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/germany-coal-renewable-energ... There are 8 billion people on the planet. “Hey, everyone stop what you’re doing, let’s all do this” is quite ineffective. We don’t need to stop planting trees in Iceland in order to save the rain forests.

scifibestfi 4y ago
> 40% of global electricity is from coal. Europe needs to increase coal usage because of the war. Or put another way, because they didn't bother to become energy independent and shut down nuclear plants instead of investing in more.
hedora 4y ago
I wonder if there's a charity that will pay for / subsidize heat pumps in Europe this winter. The war in Ukraine is an actual existential crisis for many countries over there, and ending gas imports is the easiest way for them to defend against future Russian invasion. I'd expect the politicians to be launching a WWII-style industrial mobilization to ramp up heat pump installations. Even if they can't switch away from coal / natural gas this year, typical heat pump coefficients of power are well above 4. Going from 100% gas furnaces to 100% heat pumps powered off of natural gas peaker plants would more than halve natural gas demand! (And, in coming years, the natural gas plants could be replaced with greener options.)
- fleddr 4y ago
  Note that in moderate/colder countries (taking the Netherlands as an example), heat pumps are not a solution when your house is not up to modern insulation standards. Which is true for almost all houses older than say 15-20 years. The insulation needs to happen first for those houses, and this can be a massive undertaking costing tens of thousands of euros. The next best thing is a hybrid heat pump. Although there's some subsidies here and there, you're very much right that we need something way more aggressive. For the houses I mentioned (which is almost all), a total sum of ~50K EUR is just not something the average family can afford. Those that do probably up their mortgage to finance it. Also take into account the shortages. I have a family member that installs heat pumps, he orders them by the dozens. Currently he's afraid to place orders as the delivery time is a minimum of 6 months with no guaranteed final date nor is the price fixed. It's "6K but we will charge you whatever it will actually be when we deliver". "I don't know when it is coming or what it will cost" is not a great message towards home owners.

ipqk 4y ago

The easiest way to support tropical rainforest is to eat less beef. The amazon is cleared for cattle grazing, much of which is imported into America.

greedo 4y ago
Source? From what I've seen, most beef imports into the US come from Canada, Mexico, then Australia. https://www.beefmagazine.com/beef-quality/update-us-cattle-exports-and-imports https://www.beefmagazine.com/beef-quality/update-us-cattle-e...
- kawsper 4y ago
  Denmark imports 1650000 metric tons soya from south america yearly to feed to animals.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  This "my particular country doesn't import most of its cattle from Brazil" doesn't mean that you're not creating demand and perhaps also influencing the market in a way that someone's beef is. (Collectively, obviously.) The argument sounds similar to "but my country isn't polluting, it's China where we order all our stuff!" And, yeah, animal feed like others already said. It's all not quite as simple as "source? I don't believe I'm part of the problem by creating demand for meat here" coming from the country where the average person contributes the most to global warming
  - greedo 4y ago
    The OP was clearly saying that the importation of beef into America was causing clearing of the Amazon, when the link is a bit more complicated. Yes, some things are a bit fungible in the world economy, some trade tariffs encourage things like soya from Brazil for food etc. But just nailing the US for it when the EU, Japan, and China is just as culpable is silly.
    - lucb1e 4y ago

belorn 4y ago

If the goal is to sequester CO2 then its not enough to just grow trees, you also need to prevent them from being cut down and burned. One thing that I would argue in favor of using iceland and other areas around the arctic circle is that people has demonstrated in the last several decades that it isn't economical worth to grow and farm the land for anything, which include trees. That might then mean that people will leave the trees alone for a long enough time that the sequester of CO2 matters.

spenczar5 4y ago

It’s complicated. Iceland is less corrupt than many nations with tropical rainforests, so your dollars are more likely to actually be used as you intended. There is very little logging industry competing against you and virtually no poaching so your effort is more durable, too. It’s hard to quantify these things and get a conclusive answer on which is better; I think we can leave it at “both are good.”

lucb1e 4y ago
> There is very little logging industry I wonder why :P When I was in Iceland, they told me the reason they don't have forests anymore is that the vikings and other later settlers logged it. (Of course, a random horse tour person isn't the best source so I could very well be misinformed.)
- yownie 4y ago
  you were correctly informed, it was a combination of early settlers logging heavily plus long forest regrow times due to sparse sunlight plus sheep overgrazing saplings.