“We’re past the tipping point for the glaciers in the Canadian Rockies (…) Even if somehow, magically, we’re able to stop global warming tomorrow and return the atmosphere to more normal CO2 concentrations, we would lose most of the Rockies’ glaciers.”
…
“We might have a 20-year window of this much water and then it will start to fall off a cliff,” he says. “How much water is flowing through the river as a function of that time of year is going to start changing remarkably.”
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“It’s sort of become a catchment for contaminants,” says Criscitiello. Legacy contaminants like DDT are starting to melt out of the snowpack, she says. “This has become a concern.”
:doomjak:
Watched a vid recently on how tree planting is another victim of the system and essentially will not work and make it worse.
Planting a trillion trees will be done by the winning bidders, who will plant the cheapest trees they can in the cheapest places they can. This will lead to monocultures, invasive species, and destruction of grass and wetlands. Not every place ought to be a forrest. And grasslands have more species varriety and an overall larger carbon sink than trees. Especially when a lot of the tree planting projects will be harvested in 20-40 years, and ultimatly made into shit that will be landfill.
The best solution is the leave the land alone. Let nature take it over and never touch it in the future.
Even things like "green" skyscrapers that have trees and other greenery on it, are not as green as we'd like to claim. More concrete and rebarb to handle the added weight, and more maintenance challenge any benefits. Is it better than nothing? Sorta. But better insulation, better glass, and better ventilation would all be a more worthwhile investment.
We need to radically change our ways of life and expansion. Planting trees doesn't stop 100 companies responsible for >70% of emissions. Planting trees doesn't stop landfills. But they want you to think it will.
Very true, that’s why I used the term “Solarpunk” which calls for radical re-greening of spaces. Planrs, trees, flowers, bugs, soil, all that good real ecological restoration stuff. I used Solarpunk as a sort of short-hand rhetorical device as it’s rooted in utopian leftist reorganization. I do however think you’re totally right that without real-ass dismantling the existing system no real change can come about, and no about of “greenwashing” will even begin to remotely address the issues we face.
The other dirty secret of those tree-planting initiatives is that they just have to plant the tree for the credit, it doesn't actually have to mature; tons of those carbon offset trees just get dug up almost immediately after planting (and long before they can sequester anything).
It'd be more benificial to turn these areas into protected parks and not touch them at all. Obviously there are easy things to do muni wise, ban lawns to some extent lol (push for local flowers and plants, clover ect), add more green space, promote tree planting and dissway tree cutting for the most part.
But yeah capitalism can't fix capitalism.