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Wise to use forests to contain deserts. Problem is that China still plays a big role in importing deforestation-linked commodities and fund overseas projects th

Wise to use forests to contain deserts. Problem is that China still plays a big role in importing deforestation-linked commodities and fund overseas projects that exacerbate global loses. There are low tree survival rates and falsified coverage, like the Three-North Shelterbelt program which is plagued by inefficiencies over its 40 years of operation. It's also hard to balance afforestation without causing scarcity of water and displacement of native forest habitats. For example, instances where shrubs are misclassified as forests inflate the report figures. China seems to be the global leader in biodiversity loss, with about 80% of its coral reefs and 73% of its mangroves gone since 1950. Everyone knows their abusive fishing practices, and the millions of tons of plastic pollution into the ocean every year. So, keep up the good environmental efforts, China, and hope you do even better.

gchamonlive 1y ago
Honest question, aren't coral reefs also very sensitive to climate change? How much of that loss is because of regional activities and how much is due to global environmental changes?
- margalabargala 1y ago
  Considering that China is responsible for ~25% of cumulative CO2 emissions to date, there's not much difference between the regional and global inputs.
  - gchamonlive 1y ago
    Isn't this 75% less responsibility than total responsibility in case it's only due to regional activities?
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      Sure, but 25% of responsibility for something like this is well into "consequences of your actions" territory. If the world had 25% less GHG emissions to date, warming may well still be sub 1C, and the reefs might be fine.
  - ethegwo 1y ago
    Request the source? I researched and calculated the cumulative percentage of global carbon emissions from major economies since the industrial revolution: - United States: 24% - China: 15% - Russia: 6.7% - Germany: 5.2% - United Kingdom: 4.4% - Japan: 3.8% - India: 3.5% - France: 2.2% - Canada: 1.9% - Ukraine: 1.7% source from Global Carbon Project, is this reliable?
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      I added up the 2023 numbers from here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?tab=discrete-bar&time=latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?t...
      - Someone 1y ago
        You must have made a mistake in doing that. If you add “world” to the selection, Our World in Data adds them up for you, and you only have to divide 27253/181000. That gives you 0.1506, very close to 15%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?tab=discrete-bar&time=latest&country=CHN~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?t...
        margalabargala 1y ago
        Oops. You're very right. Math error on my part :( thank you for the correction.
- andai 1y ago
  So, something has been bugging me. Coral is one of the oldest animals. They've been around for over half a billion years. They survived the Great Dying, which killed 80-95% of marine species. And now the ocean gets 0.9 C warmer and it's game over for coral?
  - jncfhnb 1y ago
    0.9 C warmer on average vs location specific volatility + acidification
  - zol 1y ago
    My guess is as a species it will relocate to somewhere with the right temperature zone but because coral takes so long to grow from the perspective of those of us alive the existing “old growth” coral will die.
  - mikeyouse 1y ago
    Nobody's claiming that all coral is going to go extinct.. the reef environment that has existed for the past few thousand years is at great risk though. Water temperatures that we know have been relatively stable for several hundred years are suddenly rapidly warming. Bleaching events due to high temps which infrequently occurred in the past are happening nearly every year now, which gives the reef no time to rejuvenate between them. The evolutionary process which protects species in their niches takes hundreds or thousands of generations to adapt to new selection pressures and the changes are happening over dozens of generations instead, which may be too fast for most species to respond. Coral and coral reefs will surely exist for the next few hundred million years but e.g. the Great Barrier Reef as an example of a vibrant reef ecosystem might not. We don't know exactly where the tipping point for these extremely complex systems lies, but we know that it's some point in the direction we're heading and we're starting to see examples of the outcomes that scientists predict to see near those tipping points.
  - AniseAbyss 1y ago
    [dead]
- wraptile 1y ago
  Regional activties is a huge factor, much bigger than global imo. For example, South China Sea coastlines from Vietnam and China side are basically completely dead. There zero ocean environmental awareness in both countries and it's all about just devouring all ocean creatures with no self awareness. This is especially apparent if you take a look at the other side of the same sea. Philipines coasts are absolutely beautiful, full of life (well as much as you can get these days). Huge conservation efforts and really strong indigenous culture that respects the ocean made much more difference than global warming ever could. Completely different views from two vastly different regional activities.
  - AdamN 1y ago
    Yeah this is always my worry about the global warming debate. It's a crisis for sure but there are so many local initiatives that can be taken around ecosystem protection that are cheap and don't require national decision-making to be effective. They won't stop global warming but they will increase local resilience (and beauty).
rattan12138 1y ago
[flagged]
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
It’s hard to reason about where China is today with forestation. Obviously their efforts from 20 years ago didn’t do much good, probably due to corruption and mismanagement. Today they seem to have solved so issues, is it could really be working. The primary resource they need to manage is water, and any effort that requires too much water (especially water diverted from local farmers) isn’t sustainable.
HexPhantom 1y ago
It's a bit of an environmental paradox: ambitious at home, extractive abroad
fransje26 1y ago
> It's also hard to balance afforestation without causing scarcity of water Is that not a bit of a non-sequitur though? From the reforestation reports I've read, bringing back trees was also coupled with bringing back springs, water and rain to the local environment. Do you mean that it can cause water scarcity in the original planting and nursing stages before the biotope becomes self-sustaining?
- hereme888 1y ago
  > Is that not a bit of a non-sequitur though? Yes, I thought about that when I wrote it. I was trying to bring validity to their efforts, without fully dismissing the issues.

gchamonlive 1y ago

Honest question, aren't coral reefs also very sensitive to climate change? How much of that loss is because of regional activities and how much is due to global environmental changes?

margalabargala 1y ago
Considering that China is responsible for ~25% of cumulative CO2 emissions to date, there's not much difference between the regional and global inputs.
- gchamonlive 1y ago
  Isn't this 75% less responsibility than total responsibility in case it's only due to regional activities?
  - margalabargala 1y ago
    Sure, but 25% of responsibility for something like this is well into "consequences of your actions" territory. If the world had 25% less GHG emissions to date, warming may well still be sub 1C, and the reefs might be fine.
- ethegwo 1y ago
  Request the source? I researched and calculated the cumulative percentage of global carbon emissions from major economies since the industrial revolution: - United States: 24% - China: 15% - Russia: 6.7% - Germany: 5.2% - United Kingdom: 4.4% - Japan: 3.8% - India: 3.5% - France: 2.2% - Canada: 1.9% - Ukraine: 1.7% source from Global Carbon Project, is this reliable?
  - margalabargala 1y ago
    I added up the 2023 numbers from here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?tab=discrete-bar&time=latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?t...
    - Someone 1y ago
      You must have made a mistake in doing that. If you add “world” to the selection, Our World in Data adds them up for you, and you only have to divide 27253/181000. That gives you 0.1506, very close to 15%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?tab=discrete-bar&time=latest&country=CHN~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions?t...
      - margalabargala 1y ago
        Oops. You're very right. Math error on my part :( thank you for the correction.
andai 1y ago
So, something has been bugging me. Coral is one of the oldest animals. They've been around for over half a billion years. They survived the Great Dying, which killed 80-95% of marine species. And now the ocean gets 0.9 C warmer and it's game over for coral?
- jncfhnb 1y ago
  0.9 C warmer on average vs location specific volatility + acidification
- zol 1y ago
  My guess is as a species it will relocate to somewhere with the right temperature zone but because coral takes so long to grow from the perspective of those of us alive the existing “old growth” coral will die.
- mikeyouse 1y ago
  Nobody's claiming that all coral is going to go extinct.. the reef environment that has existed for the past few thousand years is at great risk though. Water temperatures that we know have been relatively stable for several hundred years are suddenly rapidly warming. Bleaching events due to high temps which infrequently occurred in the past are happening nearly every year now, which gives the reef no time to rejuvenate between them. The evolutionary process which protects species in their niches takes hundreds or thousands of generations to adapt to new selection pressures and the changes are happening over dozens of generations instead, which may be too fast for most species to respond. Coral and coral reefs will surely exist for the next few hundred million years but e.g. the Great Barrier Reef as an example of a vibrant reef ecosystem might not. We don't know exactly where the tipping point for these extremely complex systems lies, but we know that it's some point in the direction we're heading and we're starting to see examples of the outcomes that scientists predict to see near those tipping points.
- AniseAbyss 1y ago
  [dead]
wraptile 1y ago
Regional activties is a huge factor, much bigger than global imo. For example, South China Sea coastlines from Vietnam and China side are basically completely dead. There zero ocean environmental awareness in both countries and it's all about just devouring all ocean creatures with no self awareness. This is especially apparent if you take a look at the other side of the same sea. Philipines coasts are absolutely beautiful, full of life (well as much as you can get these days). Huge conservation efforts and really strong indigenous culture that respects the ocean made much more difference than global warming ever could. Completely different views from two vastly different regional activities.
- AdamN 1y ago
  Yeah this is always my worry about the global warming debate. It's a crisis for sure but there are so many local initiatives that can be taken around ecosystem protection that are cheap and don't require national decision-making to be effective. They won't stop global warming but they will increase local resilience (and beauty).

rattan12138 1y ago

[flagged]

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

It’s hard to reason about where China is today with forestation. Obviously their efforts from 20 years ago didn’t do much good, probably due to corruption and mismanagement. Today they seem to have solved so issues, is it could really be working. The primary resource they need to manage is water, and any effort that requires too much water (especially water diverted from local farmers) isn’t sustainable.

HexPhantom 1y ago

It's a bit of an environmental paradox: ambitious at home, extractive abroad

fransje26 1y ago

> It's also hard to balance afforestation without causing scarcity of water Is that not a bit of a non-sequitur though? From the reforestation reports I've read, bringing back trees was also coupled with bringing back springs, water and rain to the local environment. Do you mean that it can cause water scarcity in the original planting and nursing stages before the biotope becomes self-sustaining?

hereme888 1y ago
> Is that not a bit of a non-sequitur though? Yes, I thought about that when I wrote it. I was trying to bring validity to their efforts, without fully dismissing the issues.