
Scientists Identify How Many Trees to Plant and Where to Stop Climate Crisis - ph0rque
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/how-many-trees-to-plant-to-stop-climate-crisis/
======
vfc1
It's not either one solution or another, or what is the best solution, there
is not one single solution for solving climate change, it's not that simple.

This is a thought fallacy that leads us nowhere, it's a complex problem with
many causes and lots of moving parts.

We can't just plant a bunch of trees and keep living like before, growing to
10 billions and beyond.

We need to plant a bunch of trees AND reduce traveling AND stop eating so much
meat, AND stop fishing so much, AND stop creating to much waste, AND keep the
world population under control, etc. It's not OR, its AND.

Thinking "Oh well someone is just going to plant a bunch of trees and fix it,
I'll just back to eating my cheeseburger" is not a productive message at this
point in time, when so much is still to be done to convince the general public
that lifestyle changes are urgently needed.

~~~
bjornsing
If I play devils advocate here for a moment: Why is it that everybody is so
interested in “lifestyle” changes, and so uninterested in things like OP or
Project Vesta [1]? I sometimes get the feeling that some people just see this
whole climate thing as a good opportunity to force their (pre-existing)
values/virtues on others...

1\. [https://projectvesta.org/](https://projectvesta.org/)

~~~
SamBam
Exactly. People (not necessarily the parent comment) love to focus on the
lifestyle choices because they allow them to paint those advocating change as
hypocrites, and so dismiss the entire message.

The vast majority (~80%, [1]) of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come from
"lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation, industrial
use and electrical production. These require changes at the policy level that
individuals can't create by themselves but only by calling for action by
legislators. Planting more trees on a national scale can absolutely be one of
the many policy changes that we call for to help balance the scales, because
we will never get those three sectors down to zero.

As for the specific question of meat, it would undoubtably help for everyone
to eat less meat, but in fact if every single person in the US went
vegetarian, it's estimated that it would only reduce the US's CO2 output by
about 5%. [2]

1\. [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-
emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-
emissions#transportation)

2\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-
at...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-ate-a-bit-
less-meat.html)

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> The vast majority (~80%, [1]) of the greenhouse gas emissions do not come
> from "lifestyle" choices such as eating meat, but from transportation,
> industrial use and electrical production.

But the reason we use so much transportation, industry, and electricity is due
to lifestyle choices. Meat requires feed which is transported, and then the
animals are transported, and then the meat itself is also transported.
Industry makes those iPhones you buy a new model of every other year. Etc.

> As for the specific question of meat, it would undoubtably help for everyone
> to eat less meat, but in fact if every single person in the US went
> vegetarian, it's estimated that it would only reduce the US's CO2 output by
> about 5%

5% is nothing to sneeze at. Eating less meat alone won't stop climate change,
it's true, but in combination with other sacrifices?

Here's my problem with the people who make arguments like you're making: I
feel like you're unwilling to make sacrifices and are using this argument to
justify how you can claim to care about the environment while also doing
basically nothing to improve the situation. You'll say "well, one person isn't
going to make a difference", yes, in the same way a raindrop does not consider
itself responsible for the flood. If we are so unwilling to make sacrifices
for ourselves, why should we believe that other people will make any? Why will
they vote against their interests? Pay lip service to the idea in a public
forum and then explain away your own contribution to the problem as being but
one drop in the flood, voting is secret. Someone says "we should eat less
meat", an objectively helpful thing to do by your own metric, and you say "No,
no. It's a small thing, we should focus on something less important to me!".

It's frankly quite frustrating to see. Short of some miracle techology, I'm
pretty sure this kind of thing is the reason we won't be able to avoid the
worst case scenarios of climate change and future generations will look back
on us with well deserved disgust.

~~~
candiodari
I don't get this reasoning. Global warming has been self-reinforcing since
before my dad was born, so a 100% reduction in human co2 emissions will not
stop climate change, just slow it down. It's also an exponential process and
we're not in the early stages, so it won't even slow it down that much.
Imagine the effect of a 5% change now, which is a completely unrealistic goal
to boot. It's nothing.

[https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/why-positive-climate-
feedba...](https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/08/why-positive-climate-feedbacks-
are-so-bad)

We don't need miracle technology, we have the technology to take control of
the climate, and we'll be forced to use it, whatever other measures are used.

So lifestyle choices are great and all, but please stop saying they're for the
climate. They're insignificant, even if 100% implemented.

The proverbial raindrop you're talking about matters very little if the reason
for the flood is a dam breaking. Great attitude on the part of the raindrop to
not make the situation worse. But all the raindrops together only make the
situation 0.1% worse than it was before the rain ...

~~~
johnisgood
> So lifestyle choices are great and all, but please stop saying they're for
> the climate. They're insignificant, even if 100% implemented.

This is false.

> That’s why the late 2018 IPCC report stood out that reducing meat
> consumption by 90% is the single biggest way to reduce global warming. Some
> studies also show that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland
> use could be reduced by over 75%. In this way, reducing your meat
> consumption is also a big step to stop not only deforestation but also
> global warming on a larger scale.

[https://e-csr.net/definitions/what-is-definition-
deforestati...](https://e-csr.net/definitions/what-is-definition-
deforestation-causes-effects/#3-eating-less-meat)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02409-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02409-7)

Or better yet:
[https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/Fullreport-1...](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/Fullreport-1.pdf)
(search for "meat" and "diet")

~~~
dorgo
> Some studies also show that without meat and dairy consumption, global
> farmland use could be reduced by over 75%

But reducing farmland by over 75% is not enough by itself to counter climate
change. And, if we can plant enough trees outside of farmland the reduction of
farmland is not even neccessary.

It seems, we agree that we need more trees. But you want to get there by
eating less meat. Yes, there is a connection between meat and trees, but why
not just plant trees?

Edit: reduced the quote to relevant part

------
hannob
This has been debunked at plenty of places, but I guess it needs repeating.

Quote from the article: "Around 0.9 billion hectares (2.2 billion acres) of
land worldwide would be suitable for reforestation, which could ultimately
capture two thirds of human-made carbon emissions."

This is wrong. The reason is a bit technical. The issue here is that about
half of the emissions going into the atmosphere get soaked up by natural
sinks, e.g. the oceans. However if you take carbon dioxide out of the air the
reverse happens: The oceans and other sinks re-release the carbon.

This needs to be taken into account, but hasn't happened here. So the effect
is only about half the size of what is claimed.

Sources by some climate scientists explaining this:
[https://twitter.com/pepcanadell/status/1147066574299377664](https://twitter.com/pepcanadell/status/1147066574299377664)
[https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496](https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496)

To be clear: There's nothing wrong with planting trees as _one_ solution to
the climate crisis. However this study was presented in a way that
overestimated the effect massively. (Also I have some doubts that planting
trees is "easy" given the political situation in the countries that have the
largest potential.)

~~~
corodra
On a practical standpoint, I don't think the article tackles the concept of
forest management at all. Other than what's been going on the past few months,
the Amazon doesn't see wildfires like the Pacific Northwest does. An Amazon
forest can be denser per acre compared to a NW forest. Thinning forests is a
common practice, across America at least, to manage burnable material that
naturally occurs in a forest. Plus to deal with a lot of beetles and other
pests that have been killing the forests. At the end, it's not enough anymore
to just plant a tree and call it day in most forests. Management needs to be
apart of the plan too. It would suck to plant a ton of trees, just to see it
go up in smoke.

~~~
sp332
The Amazon is wet enough that it doesn't have natural massive fires. The
recent and ongoing fires are set to clear the land for agriculture. They have
to cut the trees down first, wait for them to dry out a bit, and then set them
on fire.

------
jansan
Just to let you know, there has been considerable forestation taking place in
Europe during the last 100 years:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04/watch-
how-europe-is-greener-now-than-100-years-ago/)

Yet, somehow people in Europe think that a huge deforestation is taking place.

~~~
smackay
For anyone who thinks the Scottish highlands are beautiful. Here is what it
used to look like and will again one day soon.

[https://rewildingeurope.com/rew-project/restoring-the-
caledo...](https://rewildingeurope.com/rew-project/restoring-the-caledonian-
forest/)

(The video at the bottom is a bit gushing but it's a decent view of what the
reforestation projects want to achieve).

~~~
baron_harkonnen
This is a great example of exporting your forest needs. About 1/3 of the UK's
renewable energy is wood pellets shipped across the ocean from the US [1]. So
yes you can have reforestation but for that to happen at the same time as your
demand for wood pellets increases you have to burn a lot of bunker fuel to
ship that wood across the ocean.

But of course in the end you get to claim that you are using more renewable
energy and increasing local forest coverage!

[1] [http://www.biomassmagazine.com/articles/16053/uk-
bioenergy-c...](http://www.biomassmagazine.com/articles/16053/uk-bioenergy-
capacity-generation-increased-in-2018)

------
isthispermanent
With all these smart people reading Hacker News, why is the the top comment so
negative. This is a legitimately doable thing.

The vast majority of us on here are some type of engineer. We can answer the
question of "How do we efficiently plant 1bil hectare of trees within 5
years?"

Yes, we need to do other things too. But if we wait for some panacea plan to
emerge it will be too late. Just do it.

Just imagine if we accomplished this within 5 years. How glad would we be in
30 years once they really started to mature? Let's be good to future us.

~~~
thinkingemote
> engineer.

nature can plant trees instead. Trees, if left alone for a couple of years
will naturally reproduce and plant themselves. The key bit is leaving the
space alone. It is not something that really needs engineering on the whole.

There is a small amount of places where trees would not be able to colonise if
left alone - and we need to use the science of Ecology to examine why. it's
here where geotechnology can come into play, but for the vast vast majority of
the billions needed, we just need to leave alone .

Now, saying that, there is a great benefit in getting children interested in
nature and planting trees and so we shouldn't stop planting efforts for that
sake. But there is a deeply troubling idea that we can engineer nature to save
nature when it's nature that can save itself and us.

------
Merrill
The recommendation is to reforest 103 million hectares of the US. That is
about 400,000 square miles in a country of about 4,000,000 square miles, i.e.
10% of the surface area. It's not clear where there is that much land suitable
for forest that is not being used for ag and other purposes. Of course, we
could decrease the amount of land used for agriculture, since we are
continually in surplus and export a lot of foodstuffs.

Some parts, such as New England, were farmed more intensively and have been
allowed to go back to forest. In other areas, such as the midwest, poor or
swampy land that was used for dairy farming pastures is no longer needed,
since dairying is now concentrated in fewer huge herds. However, in these
cases land had been allowed to go back to forests naturally, with scrubby
transition shrubs and trees that are pretty poor forests. We could get both
more carbon capture and more forest products by better forest management in
the US. Invasive species such as kudzu, asian bittersweet, and porcelain berry
make transitioning back to mature terminal stage forest difficult and
expensive.

~~~
bagacrap
The article does mention that it takes into account land already in use by
humans. I can only assume that "use" includes agriculture.

------
JulianMorrison
People need to start thinking of natural regeneration / rewilding as an option
because "planting trees" per se does not create a self sustaining balanced
forest ecosystem. Forestry plantations are often pretty much green deserts,
like any other agricultural monoculture.

There's a pernicious influence from government here. It's unhelpfully easier
to get funding for "plant 1000 saplings" than for "leave an area to transform
into thorny scrub, pioneer tree woodland, and finally full woodland".

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/wildwo...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/26/wildwoods-
britain-climate-change-northern-forest)

~~~
Merrill
It would be nice if natural regeneration worked, but in this area an idle plot
quickly becomes overrun with invasive species. Some of these are foreign
trees, such as alianthus, and some are US trees not native to this area, such
as black locust. Even these fast growing and short lived species become
quickly entangled in non-native vines and dragged down in windstorms. The
result is a tangled mess nothing like the theoretical progression from thorny
scrub, pioneer tree woodland, and full woodland. Getting to something like a
natural woodland may be possible naturally, but it takes many decades, and the
resultant species will certainly not be the mixed oak and chestnut forest,
since there are no more chestnuts. Nature only goes forward, never back.

------
dalbasal
Just as a political lesson, reforestation is fascinating.It seems to have
casually gone from seeming unfeasible practically and politically to
feasible... without much of a struggle.

Impossible until it isn't.

~~~
Angostura
Surely that's because its a suggest that we can "solve" an extistential crisis
without changing the way we do business or live our lives in any meaningful
way.

Feels a bit too good to be true.

~~~
dalbasal
I disagree with the zero-sum assumption that often seem to permeate
environmentalism, and climate politics in particular. Half the time it seems
that effectiveness is judged by inconvenience, negative economic consequences
and such. I sometimes think it hurts the cause more than outright anti-
environmentalism.

If the only "real" solutions are things like reducing human energy use long
term, you might as well stop caring and just hope for the best. It won't
happen, and even if it does than the long-term^ consequences might be worse
than climate change.

The actually sustainable solutions are those that are cheap, positive sum, and
lead to humans thriving.

IDK if this _is_ a solution (or meaningful part thereof) for climate change.
It's not really an easy solution though. Land politics are tough, to put it
mildly. They always have been.

^Operative term.

~~~
baron_harkonnen
> If the only "real" solutions are things like reducing human energy use long
> term, you might as well stop caring and just hope for the best. It won't
> happen, and even if it does than the long-term^ consequences might be worse
> than climate change.

But that's absolutely the path we're on and have repeatedly chosen. I don't
think comments pointing this out are claiming they are environmentalists, just
pointing out something that very few people really want to discuss.

It's funny that we discuss "sustainability" as some sort of future goal, when,
by definition, the alternative is a way of life that cannot be sustained.
"Less unsustainable" is still unsustainable. Since serious sustainability is
clearly seen as some sort of absurd joke, then we should at least stop
pretending that things are going to be okay.

The really interesting part will be when we feel the other pain of
unsustainable living: resource depletion. Fighting the impact of climate
changes is going to be even trickier when we have less energy to do it with.

~~~
goatlover
> The really interesting part will be when we feel the other pain of
> unsustainable living: resource depletion. Fighting the impact of climate
> changes is going to be even trickier when we have less energy to do it with.

Energy is the one thing we shouldn't run low on given that we have the sun.

------
Mikeb85
Things like this article describes, the fact the world is getting greener as a
result of human activity[1] not to mention the constant advance of technology
is why I'm still optimistic for our future despite all the doomsday
predictions.

[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)

------
mfer
Setting aside whether this is a solution (even a partial one), I applaud the
effort to come up with solutions like this.

It's hard and sometimes impossible to get other people to change. Especially
when they are in other countries where legislative changes aren't even
possible. This means it can take a long time, at best.

It's easier to change ourselves. Come up with things we can do that have a
positive impact is a great idea.

~~~
neuronic
Meat consumption is the number one issue and as someone who likes to consume
meat I think that

> It's easier to change ourselves

is a bold statement. Maybe some of us can muster up the will to resist $5 meat
packages in the supermarket every single day. I am sure not all and especially
not _enough_ people can do that off their own free will.

So what we need is to make meat a luxury item again and ban any and all mass
production of meat. It basically amounts to torture anyway and the meat
quality is somewhere near garbage.

It would be a lot easier if the meat options in supermarkets were restricted
to expensive "organic" meat from animals who lived in acceptable conditions.

Cheap mass produced meat is an incredible ecological killer.

Ok, so there will be people who don't want to lose their meat. I don't want
to. But even others will _resist_ that notion. It's not like the production is
sustainable so sooner or later it will happen anyways. The question is, how
much damage will we produce along the way?

~~~
ryanmercer
>is a bold statement. Maybe some of us can muster up the will to resist $5
meat packages in the supermarket every single day. I am sure not all and
especially not enough people can do that off their own free will.

Simply switching from beef to chicken results in a dramatic reduction of
greenhouse gasses you are personally responsible for. I ditched about 90% of
my beef for chicken last year and barely noticed.

~~~
neuronic
Apparently it can be nearly _any_ other meat than beef, except maybe lamb.
Beef is multiple times as potent as any other form of meat when it comes to
climate impact. Aside from emissions, it has a large effect on water pollution
as well.

For starters:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production)

------
ryanmercer
Never mind the fact it takes trees decades to get to their maximum annual CO2
uptake levels and that species vary wildly in the levels of CO2 they take
up...

Planting trees isn't the answer, drastically reducing emissions _immediately_
, drastically reducing construction levels (creating concrete is a huge source
of CO2), cessation of paving over square mile after square mile of soil to
create roads and housing additions, ceasing the practice of removing all of
the top soil from ecologically diverse fields to sell and then throwing
Kentucky blue grass sod down and putting up cookie-cutter houses, ceasing
coastal fishing that has been damaging kelp and seaweed 'forests' and actively
repopulating them via sustainable farming of kelp and seaweed which will
drastically increase local marine species populations over time.

Hell, abandoning foolish technologies like cryptocurrency will have IMMEDIATE
impact. Bitcoin alone uses an insane amount of electricity. One estimate [1]
puts a single bitcoin transaction at using as much electricity as it takes to
stream 48,011 hours of YouTube which is nearly 21 days of average U.S.
household electricity usage! The network has had an annualized carbon
footprint equal to Denmark and an electricity consumption equal to Austria.
For imaginary flippin' internet money that is largely used for speculation,
ransomware and illicit drug trade!!!

Yes, replacing the forests we've cut down in the past several centuries is
imperative but it isn't a solution. You can plant all the trees you want but
as long as you're producing nearly 40 gigatons of CO2 a year, you're just
making yourself feel good and getting some PR for your company/party/country.

[1] [https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-
consumption](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)

~~~
hyperbovine
> You can plant all the trees you want but as long as you're producing nearly
> 40 gigatons of CO2 a year, you're just making yourself feel good and getting
> some PR for your company/party/country.

Wouldn’t planting enough trees to gobble up 40+1 GT of carbon a year do the
trick? I think this is the point of TFA.

~~~
ptah
trees only capture carbon temporarily

~~~
Anchor
We can also cut them to make room for new trees. If we don't burn the C in
them to CO2, but use them as raw materials (buildings, alternative to
plastics, etc.) there is even more potential for carbon capture in this way.

Of course, the long term solution is to grow as many new trees per year as we
emit CO2, so there is an upper limit for our CO2 budget, but this should give
use time to convert to carbon neutral energy production and consumption
without hampering the the GDP growth too much. In fact, it has been estimated
that world GDP can actually grow even during the transition, due to, for
example, positive effects of improved environment (health improvements lead to
productivity improvements and so on).

------
jefft255
What I don’t like about planting trees for carbon absorption is that is leads
to really boring forests: in Canada they’ll plant mono species stands of white
spruce, which typically absorb the most carbon. This is however not the best
in terms of biodiversity... Doing something as complex as forestry while
optimizing for one objective is not the best approach IMHO.

------
shademaan
Trees help, but alone won't "stop" the climate crisis, and wont do anything to
combat the worst greenhouse gases.

~~~
cjmcqueen
The study has data to back up it's findings and suggests tree growth can help;
what data are you using to back up your statement?

From the article: "The Crowther Lab of ETH Zurich has published a study in the
journal Science that shows this would be the most effective method to combat
climate change."

~~~
shademaan
So where exactly does the article say this method will _stop_ the climate
crisis?

It doesn't, because it's not true as the ETH reseachers are well aware and
will readily tell you. As I mentioned in my post, trees ALONE will not stop
the climate crisis because the only thing they'll really help with is CO2
absorption, and climate change is driven by more than just C)2 levels.

~~~
stuaxo
Ah the old absolutist "doing something doesn't get us 100% of the way there,
so we should sit on our hands" argument.

~~~
shademaan
Preposterous. Where exactly did I suggest this? What I'm saying this in no way
will "fully solve" the climate crisis and I'm afraid that presenting this
approach as a complete solution will lull people into a false sense of
security and complacency.

A lot of the claims made in this piece are very exaggerated re: potential to
address climate change

------
decasteve
The prevailing view in my culture is that planting trees does not necessarily
equate to 'reforestation'. I've seen forests decimated first-hand and then
replanted as monoculture tree plantations.

------
lazyjones
Pretty much the same as
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20360513)
...

------
yboris
Individually, we can also give our money to offset our (and others') carbon
emissions.

By donating to cost-effective charities (ones that are experts at doing the
offsetting), we can do more good than through other individual actions.

Read the Founders Pledge Climate Change Executive Summary:

[https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-
executive-...](https://founderspledge.com/stories/climate-change-executive-
summary)

------
asaegyn
Wow, people are desperate for good news. Well, this is a July article, and the
idea that this "stops" the climate crisis is nonesense.

The treest would remove about 10-15 years worth of emissions over 40-100.
Emissions are increasing (in fact, accelerating).

Moreover, that carbon would be removed over 40-100 years, and in that time,
none of those trees could be cut, nor could they burn.

Now, it should be done! But it is by no means a way of stopping climate.

Fundamental systemic change is requied.

------
pxndxx
Are there any NGOs working on reforestation based on this report I can donate
to?

~~~
rapnie
"If we can warm up the earth, we can also cool it down."

[https://justdiggit.org/](https://justdiggit.org/)

~~~
ueue3243
Well you're going to have to account for the natural oscillations to[0], when
it's quite complicated apparently for some people to understand the most basic
one[1]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_oscillation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_oscillation)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation)

------
jnmandal
Link to the pdf of the actual study:
[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/365/6448/76.full....](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/365/6448/76.full.pdf)

------
spodek
Trees don't solve our other environmental problems of plastic, carcinogens,
extinctions, etc.

Yes, plant trees as a partial solution. Consider it a starting point, nowhere
near an endpoint.

We can dance around it all we like, partial solutions like planting trees
don't address that the environment reacts to our population and behavior.

Ultimately we must lower our birth rate and produce less or we will override
partial solutions. Projections about or population leveling off would change
when assumptions change, like the world being cleaner from planting all these
trees. Unless we change our cultural values, goals, and behavior away from
growth and externalizing costs.

~~~
corodra
I do agree, and I do agree about over population is a problem.

But question, _who_ must lower their birth rate? And how do you implement such
a plan? How do you punish people that makes sense? That's a super tricky
problem and can't just be waved around. China attempted this... and there's a
term that comes to mind on how that turned out... cluster fuck. I mean, I'm
not going to vote for any law that says if you have a child outside your
allowed quota, then the child is "disposed" or taken away. Thus, how do you
enforce it? Tax the piss out of someone? Just to make them poorer and then
those kids have a piss poor life even worse than normal?

The population level off isn't tied to the climate being cleaned. It's based
on the concept that if countries go from developing to first world status,
they adopt 1st world birthing rates of 2 kids or less. Do I buy that argument?
Eh? Maybe, to an extent. But knowing human nature. There's going to be a
country or two that will propaganda to have more kids to out beat the rest of
the world. Humans have a habit trying to gain an advantage over other people.
If there's one to be had, they'll have it.

~~~
redisman
They will adopt 1st world birthing rates and 1st world consumption rates.

------
logfromblammo
International standards for shipping pollution are a few decades out of date.
It's been about 40 years.

International trade organizations need to address the pollution happening in
international waters, including combustion gases, dumping, and all the
national subsidies for environmentally hostile activities relating to
shipping.

The article does not actually present an actionable plan for tree-planting. It
seems to be saying that deserts, mountains, and tundra are viable targets for
afforestation--a.k.a. land area not already forested that is not used by
cities or agriculture.

------
robomartin
I’ve been talking about this for years. This could conclusion is beyond
obvious to anyone who has looked at the realities of climate change rather
than the politically fed frenzy the thing has become.

Plant trees.

------
adampk
Can someone here make some kind of an app/platform that let's me know where I
can go to plant a tree and how to do it?

I would be a big fan of a long weekend/vacation planting trees part of
industrial scale joint operations where I am making an actual difference.

Maybe include payment and and donations for seeds/land/water/etc. I worry
about climate change all the time but I don't know how to affect change at an
impact level.

~~~
ph0rque
> I worry about climate change all the time but I don't know how to affect
> change at an impact level.

I would encourage you to donate to Trees For the Future, as I have done for
the last several years. Here's a blog post I wrote about it:
[https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-
chang...](https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-change-with-
trees.html)

------
cryoshon
i'm currently looking into tree-planting as a climate change solution with the
aim of making it into either a nonprofit or a for-profit organization, but my
research so far has not been promising.

the trouble with planting trees is that it's difficult to turn into a virtuous
economic loop without government intervention because the cost of land is so
high. nobody wants to buy a tree that is planted somewhere else, and very few
individuals or companies are interested in purchasing trees for the creation
of a carbon offset certificate or personal carbon offset. in other words,
people don't value carbon sequestration, they value things that sequestration
can produce downstream, like air that isn't jam packed with CO2.

in a vacuum, you can plant one tree for 20 cents of effort -- assuming you own
the land you're standing on. but in the real world, land is expensive, and it
has both up-front purchase costs as well as ongoing land tax costs. and trees
aren't exactly productive assets unless the government assigns an economic
value to carbon sequestration via a carbon tax or something similar.

all of these concerns occur well before you can even start to approach the
idea of scaling tree-planting to the point where it makes a dent in the
climate crisis. for the idea to work economically, it needs a lot of
subsidization, at least under the present conditions.

of course, this is where philanthropy could step in and make a massive
difference. if a billionaire or two would set aside a few billions to purchase
deforested lands and replant them, we could make major progress. but they
won't, so that leaves us hunting for a market capitalist solution to a problem
caused by collective ignorance of externalities during economic activity.

~~~
tathougies
You don't need to buy land specifically. In fact, that's probably counter
productive. A better bet would be to seek a lease or an easement in someone's
plot for a fee.

~~~
cryoshon
if you don't own the land, you can't stop the owner from chopping down all the
trees you planted and letting the CO2 exhaust into the air again. i guess you
could try putting it into a contract, but it would de facto be unenforceable
because you wouldn't know if the land owner was cutting down trees on their
property anyway.

~~~
tathougies
that's why you purchase an easement, and yes, it would be enforceable. I mean,
it would be as enforceable as making sure no one poached your trees on your
vast swaths of remote, distributed acreage. In my scheme, because the revenue
is recurring, the owners would have every incentive to prevent poaching, thus
potentially relieving you of some extra costs.

I suppose a tree hating owner could sign up and then chop down your trees, but
luckily, you can probably sue him for breaking a contract, or just not let him
have another tree.

------
philliphaydon
> stop eating so much meat

Do people actually read the reports and study’s around climate change or do
they just follow what they see in the news?

------
de_watcher
But if we manage to mess up the oceans badly then we'll need a lot more trees
than ever was.

------
robbrown451
I thought forests were carbon neutral, at least if the trees are allowed to
rot. Is there a plan to remove the dead trees so this doesn't happen? Even if
you turn it into lumber and make buildings with it, eventually it tends to rot
or burn.

What am I missing?

------
sarthakjshetty
[https://twitter.com/katherinegould/status/117549742050484633...](https://twitter.com/katherinegould/status/1175497420504846338)
the lead of the paper in question

------
blobs
Planting trees is good, but it won't solve our problems. It would be nice if
governments first halt and prohibit the destruction of our existing forests in
case that happens for a profit. Same counts for all other resources like gas,
oil, minerals, etc.. It should not be possible to farm that for profit, it
should only be allowed when there is a real proven need where the loss can be
calculated and compensated to assure future life and to prevent the extinction
of species.

If this depletion of resources continues at the current rate, we are in fact
committing suicide at a planetary scale. The sad thing is that we can only
look and talk about it, there is no control by anyone. We wanted democracy,
well this is one of the traits of democracy. No control, but above all
discussion and corruption(for profit). I'm afraid that if our governing
systems remain dictatorial, communist, democratic, etc.. we won't make it into
the next century. Mankind will eventually destroy itself(and other species)
because of a lack of an intelligent governing system.

------
Tepix
This article is from July, I belive it has been discussed here previously.

------
stillbourne
So, where can I plant some near me?

Edit: They have a tool, sort of:
[https://www.crowtherlab.com/maps-2/](https://www.crowtherlab.com/maps-2/)

------
stubish
Where does the water come from to reforest 58 million hectares of Australia?
It does not seem at all practical in the remaining time left, unless they are
looking at very light forestation.

------
meerita
Whe you read the entire article they state they don't know the output. They're
not sure that would make significantly change.

------
known
I think the solution to climate crisis is in Oceans since 95% of the world's
oceans and 99% of the ocean floor are unexplored

------
yohann305
i actually asked a NOAA weather scientists about what would happen if we plant
billions of tree where the winds of hurricanes root from?

He told me it's always good to plant trees BUT know that by altering the
environment, chances are you will be redirecting hurricanes to other countries
and be ready to get sued!

~~~
defterGoose
Just...what?

------
The_rationalist
Would it be more effective than growing the number of phytoplanktons? If so,
by how much?

~~~
cryoshon
based on my research into phytoplanktons and cyanobacteria-based climate
change mitigation for the purposes of commercialization, my take on this is
that planting trees is probably a significantly easier approach in terms of
the amount of effort involved on an ongoing basis.

in terms of efficacy, i'd say it depends on how productive your phyto/cyano
farm is versus planting trees over a 10-year course per dollar. phyto/cyano
farms will be super dense in terms of sequestration, capacity but you'll be
investing hundreds of dollars per unit.

------
CodeTheInternet
Is Western China really so mountainous to have that large area with relatively
no trees?

------
HaukeHi
"I have not looked at this deeply, so take all of this with a grain of salt,
but a quick scan makes me believe that this is very hyped.

Having skimmed the paper it seems the only thing the authors do and what is
peer-reviewed is estimate earth's theoretical maximum capacity for
reforestation.

There are few problems:

1) Feasibility: "200 GtC is a technical potential assuming every hectare of
forestland on earth is increased to 100% forest cover"

[https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496](https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1147190442145898496)

"An assessment of the biophysical capacity for restoring global tree cover
provides a necessary but insufficient foundation for evaluating where tree
cover can be feasibly increased. The kinds of trees as well as how and where
they are grown determine how and which people benefit. In some contexts,
increasing tree cover can elevate fire risk, decrease water supplies, and
cause crop damage by wildlife. Reforestation programs often favor single-
species tree plantations over restoring native forest ecosystems. This
approach can generate negative consequences for biodiversity and carbon
storage (5), threaten food and land security, and exacerbate social
inequities. How restored lands are governed determines how reforestation costs
and benefits are distributed."

[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/24](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/24)

There are no dollar signs or economic feasibility analysis in that paper. So
the people who wrote it just cited some number that is not peer-reviewed and
even if loosely based on previous numbers might not work at the scale.

\--

2) There seems to be no scientific consensus how much (or even if!) new trees
are a GHG sink on net. Some legitimate papers even suggests that new trees
could be a net GHG source. (the paper does not make any new contributions to
this question and I think just assumes that trees absorb GHG).

For instance, see this recent paper in Nature communications:

a) "Limited capacity of tree growth to mitigate the global greenhouse effect
under predicted warming"
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10174-4](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10174-4)

b) this recent paper in PNAS (top journal as well)

"On-going carbon uptake due to forest demography is large, but much smaller
than previous influential estimates have suggested. Contrary to previous
findings, these latest data sources indicate that the sink is predominantly in
mid-high latitude, rather than tropical, forests.

[https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4382.short"](https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4382.short")

from

[https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xY3iSgDRHidue8J7C/...](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xY3iSgDRHidue8J7C/new-
study-in-science-implies-that-tree-planting-is-
the?commentId=wSZm2PQh4iWZ5Qra2)

------
zeofig
Trees aren't bad, but they're a solution like how a bandage is a solution to a
systematic bacterial infection...

------
ueue3243
The "Climate Crisis" has been debunked by UN Chief Climate Scientist[0] and by
IPCC itself[1]

[0] [http://co2coalition.org/2019/09/27/chief-un-climate-
scientis...](http://co2coalition.org/2019/09/27/chief-un-climate-scientist-
calls-the-climate-crisis-narrative-religious-extremism/) [1]
[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-
great-...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-
failure-of-the-climate-models)

~~~
FrojoS
The first article is referring to an interview that is hardly a “debunk”. It’s
just one persons opinion on how grave the issue is (e.g. should you stop
having kids?).

The second piece is classical climate change denial, e.g. the “pause/hiatus”
in warming This animation shows well that it’s just an artifact of a hand
picked timeframe
[https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leugnung_der_menschengemacht...](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leugnung_der_menschengemachten_globalen_Erwärmung#/media/Datei%3ATemperaturanstieg-
vergleich-zwischen-ausschnitt-und-gesamtverlauf.gif)

More info here
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial)

~~~
justsubmit
Here's a quote from the article he cited:

> Atmospheric scientist John Christy developed a global temperature record of
> the lower atmosphere using highly accurate satellite soundings. NASA honored
> him for this achievement, and he was an author for a previous edition of the
> U.N. report. He told a House Science Committee hearing in March 2017 that
> the U.N. climate models have failed badly.

> Christy compared the average model projections since 1979 to the most
> reliable observations — those made by satellites and weather balloons over
> the vast tropics. The result? In the upper levels of the lower atmosphere,
> the models predicted seven times as much warming as has been observed.
> Overprediction also occurred at all other levels. Christy recently concluded
> that, on average, the projected heating by the models is three times what
> has been observed.

You characterize that as "classical climate change denial" and "just an
artifact of a hand picked timeframe." Then you link to a Wikipedia article
about "Climate change denial," as if he just needs to read it to understand
what an ignorant denialist he is, and then he'll agree with you.

So, according to you, is John Christy in denial?

