
U.N. Scientists Think They Can Halt Global Warming for $300B. Here's How - motiw
https://time.com/5709100/halt-climate-change-300-billion/
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mtbch
We're willing to try anything. Anything but actually reduce CO2 emissions.

Because growth is untouchable.

And we can't decouple GDP and energy growth.

Our great filter if we're unlucky with climate sensitivity and feedback loops.

The sad thing is, we're not even trying.

~~~
jdmichal
> _And we can 't decouple GDP and energy growth._

US total energy consumption has been basically plateaued since around 2000
[0]. Meanwhile, GDP is up about 100% in the same time.

HBR had a recent podcast covering the idea of dematerialization that is worth
a listen [1]. (They also do transcripts of all podcasts, so you can read
instead of listen.)

[0] [https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-
facts/](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/)

[1] [https://hbr.org/ideacast/2019/09/dematerialization-and-
what-...](https://hbr.org/ideacast/2019/09/dematerialization-and-what-it-
means-for-the-economy-and-climate-change)

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IXxXI
UN plan to address climate change: $299.9 billion goes to china to fuel their
global expansion, with the USA footing 85% of the bill. $50 million to buy
seeds. $50 million to plant them.

Climate change would cost less than $100 million to fix if scientists were
serious about it. Everything else is special interests.

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corodra
A. Seems like this is just a really weak discussion rip from the
[http://terraton.org/](http://terraton.org/) competition that put up money for
practical ideas for accomplishing what they're talking about. This article is
just hand-waving BS that doesn't even discuss practical approaches being
studied today that benefits both farm and environment.

B. India and Ethiopia already did the "plant a record breaking hundreds of
millions of trees...yada yada". Here's the problem with that. Said trees are
planted as really small saplings. Because that's cheap. If Kenya does this,
they need to keep up with watering and barricading against critters that
actively feast on saplings. A small percentage (independent estimates are
single digits) of the trees through the PR stunts actually survived after a
year. Since a lot are planted in drier, non-agriculturally viable areas not
conducive to thriving plant/tree growth on their own. That's assuming the
numbers were legit to begin with as there's a lot of controversy to that as
well.

B2. Did some math. "Kenya, for example plans to plant 2 billion trees on
500,000 hectares(1,235,526 acres)". That's about 1,600 trees per acre. An
overcrowded forest, with short trees, high fire risk and high beetle/pest
infestation spread is 500 trees per acre. Forests are thinned down from that
number to mitigate pest and fire by forestry programs. Plus, less than 250
trees per acre produce far taller trees (more carbon sucking) due to less
resource competition.

C. They really provide nothing but finger pointing and "shame on you" in this
article.

D. New research is already showing that trees don't capture anywhere near as
much of the world's carbon as we thought. Last I saw was about 25%. I think
pound for pound algae does a far better job than planting trees. Along with
time scale. It takes your average oak/pine/maple about 10 years to actually
start pulling the 40 pound a year carbon amount which is the rough rule of
thumb needed.

D2. Oh and I just started learning about this the past few weeks. The CO2 we
generate from fossil are not the same we breathe out. Trees don't absorb
fossil fuel CO2 as well as what we breathe out. Evolutionary speaking, that
makes sense to me since that's what a majority of plants are originally use
to, animals breathing out.

E. All that being said, I've already read a few of the scientists they talk
about in the article in the past. They're smart cats and this article
bastardizes the absolute fuck out of their research. Skipping a lot of the
interesting work they actually do. But hey, it's Time magazine. Can't expect
much from them.

Reversing our shitting on the planet is important to me. Giving attention to
stupid ideas that won't work or pointless discussion points doesn't help. This
useless finger pointing politics and idealism in fighting climate change needs
to end and more attention needs to be given to practical solution finding
instead.

~~~
Pryde
Can you provide a source for point D2? Admittedly, I don’t understand
chemistry at all, but that seems strange to me, and I’d like to read more

~~~
corodra
If I can find the paper I'll link it later. I stumbled across it by accident
while researching something else. But I read about it a week or so before this
video came out briefly mentioning it:
[https://youtu.be/myxVsYI4WZk?t=531](https://youtu.be/myxVsYI4WZk?t=531)

This is not the article I read, but doing a quick "carbon 13 plant absorbing"
search pulled this up as a top place:
[http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/plantphysiol/36/2/133.fu...](http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/plantphysiol/36/2/133.full.pdf)
Under controlled conditions, plants favor c12 to c13. But it's an old
study(61) and there's been more recent work. Plus on different photosynthesis
types. This paper doesn't seem to go through the different types. But yea,
should give you a start.

I swear I'm looking for a paper done by Michigan State. But I can't find it.
I'll update if I find it.

~~~
Pryde
Hey, I appreciate it, just having a few search terms can go a long way. Like I
said, my knowledge in chemistry is practically non-existent, and I basically
forgot isotopes exist, so this'll get me going. Thanks!

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bwb
wow, the estimate seems pretty cheap!

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brylie
Is there a TLDR or article on a different website not requiring readers
consent to tracking?

~~~
jdmichal
I'll just post a summary here: Increase carbon capture in soil by restoring
lands subjected to desertification due to human (mis)use.

What I didn't get a clear picture of from this article is how... The only
clear technical point mentioned was misuse of fertilizer. Ohterwise it's just
a general and hand-wavy "poor land management". Hopefully the actual report is
much more concrete in approach.

~~~
Rannath
Plant native flora, as well as trees and other deep root flora to keep salt
levels down and retain water. Targeted fertilizer and pesticide use (reduce
wastage).

We can also quadruple cattle, and rotate grazing land, to simulate the vast
herds we wiped out.

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biolurker1
sad to see this with 10 upvotes and posts about "how I managed to control vim
with one hand" get 1000s

~~~
daemoncoder
HN user demographics...

