
Pakistani province plants one billion trees to slow down global warming effects - vitro
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-plant-billion-trees-global-warming-effects-climate-change-imran-khan-khyber-pakhtunkhaw-a7892176.html
======
l5870uoo9y
Meanwhile Pakistan will open five new coal plants next year [1] and more in
the future as part of Chinese energy investments, in which coal is an central
element. This is because the coal industry (and steel industry, which is
dependent on coal) supplies roughly 12 million Chinese jobs [2]. So while
green initiatives with foreign financing are endorsed and promoted by Cricket-
star Imran Khan, it isn't Pakistan's nor China's official policy.

[1]: [https://qz.com/949465/in-china-and-pakistans-coal-romance-
wh...](https://qz.com/949465/in-china-and-pakistans-coal-romance-wheres-the-
love-for-the-climate/)

[2]:
[https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2017-08-04/chi...](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2017-08-04/chinas-
coal-problem)

~~~
nullnilvoid
Haters are going to hate. naysayers are gonna naysay. Such negative sentiment.
How is planting one billion trees not a good thing? In terms of energy
consumption per capita, China is less than one third of the US while Pakistan
is less than one tenth of the US [1]. In terms of CO2 emission per capita,
China is less than half of the US [2]. You would be happy if China and
Pakistan all go dark.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita)

~~~
whipoodle
> How is planting one billion trees not a good thing?

Yes, exactly.

~~~
melling
China is going to build 700 coal plants around the world:

[http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-firms-
to-...](http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-firms-to-
build-700-coal-plants)

Sure, it’s great to celebrate our wins, like planting trees, but unless we
examine the big problem those little wins really aren’t going to matter.

I understand that per capita China and India emit less CO2, but China already
has double the US output.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions)

The world simply can’t handle burning all of that coal. Getting China and
India to use nuclear or natural gas would help a lot.

~~~
nullnilvoid
Not only China and India emit much less CO2 per capita, the US has emitted far
more CO2 than any other country accumulatively. The US has been industrialized
for more than one hundred years and had been the No1 emitter of CO2 for more
than a century until very recently. All these CO2 accumulated in the
atmosphere has not been cleaned up yet. True we should all use cleaner energy
sources. Planting one billion tree is a step towards a greener environment.

------
todd8
I'm a bit confused by this effort. Isn't the idea that it isn't really next
year or the next decade that we are worried about, but instead it is the long
term impact of increasing CO2 on the environment that is the real problem.

CO2 added to the atmosphere from underground sources increases the net CO2
(for centuries); trees just move it temporarily from the atmosphere to the
tree and then from the tree back to the atmosphere once the tree dies (through
the process of decay or burning). Of course, using the timber for construction
or paper or whatever keeps the CO2 from returning to the atmosphere longer,
but eventually it ends up back in the atmosphere. At steady state the trees
are dying and rotting at the same rate the the forest is growing.

Naturally, its a good thing that while the forest is growing it slows the
overall rate of increase in CO2; perhaps having some number of decades of a
tiny bit of our CO2 absorbed is a useful stopgap on the way to a world where
we stop burning hydrocarbons pulled from under the earth. However, this isn't
in any way a solution for the long term.

It seems unlikely that the world will utilize less energy in the future so the
solution would seem to involve right away (1) moving from coal to natural gas
(cuts CO2 generation in half for the same energy output) and as soon as
possible (2) moving from all hydrocarbons to nuclear, solar, and wind.

~~~
xbmcuser
Humans harvest billions of trees a year we need to start replanting them in
similar numbers. Btw this was not just about co2 it is also about replacing
forests that were destroyed by illegal logging destroying rivers and animal
habitats. The rainfall in these areas has come down a lot as well.

~~~
todd8
Absolutely, whether the logging was legal or not, loss of habitat is a very
sad thing. Soon, many iconic animals -- the large mammals of Africa, gorillas,
tigers and so forth -- will live only in zoos or special parks, but it isn't
just those animals we see everyday on television that will no longer survive
in the wild. Entire ecosystems are being lost with everything from the
individual species of nematodes that survive on only one species of beetle
that survives in only one habitat.

------
graphitezepp
Great news, I view mass reforestation as one of the best endeavors an
organization can undertake right now, in terms of providing good for society.

------
runeks
That ought to do it.

Seriously though, anyone care to do the math on the impact of 1bn trees wrt.
CO2 absorption? Would be interesting to know how it compares to how much we
need to remove to get back to historical levels.

~~~
aidenn0
The first estimate google found for carbon fixing is new growth fixes ~0.7
lbs/tree-year and old-growth is ~1.5lbs/tree-year[1].

So 0.7 billion pounds, or ~300k tonnes of C/year

Global carbon emissions are around 10 billion tonnes annually so that's about
.003% of annual emissions.

1: [http://sustainability.tufts.edu/carbon-
sequestration/](http://sustainability.tufts.edu/carbon-sequestration/) (note
that the per-tree is CO2 weight, not C weight)

~~~
hinkley
But small trees tend to die, so a better measure is by area planted. Internet
is telling me trees fix about 7.7g/m²/d of CO2 (not carbon) and Pakistan has
planted about 350k hectares. So that's about 4.6 million tons of CO2 per year
once established.

Edit to add:

There is some hope though, as there are some people trying to work out the
carbon fixation in the soil, indirectly caused by the trees, which might boost
the numbers for healthy forests substantially over tree farms.

~~~
ihsw2
It should be noted that they plan to restore 150 million hectares by 2020 and
350 million hectares by 2030, which is 428x and 1000x respectively.

Furthermore they have one of the highest survival rates of trees in the world,
ranging from 70 to 90 per cent.

Together, these two metrics are very encouraging.

~~~
igravious
Where did you get those numbers from please?

~~~
ihsw2
The article linked above.

------
DaggerDagger
Anybody who is interested in the numbers on this should checkout the work
being done at drawdown.org. Afforestation is ranked #15 out of a list of
solutions to reduce the carbon content of our atmosphere and reduce global
warming. They have models and data if you want.

[http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/land-
use/afforestation](http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/land-use/afforestation)

------
hacker_9
How long does it take a tree to grow into something that substantially effects
carbon counts in the atmosphere? 1 year? 10 years?

~~~
sp332
They take carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, so they are most effective
when they are young. When they die they tend to release most of it, but an
established old-growth forest in China was estimated to sequester 9 tons of
carbon per hectare per year.
[http://www.co2science.org/articles/V14/N15/EDIT.php](http://www.co2science.org/articles/V14/N15/EDIT.php)

~~~
anotherbrownguy
In fact, only growing trees have significant net absorption of CO2. Older
trees, specially the non-fruit bearing kind, have negligible net CO2
absorption. Cutting down old trees may not be good for the ecosystem, but it
is great for CO2 absorption, as long as something else is planted in its
place, preferably a very fast growing tree.

~~~
szemet
_' according to a new study published in Nature, it turns out that the oldest
trees are actually still growing rapidly, and storing increasing amounts of
carbon as they age'_ [http://science.time.com/2014/01/15/study-shows-older-
trees-a...](http://science.time.com/2014/01/15/study-shows-older-trees-absorb-
more-carbon/)

------
DougN7
Do these numbers seem implausible to anyone else? A billion trees in two years
is 1.3 million trees per day. 57,000 trees per hour, non-stop for 24 hours per
day. Seems unlikely.

~~~
vitro
It's doable, 66 million per 12 hours is 5.5 million per hour, more than 1.5
million of volunteers.

Source: [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-05/india-breaks-record-
pl...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-05/india-breaks-record-
planting-66-million-trees-in-12-hours/8677302)

------
sliverstorm
I feel like I should point out that reforestation has a lot of value outside
of carbon sequestration. Even if trees don't fix our carbon emissions by
themselves, they help. Forests also:

\- Increase biodiversity

\- Improve air quality

\- Reverse desertification

\- Provide sustainable wood supply (with good management)

\- Reduces erosion, landslides, and floods

They won't solve global warming, but they help- along with all the other
positives, to boot.

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tlb
A billion trees sounds like a lot.

    
    
      >>> sqrt(1e9)
      31622.776601683792    # trees on a side
      >>> 31623*4/5280      # assume they're planted on 4' centers
      23.956818181818182    # miles square
    

So like a medium US national park. A decent contribution.

------
nickfogle
Meanwhile Russia is resurrecting the Wooly Mammoth to knock down trees in an
effort to slow global warming.

[http://a16z.com/2017/07/17/pleistocenepark-geoengineering-
re...](http://a16z.com/2017/07/17/pleistocenepark-geoengineering-rewilding-
iceagebiome/)

------
igravious
Any picture of some of these billion trees? We get a picture of Imran Khan but
I already know what he looks like :)

~~~
fahizzled
Here ya go: [https://www.voanews.com/a/one-billion-trees-planted-in-
pakis...](https://www.voanews.com/a/one-billion-trees-planted-in-pakistan-nw-
province/3983609.html)

This article has both

~~~
igravious
Thank you random internet benefactor. I didn't notice/follow the link at the
end of the story. Is that really four years of growth? Doesn't look like both
photos are taken from the same place.

(Also – confession time. I thought Punjab was in India, turns out part of it
is in Pakistan. Shows my shocking geographical skillz.)

------
HillaryBriss
i remember when former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa advocated a goal of
planting another 1 million trees. never reached it. too much water was
required.

with global warning and frequent droughts, the thinking is now that LA is a
"post oasis" landscape.

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cgb223
Are there any projects like this going on in the United States?

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
There's a huge re-forestation effort in the US that's been going on for a few
decades now (not directly aimed at "global warming") without any sign of
slowing down. My understanding is there hasn't been a net-negative year in
terms of the forest coverage in the US in about 25 years despite some massive
forest fires etc.

~~~
cgb223
Do you have a source for that?

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2paisay
One billion trees in 4 years is like 28,000 trees per hour. Seems a bit far
fetched.

