4 ms·

"[Each Sequoiadendron tree] can potentially pull an average of 85 kilograms of carbon out of the atmosphere per year". I will try to remind this phrase, specia

"[Each Sequoiadendron tree] can potentially pull an average of 85 kilograms of carbon out of the atmosphere per year". I will try to remind this phrase, specially the per year part.

Fricken 3y ago
Average Per capita annual emissions for UK residents is 5.22 metric tons, according to Google.
- nvdk 3y ago
  So about 65 trees needed per resident, that might still be doable? edit: nope, of course being a large tree it also needs a lot of land.
  - sequoiamwah 3y ago
    65?
    - nvdk 3y ago
      fixed, ty!
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    Like public parks maybe?
pjc50 3y ago
Or about one air passenger trip to Europe. ("just plant trees" is not a viable solution to climate change unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity)
- enriquto 3y ago
  > unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity and what, then? When plants die, their matter is decomposed by fungi and all their carbon is released back into the atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is buried). The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosphere. To reverse the burning of fossil fuels, all that new carbon that we introduced into the biosphere needs to be buried back to where it came from. For example, by cutting trees and burying their wood in sealed mines several kilometers underground.
  - medstrom 3y ago
    I suppose we could do that too, down the line, if we plant trees now. It's at least a method of buying time, but maybe not so reliable. It presumes no one will find a way to cut them down for profit later. So maybe we'd need to add each tree planted to a growing count of trees "never to be cut" in the country.
  - blincoln 3y ago
    > The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosphere. Isn't this a little like saying that humans in a confined space don't actually use up any of the oxygen, because it's still technically present in the CO2 they exhale? > For example, by cutting trees and burying their wood in sealed mines several kilometers underground. What would be the net benefit of treating it like radioactive waste versus using it as a construction material? Yes, a small percentage of the carbon would escape, but most of it would stay locked up in the wood, and one wouldn't create the massive amounts of CO2 necessary to build and operate those hypothetical mines.
    - bcatanzaro 3y ago
      Generally I agree but Sequoiadendron wood is famously unsuitable for construction. It’s brittle and shatters easily. Not the same as Sequoia wood, which is famously wonderful for construction!
- vaylian 3y ago
  And you need to make sure that the wood doesn't have a chance to decompose after the tree dies.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    We will left that task for people living 800 years on the future.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  > unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity And this is technologically a big problem because...? Dig a hole and put a seed and pay somebody to watch it for several years is too difficult when our societies are at stake? Because some people can't avoid to satisfy their chomp-burn-boycott-my-own-future rash?... No problem. This people needs mental help, and society can provide it. Keep them far away from nature. Ecological systems don't show linear responses. Tiny increases or decreases in a variable can trigger huge changes. Even a partial improvement counts. In the worst case could give us a lot of extra time to have a second chance to try. Planting trees will not mean that we will survive, just that our chances to survive will increase. It still seems a valuable goal.
- badcppdev 3y ago
  One passenger trip to Europe from where? It's the internet. No one knows where you live!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Yeah, I was told that a few corporations do most of the CO2 emission, so now I just fly where I want to and eat what I want to. Very liberating to know I can't do anything.
- nkurz 3y ago
  What exactly are you saying is equal to "about one air passenger trip to Europe"? OP says 85 kg/year of Carbon per really big tree. The first calculator I tried said a one way trip from NYC to London on a 787 is over 1000 kg of CO2: https://co2.myclimate.org/en/portfolios?calculation_id=6796040 https://co2.myclimate.org/en/portfolios?calculation_id=67960... Now, C is about 25% of the weight of CO2, so this would be 250 kg of Carbon. Is the calculator overestimating? Is my math wrong? Am I interpreting you wrong? Or are you low by a factor of 3?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    > Is the calculator overestimating? Maybe. My own calculus gives a first approximate value of 50Kg of Carbon for the same trip NY-London (approx 5570Km) in optimum conditions. The calculators forget also that sometimes tail winds can help, so is just an unsophisticated raw average. In any case nothing prevent us to design hybrid planes to reduce the fuel consume. A turbine is just a motor so can be built in several different ways. And we could try also both things, hybrid planes and helping forests at the same time.

"[Each Sequoiadendron tree] can potentially pull an average of 85 kilograms of carbon out of the atmosphere per year". I will try to remind this phrase, specially the per year part.

Fricken 3y ago

Average Per capita annual emissions for UK residents is 5.22 metric tons, according to Google.

nvdk 3y ago
So about 65 trees needed per resident, that might still be doable? edit: nope, of course being a large tree it also needs a lot of land.
- sequoiamwah 3y ago
  65?
  - nvdk 3y ago
    fixed, ty!
- pvaldes 3y ago
  Like public parks maybe?

pjc50 3y ago

Or about one air passenger trip to Europe. ("just plant trees" is not a viable solution to climate change unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity)

enriquto 3y ago
> unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity and what, then? When plants die, their matter is decomposed by fungi and all their carbon is released back into the atmosphere (unless the dead plant matter is buried). The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosphere. To reverse the burning of fossil fuels, all that new carbon that we introduced into the biosphere needs to be buried back to where it came from. For example, by cutting trees and burying their wood in sealed mines several kilometers underground.
- medstrom 3y ago
  I suppose we could do that too, down the line, if we plant trees now. It's at least a method of buying time, but maybe not so reliable. It presumes no one will find a way to cut them down for profit later. So maybe we'd need to add each tree planted to a growing count of trees "never to be cut" in the country.
- blincoln 3y ago
  > The act of planting trees, in itself, is carbon neutral. Not good, not bad, just irrelevant to the presence of carbon: the carbon is still in the cycle of life within the biosphere. Isn't this a little like saying that humans in a confined space don't actually use up any of the oxygen, because it's still technically present in the CO2 they exhale? > For example, by cutting trees and burying their wood in sealed mines several kilometers underground. What would be the net benefit of treating it like radioactive waste versus using it as a construction material? Yes, a small percentage of the carbon would escape, but most of it would stay locked up in the wood, and one wouldn't create the massive amounts of CO2 necessary to build and operate those hypothetical mines.
  - bcatanzaro 3y ago
    Generally I agree but Sequoiadendron wood is famously unsuitable for construction. It’s brittle and shatters easily. Not the same as Sequoia wood, which is famously wonderful for construction!
vaylian 3y ago
And you need to make sure that the wood doesn't have a chance to decompose after the tree dies.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  We will left that task for people living 800 years on the future.
pvaldes 3y ago
> unless you can plant a very large number of trees which live to maturity And this is technologically a big problem because...? Dig a hole and put a seed and pay somebody to watch it for several years is too difficult when our societies are at stake? Because some people can't avoid to satisfy their chomp-burn-boycott-my-own-future rash?... No problem. This people needs mental help, and society can provide it. Keep them far away from nature. Ecological systems don't show linear responses. Tiny increases or decreases in a variable can trigger huge changes. Even a partial improvement counts. In the worst case could give us a lot of extra time to have a second chance to try. Planting trees will not mean that we will survive, just that our chances to survive will increase. It still seems a valuable goal.
badcppdev 3y ago
One passenger trip to Europe from where? It's the internet. No one knows where you live!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
renewiltord 3y ago
Yeah, I was told that a few corporations do most of the CO2 emission, so now I just fly where I want to and eat what I want to. Very liberating to know I can't do anything.
nkurz 3y ago
What exactly are you saying is equal to "about one air passenger trip to Europe"? OP says 85 kg/year of Carbon per really big tree. The first calculator I tried said a one way trip from NYC to London on a 787 is over 1000 kg of CO2: https://co2.myclimate.org/en/portfolios?calculation_id=6796040 https://co2.myclimate.org/en/portfolios?calculation_id=67960... Now, C is about 25% of the weight of CO2, so this would be 250 kg of Carbon. Is the calculator overestimating? Is my math wrong? Am I interpreting you wrong? Or are you low by a factor of 3?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pvaldes 3y ago
  > Is the calculator overestimating? Maybe. My own calculus gives a first approximate value of 50Kg of Carbon for the same trip NY-London (approx 5570Km) in optimum conditions. The calculators forget also that sometimes tail winds can help, so is just an unsophisticated raw average. In any case nothing prevent us to design hybrid planes to reduce the fuel consume. A turbine is just a motor so can be built in several different ways. And we could try also both things, hybrid planes and helping forests at the same time.