
NASA Says Earth Is Greener Today Than 20 Years Ago Thanks to China, India - sidcool
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/02/28/nasa-says-earth-is-greener-today-than-20-years-ago-thanks-to-china-india/#15a5334e6e13
======
chrsstrm
I was speaking to someone employed as a state forester recently and we were
comparing maps we had brought to the meeting. He talked about how he had
access to all sorts of cool maps like infrared and even aerial maps dating
back to the early 1910's and 20's. I joked that those maps must just be the
tops of endless forests (this was in a northern state known for its forests)
and he said the images seen were the opposite. He explained that farming back
then was incredibly inefficient and farmers would clear cut as many trees as
they could and till as much soil as possible on any piece of flat land they
could access. The forester said that with advancements in farming and
increases in efficiency, the countryside contained more forest land now than
any previous point in time starting from when farmers grew crops for more than
just their own family. It was a fact that I found interesting and had not
considered before as I had always imagined the woods in olden times to be a
larger percentage of all available land.

~~~
kbad1000
Your point of well explained in the book 'Rational Optimist' The intensive
farming actually increased wilderness. With tech of 1960, it would have
required 86% of land to be farmed to feed current world population.

~~~
Gravityloss
A lot of the "forests" we have at least here are planted monocultures which
are periodically completely cut down. Also known as "tree farms". All trees
are the same age. Also the forest is full of ditches that makes it hard to
pass for animals. The ecosystem and the species living there are quite
different to real more natural forests. Most people have never even been to a
multi century old forest anymore. Also we get invasions of pests like Diprion
Pini etc. But yeah it looks green from a satellite or even airplane.

~~~
Merg
I am a forester and maybe I can chime in. From the point of view of CO2
assimilation the clear-cut or even better cut in small parts over the years
forests are much better than those old-growth multicentury forests around the
world. Actually old-growth forest will accumulate less CO2 than younger
counterparts and may have ratio of realeased and accumulate CO2 being close to
1:1. Number of species at least in European or rather Polish forests are
pretty large in both natural protected and normally used forests. Of course
they are countries with worse forest conditions like for example Africa or
Scandinavia, but still greener planet = better planet. It doesn't matter that
much, why it is greener.

The general approach changes at least here. The largest difference is
relatively smaller density of dead wood in the forests, which is important and
still not fully understood habitat.

~~~
Gravityloss
At least this science survey concludes that old forests do accumulate carbon.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07276](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07276)

Also a lot of the forest mass that gets cut is used for "green energy" so it's
worse than letting it stay in the forest. Basically in a periodically burnt
(bioenergy) forest the carbon is kept in the atmosphere most of the time while
in an old growth forest it's in the trunks all the time.

------
fouc
Some more information on the actual amount of tree planting in china.

>China has been conducting what the United Nations has said is the world’s
largest tree planting crusade, which increased its forest coverage from 8.6
per cent in 1949 to 21.7 per cent last year.

>By March this year, the total area covered by China’s artificial forests
reached 69.3 million hectares, larger than the size of France, according to
the State Forestry Administration.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2162083/more...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2162083/more-
trees-more-smog-how-beijings-huge-planting-campaign-may-be)

~~~
gibolt
I was in rural Yunnan earlier this year. Drove for multiple hours on the
highway. Everywhere was entire mountains covered in rows of a single species
of trees.

I'm not sure what the long term effects of such a widespread forest
monoculture with no plant competition will result in.

~~~
TomK32
No longterm effect, one specialized bug with good conditions and that
monoculture is dead. But that will give room for other species which would
have a chance to root if it wasn't for the monocultures being so tightly
planted

~~~
saiya-jin
We have this back home, pine monoculture planted some 50-60 years ago to make
parts of mountains more visually appealing (and probably more good reasons
like cleaner air). In 2004 there was a freak storm with quite strong winds,
half of that forest was destroyed, in many cases trees literally snapped in
the middle of the trunk. Still pretty bad sight 25 years later.

They said it was freak accident that happens every few hundred years. Well
there was another one few years after, and few other smaller ones since then.

Now its largely left on its own as being national park with highest protection
level, but this has some (hopefully relatively short term) negative effects -
population of bugs eating trees exploded and they are destroying remaining
trees.

Monocultures sucks, we should know better.

~~~
psynapse
My guess is that you are talking about Slovakia here.

My weak Slovak makes it hard for me to research facts, so I tend to rely on my
wife; but I understand that unfortunately the parkland is not "left on its
own".

The state fells a lot of timber in the parks. They use the borers as an
excuse, but cut down more than they need to control them.

There's yet another sad story for forests among the negative externalities
from the transition from socialism. There were and still are large areas of
land divided up and owned by general public, which has a legacy today, see
[1].

One opportunist where I live went and bought as many of these as he could,
often cheaply off old people and made bank by letting people come and fell the
forest on them. You can see it all around here - big swathes of bare earth cut
through forested hills/mountains with no regard to sustainability. It really
upsets me.

[1] [http://4liberty.eu/land-consolidation-in-slovakia-chance-
for...](http://4liberty.eu/land-consolidation-in-slovakia-chance-for-real-
reform/)

~~~
saiya-jin
Yepp, that's the place. I actually come from the region just below the
mountains, so see it anytime I go back home. Not nice at all.

Yes some crooks were/are using this to cut more (healthy) trees, ie having
permit for 10 but cutting down 100 trees. Then there are large parts of still
standing forest which completely died out due to overpopulation of tree eating
bugs (which happened due to dead wood not being removed). Most of this
happening in highly protected park.

Law enforcement is pretty bad back home (read - cops are often beyond useless
and corrupt), with general public viewing such thievery as semi-acceptable.
One of many reasons I moved out, no matter how nice the nice parts are, the
bad ones are plenty and sour the whole experience.

------
freetime2
Somewhat related - there was a study recently that proposed planting a
trillion trees as a way to combat climate change:

[https://time.com/5620706/plant-trillion-trees-climate-
change...](https://time.com/5620706/plant-trillion-trees-climate-change/)

I wonder how these reforestations efforts in India and China compare in
absolute numbers to the "trillion" figure cited in the study.

------
peterlk
I was curious haw this is actually measured, so to make it easier for others,
LAI stands for "Leaf Area Index" [0], and is measured as "the one-sided green
leaf area per unit ground surface area (LAI = leaf area / ground area, m2 /
m2) in broadleaf canopies.[1] In conifers, three definitions for LAI have been
used"

I'm a bit surprised to see the greening in the Rockies, and in North America
in general given the devastation that the bark beetle has caused over the last
20 years. But it's nice to read that some trends are in the right direction.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_area_index](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_area_index)

------
rolltiide
That would be a productive competition: putting our national pride behind
planting trees

“We can’t let CHINA beat US on reforestation!”

Might be the trick

~~~
trickstra
And on solar panels installations, and on plastic recycling (actual recycling,
not shipping it elsewhere), and on electric buses, etc etc...

------
singlewind
I think it is kind of "lucky" for the pollution becomes really bad and people
suddenly realize this is a big problem for the future. And the government
actually doesn't need a vote to execute the plan with all the effort they can
put.

------
est
from the actual article [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-
china-an...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-
india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows)

> China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large
> part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were
> developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution
> and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in
> India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops.

------
hkai
Excellent step. I'm still a bit concerned about these countries' oversized
share in the plastic pollution of oceans. While countries such as the US
contribute almost nothing to plastic waste in the oceans, the majority of it
comes from China, India, Indonesia and Africa.

I wonder if there are plans to redirect any funds spent on recycling and eco-
conscious consumption in developed countries towards better collection of
plastic waste in developing countries.

~~~
garganshum
The claim "While countries such as the US contribute almost nothing to plastic
waste in the oceans" is laughable. Where do you think all that single use
plastic from US goes? It's an externality that US doesn't pay for but likes to
talk about a lot.
[https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2019/3/6/15700...](https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2019/3/6/157000-shipping-
containers-of-us-plastic-waste-exported-to-countries-with-poor-waste-
management-in-2018).

~~~
hkai
I find it surprising that you would think that plastic trash goes into the
ocean. In fact, it goes to the landfills. The trash in the ocean comes from
poor waste management in Asia and Africa (none of the top 20 most plastic-
polluting rivers are in the US), and a small portion (20%) comes from natural
disasters such as the Sendai tsunami.

USA's trash goes to landfills, from where only a tiny part of it can
accidentally get into the water. Other places just dump trash into the water.

~~~
garganshum
Did you bother to open the link?

------
playing_colours
China is also the biggest contributor to CO2 emission by a large margin.

~~~
yk
It's also the largest country, by a large margin.

~~~
rimliu
Where does this leave Russia which is almost twice as big and Canada which is
only slightly bigger? And China is less than 1% larger than USA.

Population-wise China is the largest, but India is not that far behind.

~~~
trickstra
Siberia

------
satyenr
Previously discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20029966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20029966)

~~~
pcdoodle
Thanks, Thought I was going crazy.

Lol about it being crops and not trees, what a crap article.

------
mytailorisrich
Forest coverage has been increasing in several European countries as well
(e.g. UK and France off the top of my head)

------
known
This goes for a toss when correlated with
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions)

~~~
govg
Why not do it per capita instead?

~~~
jobigoud
Climate Change doesn't care about per capita.

~~~
omk
Climate change doesn't care about which country either.

I agree with the fact that China and India need to focus on their emissions,
but it seems ridiculously convenient for someone from a western country to ask
a couple billion people to reduce their emissions while they themselves will
find every opportunity to reduce their own accountability.

FYI - A US per capita emission is almost 20 times more than that of India.
[https://www.nationmaster.com/country-
info/stats/Environment/...](https://www.nationmaster.com/country-
info/stats/Environment/CO2-Emissions-per-1000)

------
hanniabu
I don't like these articles for the simple fact that climate change deniers
use it as "evidence" that climate change is fake

~~~
eloff
What on earth does reforestation by humans have to do with climate change?

~~~
TeMPOraL
"You see, Earth is getting greener! Things are getting better! Maybe we don't
need to cut down on fossil fuels and wasteful consumption after all!"

~~~
hanniabu
Exactly, this is precisely the kind of stuff I hear. Also not sure why so many
downvotes lol, I think many misunderstood what I was saying

~~~
TeMPOraL
They must have, yes. You have my upvote, FWIW.

------
niyaven
I find the title misleading, the main reason Earth is getting greener is
mainly because of higher CO2 emissions[0]. Saying the earth is getting greener
thanks to China and India, is forgetting that ~84% of the increase is not
related to these countries[1].

What is truly new, is that human activity in India and China alone is
responsable of a 16% increase of leaf area. So, to quote original article:

> now that we know direct human influence is a key driver of the greening
> Earth, we need to factor this into our climate models

[0] [https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-
green...](https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-
now/)

[1] [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-
an...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-
dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows)

~~~
vixen99
Correct of course.

"Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the
greening effect, said co-author Ranga Myneni, a professor in the Department of
Earth and Environment at Boston University. “The second most important driver
is nitrogen, at 9 percent. "

[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-
fer...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-
fertilization-greening-earth)

The greening is also observed in areas unaffected by man's agricultural
activities.

