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I've been very careful to not wade into one of these threads too readily, as when I read them, I almost always find a huge range of variability around what peop

I've been very careful to not wade into one of these threads too readily, as when I read them, I almost always find a huge range of variability around what people understand or don't understand about forests, soils, or ecosystem scale biogeochemical cycling. There also seem to be some very assertive, and often very uninformed claims around voluntary versus compliance marketplaces, and what role nature based mitigation efforts play currently or might play in the future. However, it's becoming increasingly clear that most authors in the pop science journalism space have a limited capacity for understanding the nuance or uncertainties associated with remote sensing models and principles of biogeochemistry. As well, the armchair analysts make many wrong assumptions about forests, forestry, or how carbon cycling works. Number one, is that forests work as long term carbon storage and sinks. There are often claims made around what forests can or cant do with regards to carbon cycling, and almost always they tend to fundementally misunderstand how carbon cycling, and nutrient cycling work in relationship to long term carbon stability. Not used taking advantage of forests and their ability to represent both (relatively, 10's-100's yr) short term stores of carbon, as well as less labile longer term storage pools (100's-1000's yr). We've been basically mining the world's forests and haven't even remotely attempted using natural ecosystems ability to not only sequester carbon, but to provide significant opportunities for climate resilience. Granted, we have an extraordinary limited understanding of the upper and lower bounds of many of these systems, but that's hardly any argument that we can't engage with and begin learning about the potential of these systems.

user_named 4y ago
Okay, so you're saying that everyone but you is too stupid to understand the question. But you also don't understand that the question here is about carbon credits, not about carbon sequestration or any biological process.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
  No? The issue is fundementally about the limits of what we understand about how forests process and store carbon; that current crediting systems are fundementally flawed in what they reward and how they reward it; and that these markets and systems are very very young, and it will take time to understand if and how a market based approach can be effectively implemented. In broad strokes we understand parts of these questions, but the actual science is very hard, and based on expensive, finicky, difficult to get data.
  - user_named 4y ago
    No, it really isn't. TFA is about carbon credits.
dspoka 4y ago
And yet research on this topic suggest the opposite. "These days everyone seems to thinks that "planting trees" is an important solution to the climate crisis. They're mostly wrong, and in this paper we explain why. Instead of planting trees, we need to talk about people managing landscapes." [1] [1] https://twitter.com/ForrestFleisch1/status/1306221445933129728 https://twitter.com/ForrestFleisch1/status/13062214459331297...
- RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
  That paper is in almosy 100% agreement wuth what I'm stating and the point that I'm making. The issue is about biogechemical cycling and limiting the view of what a forest us to a set of trees, as opposed to a set of processes, is a blocking factor to most people's understanding of their potential for increase carbon storage. The broader issue I would also cute is that we have an extraordinary limited view of how these processes operate in most ecosystems because they are massively understudied.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  I don't think the paper you posted disagrees with OP. Tree planting can be a reasonable force of good for dealing with climate change however it needs to be done in such a way that the local ecosystem (both currently and in the targeted "restored state") is sustainable and able to survive with minimal human management in the long term. And importantly, tree planting is only a viable solution of carbon offsetting as long as it isn't harming or displacing the local communities. A good example of this is Tentree/Veritree's efforts. Restoring the heavily logged Mangrove forests on the coasts of Kenya, Madagascar, and in Indonesia recreates the local ecosystems for animals, fish, insects, and plants that live in marshes while also rebuilding the natural sea wall that protects inland areas from flooding due to weather. It's a good carbon sequestration project while more importantly serving to repair local ecosystems and reduce the impacts of further climate change on the local residents. Importantly these projects also focus on educating the locals on responsible forest management so that they can continue to harvest lumber for construction purposes without impacting the ecosystem or the sustainability of the recreated marshlands. You can have good tree planting but it's more than just sticking saplings into the ground. Plenty of projects do really good work with the money they get towards forest restoration and most importantly these projects don't serve solely to offset environmental costs in western society but rather to repair ecosystems of disadvantaged regions and help protect these communities against the oncoming threat that is climate change. TLDR: Tree planting as "more tree == less carbon" is obviously ineffective but in the bigger picture tree planting efforts can really make a difference as long as you put a modicum of research into what projects you are funding.
bradleyjg 4y ago
Now take this Gell-Mann type observation and apply it broadly. The internet is full of highly confident people that, if you are lucky, skimmed a Wikipedia article. Sorting the gold from the dross is THE contemporary skill.
olivermarks 4y ago
The oceans - half the world's surface - create more than half the world's oxygen. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html Rainforests cover 2 percent of the Earth's surface. A forest is considered to be a carbon sink if it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. Carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. It then becomes deposited in forest biomass (that is, trunks, branches, roots and leaves), in dead organic matter (litter and dead wood) and in soils. This process of carbon absorption and deposition is known as carbon sequestration. https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change-adapting-impacts-and-reducing-emissions/climate-change-impacts-forests/forest-carbon/13085 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change-adapting-impacts-and-... carbon dioxide is needed for plants to grow. After 30 years of measurements, the ocean carbon community is realizing that tracking human-induced (carbon) changes in the ocean is not as easy as they thought it would be. It wasn’t a mere matter of measuring changes in carbon concentrations in the ocean over time because the natural carbon cycle in the ocean turned out to be a lot more variable than they imagined. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OceanCarbon https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OceanCarbon
- RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
  I guess I'm not sure what you are trying to say? At least within broad strokes I see nothing wrong with your second paragraph, but I'm having trouble understanding what you are trying to say. I can commiserate with the final paragraph in at least that these systems are very hard to study. While I focus on terrestrial carbon cycling, so many of the principles and process assumed to be true by generations of scientists are being challenged or need to be understood at a more granular level to be useful. It seems like the ocean side of the house faces similar challenges.
dogcomplex 4y ago
I know you focus on terrestrial carbon, but what are your thoughts (if any) on sequestration via ocean kelp farming? It appears to beat out forests at rate of growth / drawdown, and there's quite a lot of "unused" area to establish. Like regrowing terrestrial forests, there are many known benefits to local ecosystems from kelp forests - which hopefully can balance out the relative unknowns of mass growth. Nutrient feeding via upwelling in deeper oceans seems viable to feed even very large operations, though I personally don't know what impacts redirecting those nutrient flows might have and I'm not sure anyone does (though I'm inclined to say that shouldn't be a dealbreaker). From what I've seen of the economics, if the crop is harvested (around 10%) for fuel and plastic manufacturing a sequestration farm can be self-sustaining financially.
- pacifist 4y ago
  I'm afraid that we're going the wrong direction on this. Purple Sea Urchin's(probably from ship ballast) are decimating the kelp forest on the west coast of US. Same with our terrestrial forests only we are the ones doing the damage there. Sorry to be a downer but I'm thinking we're screwed.
richliss 4y ago
Maybe trees in colder regions? As we are seeing lots of forest fires all over the world, wouldn't the carbon captured just be released via forest fires unless the tress were planted in colder regions? I'm just asking, not making a stance.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
  Temperature is definitely a major component, but the relationship between when moisture is available and soil temperature is more important. Water when it's not warm enough to photosynthesize or respire versus significant water availability when soil surface temperature is warmer. You might also note the significance of seasonal drought in northern climates. This also limits microbes ability to respire.

user_named 4y ago

Okay, so you're saying that everyone but you is too stupid to understand the question. But you also don't understand that the question here is about carbon credits, not about carbon sequestration or any biological process.

RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
No? The issue is fundementally about the limits of what we understand about how forests process and store carbon; that current crediting systems are fundementally flawed in what they reward and how they reward it; and that these markets and systems are very very young, and it will take time to understand if and how a market based approach can be effectively implemented. In broad strokes we understand parts of these questions, but the actual science is very hard, and based on expensive, finicky, difficult to get data.
- user_named 4y ago
  No, it really isn't. TFA is about carbon credits.

dspoka 4y ago

And yet research on this topic suggest the opposite. "These days everyone seems to thinks that "planting trees" is an important solution to the climate crisis. They're mostly wrong, and in this paper we explain why. Instead of planting trees, we need to talk about people managing landscapes." [1] [1] https://twitter.com/ForrestFleisch1/status/1306221445933129728 https://twitter.com/ForrestFleisch1/status/13062214459331297...

RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
That paper is in almosy 100% agreement wuth what I'm stating and the point that I'm making. The issue is about biogechemical cycling and limiting the view of what a forest us to a set of trees, as opposed to a set of processes, is a blocking factor to most people's understanding of their potential for increase carbon storage. The broader issue I would also cute is that we have an extraordinary limited view of how these processes operate in most ecosystems because they are massively understudied.
CuriousCosmic 4y ago
I don't think the paper you posted disagrees with OP. Tree planting can be a reasonable force of good for dealing with climate change however it needs to be done in such a way that the local ecosystem (both currently and in the targeted "restored state") is sustainable and able to survive with minimal human management in the long term. And importantly, tree planting is only a viable solution of carbon offsetting as long as it isn't harming or displacing the local communities. A good example of this is Tentree/Veritree's efforts. Restoring the heavily logged Mangrove forests on the coasts of Kenya, Madagascar, and in Indonesia recreates the local ecosystems for animals, fish, insects, and plants that live in marshes while also rebuilding the natural sea wall that protects inland areas from flooding due to weather. It's a good carbon sequestration project while more importantly serving to repair local ecosystems and reduce the impacts of further climate change on the local residents. Importantly these projects also focus on educating the locals on responsible forest management so that they can continue to harvest lumber for construction purposes without impacting the ecosystem or the sustainability of the recreated marshlands. You can have good tree planting but it's more than just sticking saplings into the ground. Plenty of projects do really good work with the money they get towards forest restoration and most importantly these projects don't serve solely to offset environmental costs in western society but rather to repair ecosystems of disadvantaged regions and help protect these communities against the oncoming threat that is climate change. TLDR: Tree planting as "more tree == less carbon" is obviously ineffective but in the bigger picture tree planting efforts can really make a difference as long as you put a modicum of research into what projects you are funding.

bradleyjg 4y ago

Now take this Gell-Mann type observation and apply it broadly. The internet is full of highly confident people that, if you are lucky, skimmed a Wikipedia article. Sorting the gold from the dross is THE contemporary skill.

olivermarks 4y ago

The oceans - half the world's surface - create more than half the world's oxygen. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html Rainforests cover 2 percent of the Earth's surface. A forest is considered to be a carbon sink if it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases. Carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. It then becomes deposited in forest biomass (that is, trunks, branches, roots and leaves), in dead organic matter (litter and dead wood) and in soils. This process of carbon absorption and deposition is known as carbon sequestration. https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change-adapting-impacts-and-reducing-emissions/climate-change-impacts-forests/forest-carbon/13085 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change-adapting-impacts-and-... carbon dioxide is needed for plants to grow. After 30 years of measurements, the ocean carbon community is realizing that tracking human-induced (carbon) changes in the ocean is not as easy as they thought it would be. It wasn’t a mere matter of measuring changes in carbon concentrations in the ocean over time because the natural carbon cycle in the ocean turned out to be a lot more variable than they imagined. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OceanCarbon https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OceanCarbon

RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
I guess I'm not sure what you are trying to say? At least within broad strokes I see nothing wrong with your second paragraph, but I'm having trouble understanding what you are trying to say. I can commiserate with the final paragraph in at least that these systems are very hard to study. While I focus on terrestrial carbon cycling, so many of the principles and process assumed to be true by generations of scientists are being challenged or need to be understood at a more granular level to be useful. It seems like the ocean side of the house faces similar challenges.

dogcomplex 4y ago

I know you focus on terrestrial carbon, but what are your thoughts (if any) on sequestration via ocean kelp farming? It appears to beat out forests at rate of growth / drawdown, and there's quite a lot of "unused" area to establish. Like regrowing terrestrial forests, there are many known benefits to local ecosystems from kelp forests - which hopefully can balance out the relative unknowns of mass growth. Nutrient feeding via upwelling in deeper oceans seems viable to feed even very large operations, though I personally don't know what impacts redirecting those nutrient flows might have and I'm not sure anyone does (though I'm inclined to say that shouldn't be a dealbreaker). From what I've seen of the economics, if the crop is harvested (around 10%) for fuel and plastic manufacturing a sequestration farm can be self-sustaining financially.

pacifist 4y ago
I'm afraid that we're going the wrong direction on this. Purple Sea Urchin's(probably from ship ballast) are decimating the kelp forest on the west coast of US. Same with our terrestrial forests only we are the ones doing the damage there. Sorry to be a downer but I'm thinking we're screwed.

richliss 4y ago

Maybe trees in colder regions? As we are seeing lots of forest fires all over the world, wouldn't the carbon captured just be released via forest fires unless the tress were planted in colder regions? I'm just asking, not making a stance.

RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
Temperature is definitely a major component, but the relationship between when moisture is available and soil temperature is more important. Water when it's not warm enough to photosynthesize or respire versus significant water availability when soil surface temperature is warmer. You might also note the significance of seasonal drought in northern climates. This also limits microbes ability to respire.