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Someone else mentioned needing to remove 10 billion tons by 2050. That is 1000 sq mi, which is size of Luxembourg. That is doable but have to do every year. My
by ianburrell 3y ago
Someone else mentioned needing to remove 10 billion tons by 2050. That is 1000 sq mi, which is size of Luxembourg. That is doable but have to do every year. My guess is that we’ll run out of good forest spots. Or climate change will kill all the trees.
- otterley 3y agoI think that's the wrong comparison. Sure, 1000 sq mi is the size of Luxemberg, but the entire earth's land surface is over 57 million square miles (yes, I realize only a fraction of that is usable for tree planting). If we assume the planting density is correct, that's around 0.0000175% of surface area needed. Not much at all, proportionately speaking.
- ianburrell 3y agoIt makes me suspect that the numbers are off. I found estimate that tree absorbs 20-30kg of CO2 per year. Each cubic meter absorbs 1 ton of CO2. I can't think of any tree grows fast enough for 20 tons. I bet it was originally 20kg not 20 tons. Which means my estimate is 1000 times small. 1 million sq mi is Argentina. Which means we can absorb some CO2 with trees but there isn't enough land for what is needed.
- otterley 3y ago> I bet it was originally 20kg not 20 tons. I think you're right. Oof, that's a lot of trees. Still worth doing IMO. Keep in mind we can divide by 10 since each tree would absorb approximately 250 kg of CO2 over that period of time. That brings us to about 78,000 square miles or 20M hectares, which seems a lot more feasible.
- tito 3y agoOh you're totally right, 20 kg, not 20 tons. My bad. In a year, 1 tree removes the equivalent emissions of 2 gallons of gasoline.