
A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change - apsec112
https://medium.com/@yishan/a-massive-global-reforestation-project-is-how-we-fix-climate-change-e37fa24436a3
======
perfunctory
Unfortunately the reality (as always) is much more prosaic. There is no one
single clever solution to the climate problem. Fixing climate will require
lots and lots of different solutions across the board, including
reforestation.

~~~
longtom
Indeed. A good overview is provided by the following blog posts:

[https://longitudinal.blog/co2-series-part-1-review-of-
basics...](https://longitudinal.blog/co2-series-part-1-review-of-basics/)

[https://longitudinal.blog/co2-series-
part-2-co2-removal/](https://longitudinal.blog/co2-series-part-2-co2-removal/)

[https://longitudinal.blog/co2-series-part-3-other-
interventi...](https://longitudinal.blog/co2-series-part-3-other-
interventions/)

------
Merrill
The core assumption is that 3 billion out of a total of 4.7 billion acres of
desert currently existing can be reforested by planting trees and irrigating
them for 20 years, after which they will continue growing without irrigation.

Is this possible, except for marginal areas bordering the deserts? Aren't most
desert areas desert because of very low precipitation?

This may be practical for areas such as the example in the article of the
Kubuki Desert reforestation project, where desertification due to the
encroachment of dunes can be thwarted. But the major deserts such as the
Sahara, Gobi, or Arabian Empty Quarter have very low precipitation, below what
is needed for grass, desert shrubs, cacti, etc.

~~~
OmarIsmail
In the article the claim is that the environment changes due to the presence
of the forest and results in more precipitation.

i.e. the presence of precipitation and trees are linked. If you remove one you
remove the other, and if you add one (trees in this case) you get the other.

Pretty amazing if true.

~~~
Merrill
>But for the past 2,000 years or so, the climate of the Sahara has been fairly
stable. The northeastern winds dry out the air over the desert and drive hot
winds toward the equator. These winds can reach exceptional speeds and cause
severe dust storms that can drop local visibility to zero. Dust from the
Sahara travels on trade winds all the way to the opposite side of the globe.

>Precipitation in the Sahara ranges from zero to about 3 inches of rain per
year, with some locations not seeing rain for several years at a time.
Occasionally, snow falls at higher elevations. Daytime summer temperatures are
often over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and can drop to near-
freezing temperatures at nighttime.

[https://www.livescience.com/23140-sahara-
desert.html](https://www.livescience.com/23140-sahara-desert.html)

Precipitation is controlled by the humidity in the prevailing wind systems.
Prevailing winds from the northeast drop whatever moisture they have on the
southern margins of the Mediterranean or on Egypt and Sudan.

------
adreamingsoul
I'm burnt out or depressed with my current career (or something else), but at
this moment I would happily pivot to spending the rest of my life trying to
help nature. How could I create a business or venture that allowed people to
make a livable wage while also working to create a balanced ecosystem between
human and nature?

~~~
Agenttin
Honestly, tree farming is carbon negative. By continuously growing trees and
turning them into lumber you capture carbon and turn it into houses and
furniture. Using the profits to buy more land to reforest, then cycling though
planting and cutting down trees on a cycle.

~~~
dpflan
Are there methods of tree farming that are focusing solely on carbon capture?
For example, is it known that a species of plant that grows quickly captures
carbon very efficiently?

~~~
berbec
Wouldn't shallow pools of algea in a greenhouse be much more efficient than
trees?

~~~
Nasrudith
Technically yes but it would be generally worse at self-sustaining scalability
- you need to construct more greenhouses, keep the higher exposed surface area
of water from evaporating, and find a sequestering use for that algae.

Non-biodegrading bioplastic made with renewable eneegy could technically work
for that role but more plastic waste isn't approved of for obvious reasons.

~~~
petecox
> find a sequestering use for that algae.

Beer.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-15/growing-algae-to-
brew...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-15/growing-algae-to-brew-greener-
beer/11720484)

------
DennisP
So we need 3 billion acres. There are 4.62 billion acres of cropland in the
world: [https://blog.neogen.com/new-map-shows-4-62-billion-acres-
of-...](https://blog.neogen.com/new-map-shows-4-62-billion-acres-of-cropland-
globally/)

It's looking increasingly likely that lab-grown food will make a lot of that
farming obsolete: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/lab-
gr...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/lab-grown-food-
destroy-farming-save-planet)

Solar Foods estimates their process is 20,000 times more land-efficient than
farming. Lab-grown beef also looks at least ten times more efficient on land,
energy, and water, according to the book _Clean Meat_.

So if it doesn't take too long before this stuff takes over the market, we
could grow our three billion acres of trees on existing arable land and skip
most of the desalination.

It might seem impossible for agriculture do disappear all that quickly, but
whale oil was the fifth-largest industry in the U.S., then kerosene came along
and wiped it out in a couple decades. And according to studies, people
overwhelmingly eat what's cheap and tastes good; if lab-grown foods can manage
to taste good and leverage their low resource use into low prices, things
could change very quickly.

------
growlist
Gets my vote. I love woodland and can't bear the empty, desolate green spaces
that cover most of the UK, and which many British people consider to be
'nature'.

And here's an idea: process the wood into a form that can be used for land
reclamation without decomposing, cover said land with topsoil, grow trees on
said land. Voila: a buffer against worsening coastal erosion due to sea level
rise, that also locks in carbon in terms of the trees used to build the
footing, and moreover provides extra land for growing trees and locking in
even more carbon.

~~~
ainiriand
I was in shock to discover how empty and barren Ireland is. According to
Wikipedia it is one of the most heavily deforested countries in Europe...

~~~
growlist
If you think that's bad: Ireland are still digging and burning peat to produce
energy - Peat! in 2020! Horrifying

~~~
arethuza
My parents used to burn peat in Scotland when I was growing up - probably why
I'm particularly fond of some products flavoured by peat smoke...

------
harikb
For those who don’t know, there was a reforestation done in US west coast in
recent history [1]. Also from the details I have read at least a good portion
of it was done by a grassroots effort.

If you drive through the highway that goes through the forest today, it is
unimaginable it was a restoration project. There is even a cool observation
desk somewhere in the middle

> The forest was replanted from 1949 to 1973 in the largest reforestation
> project of its kind.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillamook_State_Forest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillamook_State_Forest)

------
NeedMoreTea
Far too little, far too late.

It may have helped fix climate if we had _stopped_ deforestation in 1992 after
the first UN climate summit, used only sustainable wood from that moment on
and cleared no mature forest for pasture or palm oil. Oh, and started
migrating to zero carbon economies when it would have taken a percent or two
reduction a year, rather than the throw ourselves off a reduction cliff
required now. Thanks politicians!

Right now we're still clear cutting, legally and illegally, mature scruffy
ancient forest that provides carbon store, and massive bio diversity. At the
same time tree planting campaigns and forestry mainly create limited
diversity, or no-diversity monocrop desert (forestry). Typically neat proof of
human interference. How many tens of years growing or thousands of hectares
planted to equate the mature wood and stored carbon lost around the world
every day? How much biodiversity and how many species compared to mature,
"nature hewn" forest? Global reforestation projects will destroy more
ecosystems... What will be the unintended consequences of foresting deserts
and the necessary human activity, irrigation, even desalination? How many more
species will go as a consequence?

Now had we created no-development zones around forests, to allow them to
expand naturally, in a world not deforesting at ever increasing rate...

~~~
UnpossibleJim
So should we not try any ideas like this? Just give up and burn it all down,
point fingers and say, "I told you it was too late. Look how right I am." I
see no solutions offered in any of your written paragraphs and I welcome any
and all alternatives.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
When a house is on fire, worry about the new extension after the fire is out.
Otherwise it's Jevons' paradox writ large. We're still destroying and emitting
at ever faster rate. Effort should be going into circular sustainable
economies, decarbonising, achieving carbon neutrality, assisting the
developing world to carbon neutrality too.

~~~
UnpossibleJim
That works under the assumption that we can't do both. We can absolutely work
on carbon neutrality and getting the developing world off of coal and oil
burning technologies while working on restoring a natural carbon capture
system in the form of forests and ecosystems.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I just think the neutrality, reduction in resource use and sustainability has
to come first. Otherwise Jevons. Of course there can be intelligent overlap. I
would hope that as nations move near to neutrality they must have put effort
into a rethink of agriculture and forestry (and every other human activity).

Now they can re-plant locally appropriate species and create new forest that
will eventually appear to be entirely natural ancient woodland or rain forest.
Forest that's destined to be mainly left alone as carbon sequestration. Along
with wood production that's sympathetic to the planet and sustainable.

Greening deserts feels, to me, like a "near neutrality" re-wilding project.
Something we can think of adding in a push to carbon negative, to undo some of
the damage done. Something to do _after_ we have sustainable, renewable
electricity everywhere network to desalinate and irrigate. Something that can
be carefully seeded to take account of species and that appears and acts
natural, and stays put as national park or reservation. Without destroying yet
another wilderness.

Not as a green project slapped down as Deus ex machina solution in a world
that's not yet moving to neutrality. That risks making it worse. In fact it
will almost certainly make it worse as coal and oil is still permitted to keep
on looking for new markets and uses.

~~~
navi0
This is an all-of-the-above-all-hands-on-deck moment in human history, so I
applaud you for focusing on the things you feel are most impactful.

Some of us are also looking beyond the challenges (e.g., coal power) that have
known solutions for the most impactful thing we can do to buy more time. Large
transportation, electricity, and agricultural infrastructure will take time
and lots of political will to change.

Planting trees on unproductive land with desalinated ocean water that no one's
fighting over is low-hanging fruit.

------
Tade0
IIRC a single tree absorbs around 25kg of CO2 annually during its fastest
growth stage.

That's an equivalent of less than 200km in a compact car or 2kg of beef.

I believe it makes more sense to pick the low hanging fruit which is making
transportation more efficient and reducing the impact of food production.

~~~
Symmetry
I think an easier to understand way to look at it is that every square meter
of forest is enough to offset 1 or 2 watts of carbon based energy consumption
if we assume that the trees don't die and decay, no forest fires, etc. We know
that's not enough to sustain a modern civilization because past civilizations
were dependent on energy from wood and coulndn't sustain a much lower standard
of living even with a much lower population density. By contrast solar can
sustain on the order of 100 watts per square meter and can do it even in areas
without enough rainfall for forests.

------
triclops200
That only "fixes" climate change as long as the trees continue growing and do
not die. When dead, trees release their CO_2 that they've sequestered back
into the atmosphere due to decomposition. Therefore, assuming those forests
stay around, you've only delayed the problem by sinking a fixed amount of CO_2
away into the living biomass of the trees. The only way to make that a
permanent sink would be to biochar the trees as soon as they die, which would
be a logistical nightmare.

Negative rant over, it's still not a bad idea for the fact that it'd slow down
the worst effects of climate change for a while, buying time for other
solutions like renewable energy and whatnot, but it's not a pancea.

~~~
drderidder
That's basically, well, not true. When trees break down they contribute to
soil organic matter. Approx 58% of SOM is carbon (SOC) making soil one of the
largest carbon sinks on the planet. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_organic_matter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_organic_matter)

~~~
pjkundert
If soil continues to accumulate in a healthy form, as it did on the Great
Plains over millennia of grazing by bison herds, then yes.

Old growth forests often grow on rocky land, and have little long-term depth
accumulation.

Source: hiking old growth forests over decades, and being a farmer.

~~~
hinkley
Literally survivor bias. The old growth forests that survived loggers were the
ones they couldn’t get to for a profit. Those will be in or near geographic
barriers like swamps or rocky terrain.

~~~
pjkundert
Hmmm?

I've rarely hiked in harvested and replanted forests; these are boring. I did
most of my hiking in central/northern BC and Alberta, Canada. These are some
of the largest tracts of old-growth timber in the world.

The many old-growth forests I've hiked (sample: >1,000km, mostly dominated by
conifers), with last burn times ranging from decades to centuries, have rarely
boasted deep soil levels. This hypothesis is supported by existing research:
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225314103_Soil_Carb...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225314103_Soil_Carbon_Accumulation_in_Old-
Growth_Forests)

Old-growth coniferous forests are great -- but they're not a big "carbon
store".

If you want land-use based carbon storage, I'd recommend investigating where
the continent-wide, massive, deep, healthy carbon-rich store of topsoil and
humous came from -- grazed grasslands and scrub brush.

~~~
hinkley
Oh, North Canada? That's some tricky terrain. Bedrock is very near the
surface, and you're right, it's hard to build up. Short growing season, for
one.

The article you link mentions softwood forests being problematic for carbon
accumulation. Not hardwood forests. Old growth temperate hardwood forests are
quite rare now, and some of the apex tree species in those forests have very
serious pathogens keeping them from re-establishing, more's the pity.

------
belorn
Sweden have had for several decades a law that require reforestation when
landowners harvest timber. Every year a lot of trees get planted, and
depending on how you count you can either see it as a massive amount of carbon
credits from the last 50 years or so, or as being carbon neutral as it is very
likely that the wast majority of the timber end up being burned.

If we look at climate research we also see a similar concern. Reforestation
only work as a carbon sink if it also accompanies agreements to not harvest
the tress and keep the forest as reservations. In simple terms, global
reforestation in order to combat climate change has the same challenge as a
global initiatives to create more forest reservations.

A global reforestation policy without extending the reservations is carbon
neutral. It is much better than deforestation, but it won't fix the problem of
fossil fuels putting out massive amount of carbon into the air.

------
te_chris
I urge people to read The Secret Life of Trees
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28256439-the-hidden-
life...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28256439-the-hidden-life-of-
trees)). This guy says "This is why we only need to irrigate our forests for
about 20 years — once they reach maturity, they will influence their local
biome and bring self-sustaining rains.", but, according to the book, most
trees are still basically adolescent at 100 years. I love the idea and am an
active supporter of rewiliding myself, but you need to understand the
timeframes of what you're working with.

------
jdlyga
You can't outrun a bad diet. Sure we can plant a ton of trees to recapture
carbon, but we also need to cut down emissions.

~~~
llebttam
I agree, but I still think of this as a useful part of a complete solution.
It's something that buys us time to shift away from fossil fuels.

With current tech, we could drastically reduce emissions by moving to a mix of
nuclear (the modern, safe kind) for baseload plus wind and solar for peak, but
it's going to take few decades to build it all out, and during the intervening
period we have a lot of excess CO2 we need to sequester.

------
christiansakai
Are there any YC backed startups that tackle these kinds of problems, i.e,
climate change, plastic pollution, energy, etc?

------
_ph_
At least the article title is quite a bit misleading in my eyes. There is no
single silver bullet solution to "fixing" climate change. However,
reforestation can play a large role in combating climate change. The first and
most important step should be to cut down burning fossil fuels as quickly as
possible. The lowest hanging fruit there is stop using coal. It is the worst
offender and the most easy to get rid of. Just burning gas instead cuts CO2
emissions by more than 30%. Not counting in that number is, that a lot of gas
is burnt on oil producing sites instead of used and that gas plants can have
much higher efficiencies, like using the heat also for heating houses. Gas
plants can reach up to 90% efficiency this way, basically halving the CO2
emissions vs. coal. Also, flexible gas plants play nicer with renewables as
solar and wind. And of course stop using oil e.g. for cars.

Having done that would cut down the CO2 emissions drastically, and then the
reforestation becomes a more realistic target and would indeed a very
practical means to get to net zero emissions. And even if it were only a small
part, setting up desalination to green large parts of the desert would be a
big net win. But before we use solar cells to produce water for growing trees,
we should use the electricity produced to not burn fossil fuels in the first
place.

------
acvny
Although forests have many more other benefits like animal habitat, soil
creation, local climate change, cloud generation, ..., a simpler, quicker and
cheaper solution would be to invent artificial photosynthesizers (using solar
light) or electrosynthesizers (using electricity) - huge installations that
would absorb air like big vacuum cleaners, capture the CO2 and decompose the
molecule into Carbon products. For example by employing such processes as
Reduction of CO2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemical_reduction_of_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemical_reduction_of_carbon_dioxide)

The only thing that's needed is to incentivize such research. Let's say
creating a global fund of 20-30 Billion dollars and encouraging researchers to
apply for grants from this fund.

Next step after basic research is done and something feasible invented would
be to commercialize the solutions. However again here we would need
incentives. It is really hard to implement the idea without commercial
interest.

What would be a good incentive for this? Well, the captured carbon could be
sold... Any other ideas?

~~~
rfdave
Option 1 - Plant trees that have been growing for millennia, with skills that
are wide spread across all of humanity Option 2 - Invent technology that is
currently unknown, scale it to a world wide scale, facing unknown challenges
and problems with technology that is today completely unknown.

Hmmmmm

~~~
yishan
I agree and would say the same thing, but slightly less dismissively. :)

The key here is that we're out of time. This coming decade is probably the
last one we will have where the problem can be solved at a cost less than 10%
of world GDP. If we wait another 10 years, I suspect all solutions will
require a significant fraction of global GDP and authoritarian-style
interventions.

As a technologist, I'd love a magical new technology. But I'm also an
engineer, and I want to execute the most efficient and low-risk solution in
the smallest possible timeframe. After taking all factors into account, that's
massive reforestation.

If new technologies are developed in the meantime, that's GOOD. Every bit of
help that's put into play helps us. It's not a competition, it's a collective
race against time, and we can all contribute.

------
ourcat
We need more photosynthesis (again).

I've often thought that vast swathes of otherwise barren land on this planet
could be used for cultivating hemp and Cannabis, for a vast amount of uses
(not just getting high).

It obviously grows very quickly compared to trees. And like 'a weed'. The 're-
greenification' of land would be rapid.

------
eluusive
People keep talking about how we have no way of removing Co2 from the
atmosphere. There are lots of options, and some of them are quite inexpensive.

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

------
m0zg
And then all those trees dry out because waterbed can't carry this many, and
they catch fire. See California, nearly every year. It's a 100% natural
process for them to dry out and catch fire from time to time. It's just not
very conducive to permanent carbon capture. The proposed solution (irrigation)
is the most pie-in-the-sky part of the plan. It's "solar energy, ???, profit"
basically.

I like the scalability aspects of this. I don't think we have a technical
solution that is as scalable as a biological one. I do think that simply
"planting trees" is not going to do the trick though.

------
jellicle
> A global reforestation project is how we fix climate change

It isn't. Besides being inadequate even on its own terms, creating large and
flammable forests in a time of increasing droughts is just going to lead to
megafires, which will instantly eliminate all gains from years of forestation.

We should still plant trees. There's no real downside to doing so except the
cost. But you absolutely cannot count on flammable forests locking up carbon
forever. Forests burn, they get cut down for firewood, bad things happen to
them.

Tree-planting is, like, 1% of what needs to be done, not 90%. It's a 1%
solution.

------
davedx
Let's get started!

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

[https://projectwren.com/](https://projectwren.com/)

------
mangecoeur
Since deforestation is one of the major contributors to climate change in the
first place, this is kinda like saying 'the solution to climate change is to
stop causing climate change'

------
bashmelek
Trees are the best tool modern technology offers to sequester carbon. As it
stands, the largest "crop" we have in america is grass. Lawns, though better
than nothing, are a poor substitute in terms of taking in carbon. This and all
of our empty parking lots, roads, and other car-enabling infrastructure
contribute to urban sprawl that takes land from forests. It's an uphill
battle, but changing various zoning laws is a good step

------
awb
> Thus, to reforest 3 billion acres at current prices will cost the world an
> investment of $3 trillion/year for 20 years. That sounds like a lot, but the
> world GDP of 2017 was $80 trillion. Therefore, this plan would require an
> investment of a little less than 4% of world GDP every year for 20 years.

$3T each year (4% of world GDP) for 20 years still sounds like a lot.

~~~
llebttam
Yeah, it's definitely a lot.

I think the actual costs will be a lot lower as this will take many years of
experimentation before scaling, and by then the cost of the solar panels
(which I think is the vast majority of the cost) will likely have continued to
ride its exponential downward cost curve. One source:
[https://earthtechling.com/solar-energy-costs-
trends/](https://earthtechling.com/solar-energy-costs-trends/)

------
jasonlaramburu
The author seems to assume that deserts are lifeless places, which is
incorrect. Converting billions of acres of desert to a monocrop forest would
kill the billions of plants and animals which have become adapted to that
environment, which could also negate the emissions reductions. Monocrops are
also ecologically unstable and easily destroyed by disease.

~~~
llebttam
FWIW, I don't think he's creating a monocrop forest -- he's planting a range
of species that form an interdependent web.

This is also being done in locations that were forests a few hundred years ago
before humans cut them down. The mature forest is a self-sustaining ecosystem,
but it needs extra water for a few decades until it reaches that point.
[https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2020/01/12/hawaii-
news/yisha...](https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2020/01/12/hawaii-news/yishan-
wong-has-an-ambitious-idea-for-fighting-climate-change-plant-more-trees/)

------
Myrmornis
I hope that all reforestation programs in the future will use local native
species and will not use fast-growing non-natives such as Eucalyptus. The
"woodland" around, for example Berkeley California, is so depressing to
contemplate due to the dominance of Eucalyptus and the corresponding lack of
fauna.

------
ericmay
How can I today, directly add to creating new trees either through helping to
plant, or by donating money?

~~~
llebttam
A friend of mine who's studied climate change in detail recommended the
following company for voluntary carbon offsets:

[https://carbonfund.org/product-category/plant-
trees/](https://carbonfund.org/product-category/plant-trees/)

------
aplummer
You wouldn’t need desalination for this, for example, the great artesian basin
is barely tapped.

------
rob74
For others who can't quite picture 3 billion acres, that's around 12 million
square kilometers (USA - 9.8 million km², Russia - 17.1 million km²)

------
jcfrei
A very interesting proposal. Given the current ultra low interest rates all
the costs could be directly monetized by the central banks (via "climate
bonds"), rather than making governments pay or introducing helicopter money
when the next recession hits. We just need some key to distribute the
resulting jobs and manufacturing orders between the countries.

------
PaulHoule
In developed countries changing land use policies in the developing world
seems to be an easy way out.

Nobody asks people in the developing world what they think about it. I suspect
many of them would feel the same way about being forced to change their land
use the same way the yellowjackets feel about an increase in the price of
fuel.

------
MiguelVieira
Planting so many trees would destroy so much grassland and shrubland habitat
that it would probably kill off more species than climate change.

------
throwawayhhakdl
> It makes very conservative assumptions

Uh huh. Good to know this guy has it all figured out.

Edit: trying to find the most absurd claim in this. I think it has to be the
desalinization idea. That we can “just” scale up desalinization at existing
marginal costs to 3 TRILLION cubic meters of water. The entire world currently
desalinizes less than a billion each year. So that’s at least a 300x increase
in water production! And how do we provide the energy to do this? The article
hand waves it off as “solar power”. Yeah sure that would be great. Forget the
cost of infrastructure or the transportation or the space for the solar power
or whatever

Trees are great. By all means, plant trees. But don’t go thinking this poorly
reasoned back of the envelope math is going to help.

------
noiv
> There is no one single clever solution to the climate problem.

There is. Just stop emitting greenhouse gases.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait to HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22064741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22064741).

~~~
noiv
I'd like to know in which part of the planet my comment is unsubstantiated.

~~~
dang
It was a shallow one-liner that repeated a platitude in a dismissive way. That
makes it an unsubstantive post and we're trying to avoid those here. Would you
mind reviewing the site guidelines and taking their spirit more to heart when
posting? Your comment broke at least three of them:

" _Please don 't post shallow dismissals [...] A good critical comment teaches
us something._"

" _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize._"

" _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic
gets more divisive._ "

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
revscat
Does that series cover eliminating Rupert Murdoch? I know that this is taboo
to discuss, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that non-technical
solutions to climate change will necessarily include the elimination of those
who metaphorically are holding a gun to humanity's head.

~~~
dang
You can't post like this on HN. Please don't do it again. We detached this
subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22064871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22064871)
and marked it off-topic.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Edit: we've had to ask you about this before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19252288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19252288)

~~~
revscat
I disagree with the position that even the discussion of the necessity for
war, or any active engagements, in the pursuit of solutions to the existential
threats posed by climate change are forever off limits. I understand their
presence, but as the danger continues to increase, and the solutions so
inadequate, directly addressing the root causes — specifically, the apparent
necessity to go to physical war against those who seek to destroy humanity —
should not be so taboo.

But it’s your site. I hope you and your colleagues reconsider this stance,
however, at least in regards to this specific issue, especially given its
unprecedented importance.

------
fallingfrog
No, ending the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is how we fix climate
change. Anything else is just buying time.

~~~
growlist
An honest question: if a technological solution were found that both solved
climate change _and_ allowed us to continue burning fossil fuels, would you
accept it?

~~~
earthtolazlo
Having your cake and eating it too sounds like a great option. It just doesn’t
have any basis in reality.

~~~
vorpalhex
Parent as I read it isn't suggesting that having your cake and eating it too
is possible, instead they're attempting to establish a dual-scale demarcation
of viewpoints with one scale being "Prohibition or allowance of fossil fuels"
and the other scale being "Fixes or does not fix climate change".

This is useful because polling has discovered many US Republicans will
actually vote for climate solutions _if_ they employ new technologies that
would result in new industries.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The people voting against environmental reforms are doing it because they
don't want to reduce their quality of life.

And since nothing comes close to the cost to energy density ratio of fossil
fuels, there is no solution other than reducing energy usage and reducing
quality of life. And so without convincing people they should reduce their
quality of life for the benefit of future generations, nothing is going to
happen.

