PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
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Great little byline there
https://futurism.com/environment-trees-blockchain
https://www.wired.com/story/stop-planting-trees-thomas-crowther/
https://news.yahoo.com/head-climate-conference-happens-oil-164936615.html
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax0848
https://www.science.org/content/article/catchy-findings-have-propelled-young-ecologist-fame-and-enraged-his-critics
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/08/oil-giant-shell-has-a-new-carbon-footprint-plan-millions-of-trees.html
https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-tree-planting-meets-goal
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06723-z
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/30/1084104/the-university-of-california-has-all-but-dropped-carbon-offsets-and-thinks-you-should-too/
https://news.yahoo.com/millennials-avocado-habit-killing-mexico-222957000.html
Link to simplified view article:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/guy-urged-planting-trillion-trees-140040977.html
HandoB4Javert
ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement. Also reduces carbon in the atmosphere.
IDontKnowWhatToDoAnymoreAndImTired
Not by enough, though. Trees are part of a carbon cycle, but it's a short term one. When the trees die, their carbon is released back into the environment. Ironically, sustainable lumber harvesting and use of wood is better for sequestering carbon than just planting trees and leaving them alone. Still, for mass carbon capture, algae is a better idea.
OutboardOverlord
More trees. Got it.
laserfrog
fr that is closer to what the quotes say. More variety and not just trees and not cutting trees elsewhere.
thechelonianshelmet
Basically, keep planting flora suitable for the areas involved, & stop fucking polluting
READTHISUSERNAME
r/nottheonion
Fishwranglergirl
Please please please only plant trees in the correct ecosystems. Grasslands and wetlands are incredibly important habitat types and carbon sinks and we’re losing them.
montyman185
Heck, just stop mowing grassy areas if at all possible. It helps a ton. (and replace your monoculture lawn grass. It's terrible)
laserfrog
Fax. They also need to be encroached on less and re-seeded though too.
Vatas
Indeed if you plant trees on certain biomes, clearing/disrupting the existing vegetation will release more carbon than the trees will ever capture.
thesameasyours
earth day everyday
Ryyyyyyyan
Planting trees alone is like putting some towels down along an overflowing bathtub. You still have to turn off the faucet.
lawrabbit
More native grasslands!
DeadWhiteMale
Trees captured carbon in their wood. When they die, a lot of that captured carbon returns as the wood rots or burns.
cousteau
A lot? I would've assumed it's all of it. When you cut down a forest, you're basically letting out a lot of trapped carbon; and a forest in equilibrium doesn't absorb nor emit carbon.
MireLurkKing
CUT DOWN ALL THE TREES!
memeseeks
thesameasyours
So plant 10 trillion trees?
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
Haha. Plant 10 trillion Norway Maples. I haven't checked but I bet the big companies planted a decent amount of them.
Samerious
What's wrong with Norway Maples ?
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
"The heavy seed crop and high germination rate contributes to its invasiveness in North America, where it forms dense monotypic stands that choke out native vegetation. The tree is also capable of growing in low lighting conditions within a forest canopy, leafs out earlier than most North American maple species, and its growing season tends to run longer as the lighting conditions of the United States lresult in fall dormancy occurring later than it does in the higher latitude of Europe"
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
"It is one of the few introduced species that can successfully invade and colonize a virgin forest. By comparison, in its native range, Norway maple is rarely a dominant species and instead occurs mostly as a scattered understory tree"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acer_platanoides
bottledham
Cut Down a Trillion Trees!
InsouciantSausage
More. MORE. LET THE ROOTS SWALLOW THEIR CORPSES
Bystandr
Or how about: DO plant a diverse (multi species) set of tress, DONT let companies use it as a way around emissions caps, AND do other things to combat global warming? Beyond biodiversity concerns he doesnt say planting them is a bad thing, but it is being twisted here in the title that way.
downrightmike
The whole carbon capture credit scheme is all fake. You shouldn’t be able to give out credits on forests that were never going to be cut down. And technical capture with giant contraptions is worth less that the energy they take to run. All fud
Bystandr
The idea doesnt have to be outright rejected. The principal that a company could do something greater in terms of contribution than its current pollution isnt something Id call impossible. That said, as written , existing and enforced, I completely agree with you - its been rendered less than useless.
HankScorpioCEOofGlobexCorporation
Plant exactly 999,999,999,999 trees
mickjl
Yes, some good comments here. It's not that tree planting is bad, it's that it's one of 20 things we need to do to get back to sustainability we lost in the late 60's. We need to reduce emissions (they still grew this year), remove emissions (yes, carbon catpure is expensive but so was wind and solar 20 years ago), we need to invest in adaptation and resilience (because it's too late, climate is changing) and biodiversity + Natural capital. Everything. Now.
cousteau
Yeah. Step 27: plant back all those trees we cut down that were storing a lot of the carbon that is now in the atmosphere. Honestly I don't see a way around this except for carbon capturing.
montyman185
Also plant native grasses and wildflowers where possible and stop mowing grass. Root systems are also great carbon sinks that we've been killing.
mickjl
Soil and seaweed - such amazing assets for life that we have taken for granted
Giraffehalf
It’s nice that when people die out there will be a lot of trees for the new raccoon civilizations to emerge from.
dundeeisdrunk
Can someone help me with the maths. Musk donating $1M is the same as someone who earns $50pa donating ?
MCNewYorkLives
So, I think we need to set some bases. 1) it says musks earning in 2022 was 13.5 billion. So, $1 million is basically 0.0077% of his earnings. 2) idk was $50pa means, so I'm gonna guess $50,000 a year. This gets you a grand total of $3.85. 3) if you ACTUALLY meant $50, then it would 2/5th of a penny. 4) people often give a harumpf about "complaining" about the amount rich donate since "anything is better than nothing", but the issue is this is only to counter people's PRAISE of donating
dundeeisdrunk
Sorry I didn’t respond sooner but thanks for doing that. Yeah pa = per annum. Nice@to know ol musky can spend a million bucks with same consideration people give buying a coffee!
MCNewYorkLives
As if they were doing it for nice or humanitarian reasons rather than "ehh, I found some crumbled bills in my pocket and this is literally the least I can do while also getting a tax break that may even MAKE me more money"
StarscreamAndHutch
Tldr; its better than doing nothing, yes?
03448203970326357609
It can actually be worse than doing nothing as polluters use use carbon offsets to pollute more.
iRegretThisUsernameAlready
I feel like the issue there is carbon credits, not planting trees.
03448203970326357609
Indeed. But there's also where and what you plant. You can damage ecosystem if you don't plant the right species. Grasslands, wetland and others are more efficient at removing CO2 and transforming them into forest have negative impact, etc.
scrumby
Having more trees is better. Corps using the more trees=good premise as a shell-game to hide their high carbon outputs is bad. What you really want is heavily localized restoration campaigns for ecosystems- more trees in the rain forests of the north west, but grassland in the planes states, and wetlands on the coastal south, for example.
montyman185
Also plant native grasses and wildflowers where possible and stop mowing grass. Root systems are also great carbon sinks that we've been killing.
AlmightyElephant
ADVERTISEMENT.
advertisement.
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
Less imaging uploaded this way. At least I used simplified view.
AlmightyElephant
Oh, yeah it wasn't a complaint. I'm glad you did it that way, and I'm sorry if it came off as snarky. But it was just funny to me. Tickled me pickle for some reason.
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
You're silly.
DrewThe3DPrinterGuy
The road to hell is paved with good intentions and carbon credits.
cousteau
And concrete instead of asphalt.
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
This is what frustrated Hilary Clinton about Bernie Sanders according to her Biopic. He'd approach crowds with broad solutions like 'FREE UNIVERSITY FOR ALL" and everyone would cheer and love him.
She was a lawyer and experienced politician and bureaucrat and would approach rallys with detailed, viable solutions that would actually work and everyone booed and hated her.
Welcome to America.
DrewThe3DPrinterGuy
I mean I'm pretty sure the plan was, tax the rich. Everything that needs to be fixed in America all starts with the same first step. Tax the rich. We need more money for the USPS? Tax the rich. University and medicare for all? Tax. The. Rich.
realrealluckless
Because most humans are goal driven, not detail focused. Starting the conversation with "We're going to WIN THE WAR!!!!" will get people to actually support winning the war a whole lot better than "So, we're going to get everyone to start collecting all their scrap, and then we're going to set up a committee to evaluate existing factory infrastructure and consider where to expand..."
Large groups care about goals and couldn't give a shit about fine details.
nobodyspecial995
Read the whole thing, he's not saying that planting trees is a bad thing, He's saying that if we use tree planting as an excuse to keep polluting, we're missing the point. He further says that we need to make sure the trees are planted in a way that doesn't stifle biodiversity. Planting trees is still a good idea, always will be, just needs to be done right.
cousteau
Makes sense, specially considering that trees aren't carbon sinks; they're carbon cesspools. They just store a certain amount of carbon, then when they burn/rot they release it back. Then again, having chopped down the entire Amazon wasn't a good idea...
Rhythmaster
The problem with all of this is that profit oriented resource extraction interests are the ones doing it. Shell oil company planting trees? Elon the oligarch encouraging it. These people are the villains, of COURSE they arent gonna help the world. Logging companies are also super excited to plant shitloads of trees and then cut them down and plant more and cut them down, this doesn't capture very much carbon when it's made into paper products that decompose and release carbon.
mbq7
Or rather that the problem with tree number is caused by cutting them down rather than not planting them fast enough. Also tree is not doing CO2 sequester; it will absorb some, most during its youth, but in 100 years it will most likely rot or burn down, re-releasing CO2. Only oceans and wetlands/peatlands can store carbon for long.
JustUsLeagueUnlimited
I would like to recommend King of the Hill episode 'Earthy Girls are Easy' (S13E02). In which, Buck Strickland offsets carbon emissions by buying trees that were already planted in order to justify his own pollution. Spells out the dangers of this oversimplified ecological answer to complex problem over 15 years ago.
AgnosticPaladin
Yeah. The title is click-batey and almost supports oil-and-coal "we tried nothing and we're out of ideas" propaganda.
wargames
we aren't going to stop polluting, so we should plant more then one type of tree when we do mass planting events.
MCNewYorkLives
The problem is that it results in, what I call, "the paradox of sleeping in". I had a buddy who always came into work tired bc he stayed up late and would always say "man, if only I could come in an hour later so I could get a bit more sleep". What happened on days he was told to come in an hour later? He stayed up an extra hour+ and came in even MORE exhausted. So, I figure it would go like this: "we were able to pollute x amount, so if we plant twice as many trees, we can pollute 3x as much!"
NecroNikolai13
Boy, do I feel called out from the first part >_>
dundeeisdrunk
Planting non native monoculture forests isn’t going to replace the Amazon rainforest! But by god our PR guys sure can spin it that way - Some CEO twat probably
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
Remember the bit from the Carbon Credits episode of Last Week Tonigjt with John Oliver where this posh hunting ranch sold credit to save trees that they never planned to cut down?
VeyaVictaous
Yeah pine trees that grow quickly harvested and can be turned into profitable business stream
angryregistrar
A lot of the replantings tend to be fast growing pines. You know the kind good for sawmills..
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
Of course they are. I haven't crosschecked it but it's a flowchart sometimes
RacecarIsRacecarBackwards
Yeah, if you're planting millions of of eucalyptus trees in Pakistan (as they did), you're doing fuck all for the environment.
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
"Read the whole thing" lol. It's a very short article but you certainly do know your audience. Merci.
2ti6x
i mean, just compare the title of the thing to the content.
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
No, you. What did you expect him to regret? I went in blind.
nobodyspecial995
it's an image sharing website, lol. I'm surprised many people even read my long comment.
TheEvilPlatypus
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
You're absolutely correct. It is an imaging sharing app. I feel discomfiture.
Ekibwurm
ConfederacyOfDunces
TL;DR lol
Hurro
Plant trees more gooder.
METROlD
Yeah Ive hear this argument before. If youre going to plant like this you need to take the extra time and make sure you have like, 100 different types of seeds all well researched and hand picked for the local region. You cant just dump a million loads of red maple seeds from a plane and expect that to bode well for the local fauna. Or just like, fuck it. Palm trees. Nothing but palm trees. Planet wide. Planet Palm Tree.
laserfrog
you mean kudzoo
Vatas
I've read that some people at India and Pakistan have tried channelling their nationalistic rivalry into "who can plant more trees" -competition. To my understanding there's desert(s) between the two countries, hopefully that energy is spent on preventing/reversing the desertification. Unfortunately if you only count the trees planted and not the results, this may not be that effective.
scrumby
There's also a competition in India between villages over who can save the most water. You sign up and experts come in to help you map your watershed and figure out how best to restore natural aquifers, typically by restoring both forests and grasslands. That's probably a better method; skip over corporate bullshit and go straight to actual communities who would have a personal invested in long-term benefits of such projects.
montyman185
We also need to bring back native grasslands and stop mowing grass, because root systems are amazing carbon sinks that we've been ruining
PostTraumaticSouthDisorder
I knew root systems were important but I didn't think it had anything to do with carbon emissions.
montyman185
https://youtu.be/2TkI0LJkVAA?si=ZAX25cBjttYfrjz-
Found the fun video of a botanist ranting and rambling about prairie grasses
montyman185
I forget the numbers, but the volume of roots make them a stupid high carbon storage, and the amount of them has been dropping steadily with our methods of planting things. We don't give them time to grow, mow grasses down while they'd be growing roots, and turn up the soil, killing what's there, which ends up removing a lot of carbon storage.
Sony quote me on this part, but I think root systems have more biomass than trees?
montyman185
Sony? What? That was supposed to be don't
montyman185
Like, total, globally. Or we've lost more root biomass than trees? Something like that. It's a stupid massive amount to just not be talked about.