As a climatologist shit like this is so fucking amazing dude.
Like... we know humans can have immense impacts on environments we interact with, but physically changing an area like this in a sustainable way (the trees continue to survive and spread instead of dying after one generation) is incredible.
Not really sure if this is common knowledge or not so I’ll say it anyway: Most areas that have been clear cut in the Amazon will simply no longer be able to sustain rainforest. The trees create a self sustaining cycle of heavy rainfall, and once they are cut down this cycle ends, turning what used to be forest basically into savanna even if humans left it alone. I wrote about China’s “Green Wall” initiative about 15 years ago when it was undergoing its first successful trials, and now to see it going full scale successfully makes me happy in ways I can’t really describe to you guys. This means that there are hopes of one day replenishing and rehabilitate our rainforests and other biomes that have been essentially destroyed by human habitation.
It also speaks to the ability to utilize more natural methods to keep crops watered and cut down on droughts in the most vulnerable areas (more greenery=more rain and more rain=more greenery)
The Civilian Conservation Corps planted millions of trees as windbreaks in the US Great Plains during the Depression/Dust Bowl. National-scale effort to change and reverse climate change used to be possible in the US. A lot of those trees are still around.
Ive been educating myself on this and posting as well for a few months. Its really inspiring. Simply planting trees, on a massive scale, literally solves all of our problems. Carbon in the atmosphere, draughts, floods, wildfires, rain shortages. Or course, its more complicated than just planting trees, but that's the objective. Use all the techniques new can to reforest our degraded land and rain can come back. We can actually create "climate change" in our favor. And the carbon sink business of engineering a fake tree that eats carbon is so fucking stupid. It doesn't have to be a business.
Anyways, I came across an article about reforesting on Cambodia, and they brought regular rainfall back, having started in 2014. So its possible and doesn't have to take forever either.
Well yes but also no, the main thing I’d like to highlight is that forests are not all that effective at sequestering CO2 from our atmosphere. A mature forest is pretty much carbon neutral.
We need large scale removal and sequestration of carbon to combat climate change on a meaningful scale
Where your source on a mature forest being carbon neutral? The mass of the trees is literally carbon thats come from the atmosphere, and they grow in mass more as theyre bigger. And when branches and leaves fall to the ground, the carbon is buried. Thats pretty much the goal.
And by the way, when its buried, it turns to healthy topsoil more vegetation can grow from. Its a positive feedback loop moving carbon from the air to the ground and cycling water around locally instead of going away.
The key word I used was “mature” forests but to be fair I am mostly speaking in terms of the forests local to my area which are carbon neutral.
An important thing to keep in mind that not many consider is that decay releases carbon back into the carbon cycle. For this soil you speak of the become productive, it has to first break down the plant matter which both makes those nutrients available for use again while also releasing carbon back into the atmosphere. A tree can’t simply grow on a pile of sticks, after all. Forests are not constantly building up on top of themselves. Some certainly can given the right conditions, but far from all do.
You’re not sequestering carbon long term and removing it from the carbon cycle by adding it to plants. More plants are definitely a good thing because they are locking up carbon that would otherwise be in the atmosphere, but only temporarily.
Luckily newer innovative forest management techniques are working on ways to turn this into a more long term solution, though that’s beyond the scope of my work. Definitely worth looking into if you’re interested though
Interesting. So the mass of the trees themselves represents the cabon they store. Once theyre mature they dont continue sequestering much. Although, surely some stays in the ground. Thats how we end up with coal and oil.
I must be thinking about the nitrogen cycle, because when it comes to recovering degraded environments, the topsoil needs that compost. With that, and more trees. The groundwater and rainfall come back.
Simply planting trees, on a massive scale, literally solves all of our problems.
lol no
Indigenous people have also managed North American grasslands and forests for tens of thousands of years. Shockingly, when the land has stewards who rely on its wellbeing, it is taken care of exquisitely
But the eco-doomers here keep telling me that we'll all literally boil to death in 20 years, so what's the point?
Wait so the Amazon will never be able to be a rainforest again or not? Tell us more.
If we get maybe a decade or two more of clear cutting, no. It will likely reach a tipping point where the transpiration (read: plants sweating into the atmosphere, increasing humidity) will be low enough that the cycle starts to leave its positive feedback loop and will no longer be able to recolonize parts of the forest that were clear cut.
This is already the case for places detached from the main mass of forest
So it seems the CHINA IS GENOCIDING THE DESERTS meme gained sentience and even created a twitter account.
Noooo, don't organize people, think of the heckin individual freedomerinos
wasnt that desert caused by human actions in the first place?
edit: due to overgrazing iirc
Probably, but it wasn't an intentional transformative process to turn it into a desert, which makes it natural, I guess.
The CCP is RUINING the lifeless hellscape of the Gobi Desert
PRESERVE the lifeless blistering hot desert
Same with swamps.
Just because it’s not welcoming for humans doesn’t mean it’s not a vital part of the ecosystem.
Swamps are entirely different from deserts. Swamps aren't welcoming to humans, deserts aren't welcoming to life in general. In addition a huge portion of today's deserts did not exist in recent prehistory. They also act as the opposite of a carbon sink. There is really no good reason to preserve a desert, other than "I want the fennec foxes and sidewinders to live"
If this was an example of restoring an ecosystem to the way it was before humans affected it I think that is quite an incredible feat. Altering what few natural ecosystems are left on Earth seems like a bad idea to me though.
Thanks for the informative reply.
Is there any benefit to having some desert areas or would the world (minus fennec foxes) be better off if all of the desert became a different biome?
It's impossible to say because nature is an infinitely dimensional system, but going by what scientists know:
pros: greenification has massive benefits for biodiversity, biomass, and carbon reduction via tree cover
cons: fennec foxes may go extinct
obviously it will probably have some unpredictable effects on the environment, but that goes for everything. The point is that the benefits are absolutely massive, and also the system is self-regulating (it's very hard to green the desert, it's not like introducing an invasive species)
I can't tell if you're doing a bit or not but no
Both biodiversity and biomass are severely reduced in deserts. Yeah there are some cute fennec foxes and stuff that are well-adapted to a desert. Other than that their effect is entirely negative. Even their very existence threatens fertile lands into becoming desert as well.
Thats a colonial mindset though. Why must people change the environment to fit a specific way of life instead of adapting to their environment themselves and preserving the worlds precious ecosystems.
Why must people change the environment to fit a specific way of life
because creating more forested carbon sinks helps offset the much more massive anthropogenic climate change?
Should we leave all the plastic in the ocean because some crabs and birds have adapted to it by using it to build nests?
It's not as good as attacking and dethroning god, but it's a start.
Fighting back against nature is an affront to GOD!!!
Yes
"You bastard! Humans are supposed to destroy the planet, not replenish it! Aaaaghughgh!"
Turning a desert into an oasis: NO you can't do that! You're playing God! Protesting fracking woodlands into a hellscape: NO you can't do that! It's standing in the way of the free market!
