Just plant some fucking trees. A big tree-planting program would cost maybe ~$300 billion per year for the entire planet and would offset more than just our yearly CO2 increases. We would still be adding CO2 to the atmosphere, but the rate of addition could slowly start decreasing.
Uhhh, no, it's not that simple lol. You're neglecting the fact that trees dont help with methane gas , in fact they produce it when they burnt, and lots of it. Methane is serious problem that wasn't fully understood till somewhat recently and wasn't accounted for accurately in old climate models. Methane is worse than CO2 and there is millions of tons in pockets of permafrost melting like crazy right now. Trees are great but it's not enough at all
It's a bit more complex. Rewilding does indeed act as a substantial net greenhouse decrease in the medium term. But the methane increases emissions impact in the short term, even though it degrades fairly fast.
Basically, we need to rewild, but also get to zero emissions and scrub current emissions out at the same time. And yes, we're probably going to need to do some geoengineering, probably solar shades to increase albedo and replace lost ice reflection.
The issue is that things are now so bad we're going to have to do pretty much everything just to stop human extinction, or at least severe degradation into one or two high tech enclaves (no AnPrims, the climate will be too unstable to support Hunter-gathering.)
Really well said. The other tragic part about reforesting areas is how extreme fired all around the world are getting. It's just an overall dryer and warmer climate and drought is common now in areas that didn't really have thst issue.
I really truly wish we could get our shit together but as it stands, especially considering this original posts suggestion of geo-engineering, they are doing everything possible but the one thing we truly need to do, dramatically lower emissions. I feel like I'm going insane sometimes seeing the hoops they suggest instead of it.
Have you looked into some of the tree planting programs across India and Africa? It's a very mixed result for your claim of offsetting current and future CO2 emissions. Growing a bunch of trees in areas that need it the most is extremely difficult and water is much harder to come by as well as sustainability issues, especially keeping them alive. It's much harder than it appears on surface level, especially the water part
The problem is that as I understand it the atmosphere has multiple zones or layers. The CO2 gets up into the higher layers where it will not easily be cycled down to where trees can reach it for hundreds of years. And as someone else noted more wildfires plus the release of deep ocean methane sheets which are going to front-load a lot of the heating for climate change but be gone significantly ahead of the time the carbon starts to cycle out. Replanting trees while good is nowhere near enough. We must get carbon emissions massive down and not in 15 years but in less than 10. All planting trees can do is slightly delay the entry of more carbon into the atmosphere to buy a little more time but you'd have to plant a lot for little effect and the developed countries that are reckless enough to continue spewing CO2 at high rates with no plan for reductions are not going to be the ones spending hundreds of millions planting trees.
Above ground biosphere currently contains about 500 gigatons of carbon, while fossil fuel emissions are about 10 gigatons per year. So doubling the number of trees on earth would buy us less than 50 years of burning oil at the current rate. (This is a gross simplification as the above ground biosphere is in equilibrium with the atmosphere and the soil, but it still gives an idea of the magnitudes involved). I would not call the herculean effort needed to plant that many trees easy or cheap. Maybe we should just reduce emissions instead?
Modifying the atmosphere is GOOD & EASY & CHEAP.
Just plant some fucking trees. A big tree-planting program would cost maybe ~$300 billion per year for the entire planet and would offset more than just our yearly CO2 increases. We would still be adding CO2 to the atmosphere, but the rate of addition could slowly start decreasing.
Uhhh, no, it's not that simple lol. You're neglecting the fact that trees dont help with methane gas , in fact they produce it when they burnt, and lots of it. Methane is serious problem that wasn't fully understood till somewhat recently and wasn't accounted for accurately in old climate models. Methane is worse than CO2 and there is millions of tons in pockets of permafrost melting like crazy right now. Trees are great but it's not enough at all
It's a bit more complex. Rewilding does indeed act as a substantial net greenhouse decrease in the medium term. But the methane increases emissions impact in the short term, even though it degrades fairly fast.
Basically, we need to rewild, but also get to zero emissions and scrub current emissions out at the same time. And yes, we're probably going to need to do some geoengineering, probably solar shades to increase albedo and replace lost ice reflection.
The issue is that things are now so bad we're going to have to do pretty much everything just to stop human extinction, or at least severe degradation into one or two high tech enclaves (no AnPrims, the climate will be too unstable to support Hunter-gathering.)
Really well said. The other tragic part about reforesting areas is how extreme fired all around the world are getting. It's just an overall dryer and warmer climate and drought is common now in areas that didn't really have thst issue.
I really truly wish we could get our shit together but as it stands, especially considering this original posts suggestion of geo-engineering, they are doing everything possible but the one thing we truly need to do, dramatically lower emissions. I feel like I'm going insane sometimes seeing the hoops they suggest instead of it.
I already said that this would just decrease our CO2 addition, not reverse it. But this is a form of simple & cheap atmosphere modification.
Have you looked into some of the tree planting programs across India and Africa? It's a very mixed result for your claim of offsetting current and future CO2 emissions. Growing a bunch of trees in areas that need it the most is extremely difficult and water is much harder to come by as well as sustainability issues, especially keeping them alive. It's much harder than it appears on surface level, especially the water part
The problem is that as I understand it the atmosphere has multiple zones or layers. The CO2 gets up into the higher layers where it will not easily be cycled down to where trees can reach it for hundreds of years. And as someone else noted more wildfires plus the release of deep ocean methane sheets which are going to front-load a lot of the heating for climate change but be gone significantly ahead of the time the carbon starts to cycle out. Replanting trees while good is nowhere near enough. We must get carbon emissions massive down and not in 15 years but in less than 10. All planting trees can do is slightly delay the entry of more carbon into the atmosphere to buy a little more time but you'd have to plant a lot for little effect and the developed countries that are reckless enough to continue spewing CO2 at high rates with no plan for reductions are not going to be the ones spending hundreds of millions planting trees.
Above ground biosphere currently contains about 500 gigatons of carbon, while fossil fuel emissions are about 10 gigatons per year. So doubling the number of trees on earth would buy us less than 50 years of burning oil at the current rate. (This is a gross simplification as the above ground biosphere is in equilibrium with the atmosphere and the soil, but it still gives an idea of the magnitudes involved). I would not call the herculean effort needed to plant that many trees easy or cheap. Maybe we should just reduce emissions instead?