Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Plant trees. Pollute less. So simple, yet so difficult for some to understand.
It's not difficult to understand. It's something many don't want to do. Planting trees takes time. Polluting less is something some people don't like because it hurts their bottom line: $$$
Time and money are two resources many people refuse to part with unless they can see the short term benefits.
Trees do absorb CO2 while growing and convert it to carbon in the celulose of the tree. However, when the tree dies, that absorbed carbon is just re-emitted into the atmosphere-either as CO2 if the dead tree burns, or as CO2 and methane (a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) if it is allowed to decay. For this idea to work, once the trees mature, they need to be harvested and then buried deeply to provide long-term sequestration of the carbon. Maybe bury them at some of the old open-pit coal mines being reclaimed.
The most effective way to fight global warming is to plant lots of trees, a study says. A trillion of them, maybe more.
And there's enough room, Swiss scientists say. Even with existing cities and farmland, there's enough space for new trees to cover 3.5 million square miles (9 million square kilometers), they reported in Thursday's journal Science . That area is roughly the size of the United States.
The study calculated that over the decades, those new trees could suck up nearly 830 billion tons (750 billion metric tons) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That's about as much carbon pollution as humans have spewed in the past 25 years.
It couldn't hurt, but I have actually heard it doesn't work that way, or at least something similar. If it was just a matter of having flora to balance things out, then the carbon dioxide would act as fertilizer and the trees would grow themselves. Scientists don't think that this is happening.
I say it can't hurt. Really go all out. Dig new river systems through arid zones and let pioneer species green them. That kind of thing.
It can't hurt but the results are minuscule relative to the problem. I can go through the numbers as to why not, but basically the problem is the carbon we are pulling out of the earth's interior accumulated over 50 million years of the Carboniferous epoch. Plants would grow, die, and their carbon ended up deep in the earth. Repeat that over and over and over.
We are now pulling all of that carbon out as fossil fuels in a time span of 200 years, which took 50 million to put there. Planting trees can only absorb about 100 years worth of that 50 million years of accumulated carbon. You could fill the entire arable surface of earth with trees and it still cannot absorb 50 million years worth of carbon.
The fact is, we have to change what we are doing. We have been riding the economic wave of the industrial revolution, fueled by sequestered carbon, but it is now time for a reckoning as it cannot continue.
We own rural acreage. It would take us a lifetime to plant as many trees as our neighbors cut down. Trees are expensive, especially larger caliper ones. We bought 9 oaks and maples at Lowe’s at half off clearance for a cost of over $500. Calipers were from 1.5” to 2”. They will take a long time to grow into specimen trees. We planted some 1.5” caliper quaking aspens about 15 years ago and they are now about 5”-6” in diameter plus they are now sprouting all over as they do. Birch trees were the same size and are now 6”-7” in diameter. It takes awhile. Evergreens are even slower but next year we plan to buy about 50 western hemlock along our southern boundary. I wish there was a program to help out with the cost.
The fact is, we have to change what we are doing. We have been riding the economic wave of the industrial revolution, fueled by sequestered carbon, but it is now time for a reckoning as it cannot continue.
If the economy stays strong and technology continues to develop, there's a good chance we'll be able to adapt to whatever comes and eventually progress to the point that planetary systems are under our control and moderating the climate to our liking is doable. If we kill our economy and make ourselves poor then we're lost anyway.
Trees do absorb CO2 while growing and convert it to carbon in the celulose of the tree. However, when the tree dies, that absorbed carbon is just re-emitted into the atmosphere-either as CO2 if the dead tree burns, or as CO2 and methane (a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) if it is allowed to decay. For this idea to work, once the trees mature, they need to be harvested and then buried deeply to provide long-term sequestration of the carbon. Maybe bury them at some of the old open-pit coal mines being reclaimed.
We're talking about forests though, not individual trees. Planting a large forest would absorb a large amount of CO2. It is true that, once mature, the forest would not absorb additional CO2. But the amount that had already been stored by the forest would not be emitted back into the atmosphere as long as the forest continued to exist.
We own rural acreage. It would take us a lifetime to plant as many trees as our neighbors cut down. Trees are expensive, especially larger caliper ones. We bought 9 oaks and maples at Lowe’s at half off clearance for a cost of over $500. Calipers were from 1.5” to 2”. They will take a long time to grow into specimen trees. We planted some 1.5” caliper quaking aspens about 15 years ago and they are now about 5”-6” in diameter plus they are now sprouting all over as they do. Birch trees were the same size and are now 6”-7” in diameter. It takes awhile. Evergreens are even slower but next year we plan to buy about 50 western hemlock along our southern boundary. I wish there was a program to help out with the cost.
Since you are talking about planting Western Hemlock, you must be here in the Northwest. Can you get away with planting seedlings? Hemlock start out a little slow, but by the time they are saplings it's common to get 2-3 feet a year growth on a decent site. Weyerhaeuser sells seedlings in the spring from their nursery in Rochester just off highway 12, and the one in Oregon, south of Portland. https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/timberlands/seedling-sales/western-seedlings/
Plant trees. Pollute less. So simple, yet so difficult for some to understand.
Maybe they're waiting to see the studies you ran, or at least consulted, that back up your statements with demonstrable results.
You did have such studies, right? You didn't, like, just make up this "solution" out of thin air with a generous dose of wishful thinking, did you?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
