Planting trees “doesn't make any sense” in the fight against climate change | Hacker News Reader

Planting trees “doesn't make any sense” in the fight against climate change

dezeen.com

23 pointsholonomically22 comments

From the article: "You plant the forest but you don't start seeing carbon retention and sequestration happening for at least 10 years after they're planted, so there's a long lag time in doing that"

Maybe we should have planted those trees 10 years ago? And 10-20 years from now, will we be wondering why we didn't plant more trees now?

At this point we have to do everything, including preserve all forests and planting a lot of trees. The problem with the promise of sequestration through forests is that many people think that they can use trees to offset continued release of greenhouse gases. “I’ll take that flight to Hawaii but I’ll plant some trees so it evens out.” But we need to stop releasing greenhouse gases now, and those trees might sequester the corresponding amount of carbon in 60 years. And that is only as long as the forest doesn’t burn (as fuel or unintentionally) during those decades.

> I’ll take that flight to Hawaii

So you don’t take the flight. Instead you have great steak restaurant experiences. Uh oh: methane. So instead you buy a eco-friendly home: uh oh - the building costs were high and you have indirectly caused petrochemical usage.

As a well paid developer, it is very very difficult to decide where to spend money so it reduces damage. Carbon footprint is very highly correlated with income!

What’s your point? Of course it’s impossible to reduce our footprints to absolute zero, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t reduce them. And that there are certain situations where it’s it hard to make correct judgements doesn’t mean that most aren’t quite easy. We can’t afford flying over half the world just for pleasure and entertainment. We can’t eat steak or hamburgers every day.

And maybe the easiest way to do as little damage as possible is to not spend so much money, even when you have them.

The article is saying that the obvious idea of planting some trees is not the panacea that one might naively think it is. As a consumer, it is hard to even know where to start on that.

I was responding to your point “But we need to stop releasing greenhouse gases now”. i agree. Any links to well thought out resources that actually properly estimate the greenhouse gas impact of my choices? I would expect international holidays and buying petrol to be obvious poor choices, but I really struggle to guess what are true low impact choices, because there is so much misinformation out there and everything has an impact.

> And maybe the easiest way to do as little damage as possible is to not spend so much money

So you invest it instead, and those investments create CO2.

Perhaps the right way is to actively put money into CO2 reduction investments - but even that is difficult due to greenwashing misdirection. Is an investment in a tree planting a net benefit? The article says don’t be so sure. An investment in Nikola would have surely been a serious mistake for the environment. It is not clear that Tesla is currently a net benefit to the planet.

You are putting in much more effort in finding excuses to not having to do your part than trying to learn what you need to do. Most things aren’t particularly complicated. The possibility of sometimes making mistakes is no excuse for inaction.

Please don’t assume what I do or don’t do - I think that most people would find that rude.

I am asking the questions because it is a minefield of misinformation, and you seem to have some strong opinions about it: maybe I can learn something from you. I see a lot of virtue signalling: doing the recycling, avoiding plastic bags, and perhaps getting an electric car. AFAIK all three of those can easily be worse for the environment, depending on exact behaviour and context. The article is surprising, but it won’t stop me planting trees.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy your day/night, wherever you happen to be.

I don’t assume, I draw conclusions from the way you argue.

We are way past the point where I care if I’m rude or not. The house is on fire, and you stand by the side arguing whether it would be better to get the water from the stream or from the well. And I shout “just get some fucking water” and you answer “mind your language!”. You really haven’t understood the gravity of the situation. One day you are going to look up over the ashes and wonder where our house went.

That is a wrong statement, and it is deadly to have such a thorough misunderstanding of the climate stability issue. This is a result of the fact that climate change as the western world conceived it for its geo-political goals is (purposefully and) embarrassingly lacking scientific rigor of which direction the information flows regarding the biotic regulation of the clima system. In other words the adopted framework of understanding the issue that just about everyone vocal (or given voice) in the media adopts is wrong (just go to scopus and search for role of forests). That leads to these these types of silly statements in marketing articles, often presented as some profound truths. For those not in the field, Im not challenging the estimates on the CO2 sequestration by trees, that can be done in 5 minutes with elementary school math. Rather, its the lack of pointing out that forests drive the hydrological cycle over land, regulate mesoscale (and in some cases continental) climates, and provide biological functions on the scale that no technology can replace (and never will in fact, there are calculation about that too). The exact opposite is the right message here, we have to learn how to manage and create fully functional forests and cover as much land as we can (given other constraints). At the same time, yes, planting trees randomly without thought is not going to do any good either (and may cause harm as mentioned in the article in offhand manner).

We should stop looking at the world as a dumpster (of CO2), thinking that reducing CO2 or regulating its concentration in isolation to the driving forces is somehow panacea for life stability on earth. The biosphere (microbiological of cause) is the climate regulator, and hydrological cycles (and water as an elements) is far more important than secondary role of CO2 as a radiative feedback (first is its role as food for plants, without which there is no life at all). Too low CO2 leads to death of life on this planet. The issue of climate change are not absolute scales, but gradients ... which we hopefully will find a way to understand and help our unique and irreplaceable microbiosphere to manage.

TL;TR: if someone want to plant please get help from local biologist or other professional people. and don't let big companies use planting forest as the only way to compensate their carbon emission, because it work too slowly.

Anything that doesn’t put carbon deep underground is a temporary solution at best. Most of that carbon is destined for the atmosphere.

My hunch is that it won't be trees that will save the planet, but a special co2-hungry strain of fungi.

> "So you plant your saplings and then you have to maintain the forest for 100 years. That's multiple generations of people. How many companies last 100 years these days? How on earth is anyone going to afford to maintain that forest, hiring the team of people you need to do that? It doesn't make any sense."

Forests don’t make any sense, who’s willing to pay for them anyway?

Could this be even more capitalist propaganda?

If cutting down forests results in higher CO2 emissions why shouldn’t planting forests reverse it? It is thought to reverse the effect of deforestation and naturally, it is a slow process.

Let's be fair, it makes a bit more sense that every city and municipality declaring a "climate emergency" like there's anything they can do about it.

The comment section on this article is very interesting. Seems a few people have a problem with the conclusion of the author.

For example, the comment from Paul Gambill, the CEO of Nori who is quoted extensively in the article. He wrote in to clarify that he does not agree with the title and that he does in fact think that afforestation is necessary.

so this article bending the original meaning of that person...

Nobody ever thought that it did or cared if it did. It was a convenient marketing gimmick.

Plenty of people thought it would work. It feels like the right thing to do so people assume that because it feels right then it must be the right answer but the global output of CO2 is 51 gigatons / year and increasing. Any approach that makes a dent in that number is going to require more than just planting trees.

Isn't algae better at that! Why isn't anybody looking that direction?

Yes stopping fishing especially trawling boats would do alot as well, they release alot of CO2 from the seafloor.

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