Las Vegas is embracing a simple climate solution: More trees
npr.org
npr.org
Don't get me wrong: planting trees is a good thing. But the word "solution" implies a reduced rate of increase of CO2 over time, which this will not do. We have to use far less energy and far less fossil fuels to actually do that, and shift away from consumeristic innovation, which no one will do. Instead, they'll just plant trees to keep them cooler.
You seem to dislike the article's framing, which is fine, but then you start on a crusade.
It's ok to plant trees so that hot people will feel slightly less hot. It doesn't need to fix every problem, just the small problem that there's too little shade in their tourist district.
The unstated premise of your post is that you know better than the Las Vegas city planners and that your ideas are purer than theirs. It's just so annoying to see this smugness from online commenters. "Their solution isn't Pure enough [therefore I'm smarter/purer than them]."
Maybe the Las Vegas city planners have good reasons for doing what they did. I mean that's possible right? Could it even be possible that there's more to this story than you understand?
That said, we need to start qualifying the phrases we use to describe climate change issues. This one (if it works) is a "climate change adaptation solution".
Wrong. The unstated premise of my post is that I'm sick of articles pointing out "solutions" to the climate change problem which contributes to people believing that recycling and planting trees in their yard of their big house will help. This has to do with the person who wrote the title, not the city planners. The city planners didn't claim it was a solution. I'm not commenting on the city planners at all –– and I understand the situation perfectly.
E.g., BP used to advertise in my country with ways you could reduce your carbon footprint.
You know, have shorter showers, recycle, etc.
BP is a company profiting massively from fossil fuels,and for funsies, on whose behalf the British government asked the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran, and install the exiled Shah, who was much more business friendly.
So they pay clever people to try to refrain climate change as "if only you did some things, it'd go away, it's your fault, all of you."
Pay no attention to the corporation behind the curtain.
If people walked more because the route was actually pleasant and cooler with shade, that's less automobile miles, perhaps lower AC costs, and likely less healthcare costs in the long term. So even a relatively small number of trees in the context of "climate change" could have an oversized indirect impact.
They are both free when you are the one who prints the money. Governments can definitely afford to plant trees, even though I agree that it won't solve the problem.
Of course it is. My point is someone doesn't need to donate labour or capital to make this happen. Governments, not people, should be the ones who are doing it.
Printing money for projects that benefit the greater good does not create any inflation and costs barely anything to anyone.
Print 100 for no reason and give it to the economy and for sure you create inflation. Print 100 and plant a tree, you just have a tree and a worker who get paid for doing real work.
But everyone gets a tree.
Printing money shouldn’t be seen as a crime in the context of climate change. But it must only be directed towards everyone benefit like public infrastructure projects that will stay public forever.
Bonus : great infrastructure reduces a lot of other costs and boosts the economy.
Not all monetary inflation is the same, and the destination of the money and the work produced with it can actually have quite an impact on the true wider economic effects of that increased money supply.
To be very clear, I'm not saying monetary policy is magical, or that it doesn't cause inflation.
It has very little to do with "things you like" and a lot more to do with "utility to society accomplished with the policy" along with the velocity of that money afterwards in local economies (IE. a worker is more likely to buy, well, food and rent, education. A PPP loaned exec will buy assets, or another yacht)
Believe it or not, one of those can generate more widespread economic growth than the other, for the same amount of money printed
They're identical from the perspective of creating inflation, even though they might have different outcomes.
That will only hold true if you look at only the singular issue: Printing money while not changing economic output increases it's availability and thus decreases it's purchasing power, which we call inflation. However: if the money goes towards things like clean air and other infrastructure, there are suddenly less things you need to pay for (clean air, water, cooling in summer, cost of transportation become cheaper), which effectively leaves more money for you to spend on wants, offsetting the effect of inflation partially/fully. Another effect is that correct public can increase overall value generated (think: "nice, with cheaper transportation my home sales business is now viable and contributes to the value/tax pool"), so the "new" money can become backed by real value, again offsetting the loss of spending power for the average Joe.
Because as long as the folks who buy your Countries bonds believe you are spending the money in a way that will eventually return on the investment, your bonds are still valuable and you con continue spending on projects.
As a city that has a huge amount of tourism they have ways to do more.
I do not understand why the parent commentator should have to donate his time or capital to point out that this measure is inadequate.
[1] https://files.lasvegasnevada.gov/finance/2026_Fiscal_Year/CL...
I've been to Las Vegas a handful of times, and it's really striking how much poverty exists there.
To be clear, I'm European and even Los Angeles or San Francisco are dystopian from my perspective; but Las Vegas is much better at keeping it out of tourist areas and it goes unreported because of it. I don't know a single person in Las Vegas who is living the middle-class lifestyle comparable to my friends in New Jersey, Philly, LA or Seattle.
Statistics be damned, because likely there's massive inequality that's pushing those numbers up.
US military spending for 2024 was approximately $850 billion. Let's say we put all of that money into one of those $1-per-tree charities. That is 850 billion trees taking up around 7.98 million km^2 at typical planting densities. This is about 2/3 of total US land area. Maybe we can get some more value for money at scale and plant 1.275 trillion trees covering the entire US land area instead.
Once all those trees are grown, they would absorb anywhere from 10kg-25kg of CO2 per year. That's about 12 to 31 gigatons per year for all of the US land area.
The world currently generates ~41 gigatons of CO2 per year.
The just-plant-trees "solution" doesn't really work.
So yes, you are probably right. 60K in 25 years is a PR note.
[1] https://www.iberdrola.com/press-room/news/detail/iberdrola-h...
[2] https://www.lavanguardia.com/participacion/las-fotos-de-los-... (Spanish)
Not knowing much about Nevada or Las Vegas politics, I'm sure the political environment in Spain, and specially in Barcelona, is very different. 60k trees in however many years (we don't know if they were mosty planted in the last 5) might be all that they could get, and this PR note is their attempt at bringing more attention and try to muster support for more.
That private company that planted 1 million trees is a massive corporation with tens of thousands of employees in Spain. I'd bet their budget, even for marketing stunts, is bigger than Clark County's.
Also, marketing stunts are not /just/ marketing stunts. Companies, specially huge ones, contain multitudes. I'm sure many of the folks pushing for this actually cared about planting trees.
Is...this true? I thought most logging was in forests that were being cultivated for logging. Can you substantiate this?
I wonder if you have a source for this assumption?
That isn't all that matters though. We replant monocultures and harvest them. This isn't a good ecosystem. It's also a net negative on the environmental emissions(carbon sequestered).
The age of the forest, variety, etc all matter a lot.
I spend a lot of time in forests. The difference between a harvested in the last century and an old growth forest is very obvious. They are drastically different.
We don't have a lot of old growth forest anymore.
Yeah, they burn fast, and... sniff... not only CO2 is released in the process.
Almost all issues discussed around here are complex and multifaceted but way too many comments display obstinate tunnel vision... You may want to think about that when you stop crying.
* yes 6 zeros+, forget the exact reference, but one of the best hominim sites in africa, perhaps oldavi gorge?
65k trees is nothing. This is green washing.
It's going to make them use less aircon, which seems like a good start
Secondly, LV is one of the most water efficient cities in the world. We recycle nearly all of our indoor water back into Lake Mead, and despite the city growing by 800K over the last 20 years we've reduced per-capita water consumption by 55% [2]
Our water crisis is a symptom of the water rights debate between the four states, not our over-consumption of water. You could actually eliminate the state of Nevada from the water crisis debate over the Colorado river and we wouldn't even make a _dent_ in the impact, it's the irrigated deserts of AZ and water intensive farming in CA that's the unsustainable piece (coming from a proud local who grew up in LV).
[1] https://knpr.org/norms-favorite-desert-trees
[2] https://www.lvvwd.com/conservation/measures/index.html?utm_s...
We need to burn more coal and return more land nowadays covered by permafrost into the agricultural circulation.
We won't need to explicitly "adapt". The excess released carbon dioxide is going to make Sahara and Gobi greener, because it will be easier for the plants to grow with a higher concentration of CO2 in the air.
In other words, it's not going to stay in the atmosphere for a long time, it's going to become embodied in the trees and other plants.
Unless we diligently self-destruct by cutting literally all the trees living on the planet. (Possible, but unlikely.)
But even if we just keep doing what we are doing now at the same pace, it's going to be more or less enough. The excessive CO2 is _already_ making the planet greener.
(I guess it's a good idea to plant more trees anyway.)
The scientific consensus is that most dinosaurs were warm-blooded.
> Homeothermy is one of the 3 types of thermoregulation in warm-blooded animal species
> Some homeotherms may maintain constant body temperatures through behavioral mechanisms alone, i.e., behavioral thermoregulation. Many reptiles use this strategy
And specifically with regards to dinosaurs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantothermy
Dinosaurs look way less cool covered in feathers, but hopefully we get some new Jurassic Parks where the people start getting victimized in snowy environments too.
It's already happening for many people today who had no choice in the matter while people in developed countries have an endless stream of excuses.
Degrowth is inevitable. The only difference is when it happens, which is dictated by our choices. We're speed running it and using every excuse we can come up with.
Thank you, I didn't know that was the real goal of the climate movement. Just one question: How do you intend to force unlivable conditions, which in turn will force lower standards of living? I mean, which is the cause and which the effect if they are at all different?
Also, you have to advertise your goals more aggressively, don't be timid. I imagine the billboards:
"Degrowth is inevitable"
"Fight for unlivable conditions and low standards of living for everyone except the elite".
https://www.unfpa.org/news/fertility-fallacy-five-things-you...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clynq459wxgo
This is before climate impact accelerates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
https://www.weforum.org/press/2024/01/wef24-climate-crisis-h...
Living standards won’t increase because demographic dividends from growing working age populations is over, and total fertility rates are rapidly declining globally.
https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-dep...
https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/demogra...
Climate change is already here and happening. You can easily see how it's changing global supply chains and agriculture. Many coastal and island people's have already had to relocate or are spending massive amounts of money trying to relocate(or mitigate sea level rise).
Tens of thousands of people are dropping dead every year from just the heat. Heat that's never hit their parts of the world. Then we have drought(desertification), hurricanes/typhoons of record size, dust storms, disease outbreaks, flooding, wildfire, extreme winter weather. The list is huge and obvious.
There are no lack of clear examples that the climate is becoming less hospitable to humans. And there's no denying it is being caused or accelerated by human behavior. Our models are accurate and paint a very clear picture of what's causing the climate to change: human consumption derived climate change.
Climate change is already forcing growth to slow. It won't be long until degrowth is happening. There are no downsides to curbing our consumption now.
The reality is we have been enjoying subsidized food and products since the industrial revolution. We have known our extreme-consumption is not sustainable since the 1960s. We've been taking on climate debt with our $3 patriot beef burgers and cheap plastic shit. The climate is now calling due on that debt.
Vegas is depressing man, I don’t think I wanna go back.
Vegas has a lot to offer and the strip really dominates the perception of it which is unfortunate.
I get creamed by the SALT cap, but I'm not in favor of repealing it, because it rightfully punishes states that aren't fiscally responsible.
The fair alternative to not eliminating the SALT cap would be to allocate federal dollars spent by the amount of tax dollars paid by the citizens of that state. But then every GOP state would be insolvent, so obviously that's not going to happen.
https://www.google.com/search?q=compare+the+economic+health+...
If we are truly worried about climate change and are unable to curb our consumption, then we should plant as many trees as we can and aggressively shift as much of our long-lived infrastructure to using wood products as possible.
Grow it, use it, maintain it.
Living things typically don't store carbon long-term, unless you take extra steps like burying them in bogs. Even if we were to collectively invest in sequestration, it'd be more effective with trees that are lower-maintenance, more densely/conveniently situated, and where residents don't complain that a tree needs to be kept-longer/removed-sooner. Perhaps we'd choose something else entirely like algae.
I believe they can to a point. Trees, parks and greenery lower the average temperature for an area. Less heat being absorbed.
This would likely leads to less of a need for cooling and energy use.
That being said, I don't remember reading about how much of an effect it does have, just that it's not zero.
My garage is on the same level as my basement, so there's a 5' retaining wall on either side of it. Leaves blow around and get trapped in the corners. Once I didn't bother cleaning it up for several years and when I did I had to move several hundred pounds of new soil into my back yard because of how many leaves had decayed there. Small trees were growing in it.
Similar story with the drainage on the side of my house. Not long after I moved in a heavy rain filled my basement with water. I had to rent a machine to dig a trench on either side so that the back yard would stop becoming a pond when it rained. I'm sure this wasn't a problem in the 60's when it was built, but over time the decaying leaves from my neighbor's tree raised the ground level by something like 1.5 ft and spoiled the original slope (I eventually found the original grade, there was a whole brick patio down there).
We may have to be a bit more intentional than "plant a bunch of trees" to get this effect, but I think it's worth exploiting.
https://barac.at/essays/we-only-need-to-plant-1-trillion-tre...
It's expected that planting a trillion trees (amounting to global land coverage of ~8%) which is analogous to pre-industrial times, would reduce overall heating by some 25% (!!) by itself. This also opens the door to yet another not poorly understand feedback system - CO2 increases greenery which increases trees which decreases temperatures far more than previously expected.
It's almost always going to be vastly easier to reduce emissions than to try to re-absorb it.
So, plant trees, yeah, but smartly, in areas protected from animals initially that will eat the saplings and grow more than one kind and introducing other vegetation over time. All of the extra complexity will slow the work down and get people questioning you about why it’s taking so long to get a forest, but at least you’ll get something resembling a forest that will be able to sustain itself without human intervention long after we’re dead.
Sacramento planted 2.2M trees since 1975 and cooler than historical data (still reaches 90s and 100s)
I've seen it with my eyes!
Las Vegas only gets 4 inches of rain a year, so I imagine supplemental water is likely needed nearly every week for several years.
Large established trees with deep roots draw up large volumes of water from deep down. Once those trees go the water table rises, bringing salts from deeper down up to near ground leavel, the increased salt near surface inhabits young tree growth.
eg: https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2024/march/even-far-from...
Choice of tree matters. These areas are deserts and it just seems wrong minded to plant trees if the land can’t support them.
Then again building a city like Las Vegas in the first place was a mistake imo. Seems a little late to try and make it sustainable and livable for humans. All that water could be used for much better things
Our engineering, at every turn destroys nature by default. We have the ability to stop this if we try hard enough.
The population is roughly the same ~ 2.2 Million each[1], however Doha proper is very small at only 50 sq miles, compared to Las Vegas metro area of 1600 sq miles , even all of Qatar is only 4700 sq miles and most of that is empty desert.
Doha is right next to the sea, desalination plants supply 99% of its water supply reliably. Vegas on the other hands gets bulk of its water from Colarado river(via Lake Mead) and rest from ground water, both come with its own set of problems. Colarado river water is weather variable and also sharing the water is complicated by the pact between the 7 states that share the water.
Qatar is very gas rich and can run those desalination plants pretty cheaply, plus they have no choice but to live where they are i.e. there aren't other alternative locations they can live at, Vegas residents have freedom of movement to rest of the U.S. and with tougher climate may find those cheaper/ attractive.
[1] Out of the 2,000,000 only 300,000 or so are citizens/permanent residents, rest are immigrant workers without permanent residency rights, meaning they would leave when there is less work or visa is not renewed if the government desires to reduce the population of the city, they wouldn't need to convince/pay and provide alternative location foreign workers - who rarely are allowed or bring their family with them and would leave if there is no money to be made without a movement's regret.
Because it has worked so well in the last decades you mean?
why?? (because it takes water to maintain?)
Now if it needs regular watering yeah, that is waste unless there is plentiful surface water...
If you can't tell I'm a bit of a proud Las Vegas local having grown up here, so there's bias in my words.
[1] https://knpr.org/norms-favorite-desert-trees [2] https://lvgea.org/water/
It's always better - if possible - to stop something from happening than to try to counteract it afterwards.
It’s a local climate solution for high heat and little shade.
The post is about LOCAL climate, and trying to cool down Las Vegas itself.
The BBC article is about the affect on GLOBAL climate change.
- Subsidy schemes can often cause problems where monoculture farmable tree crops can reduce biodiversity can cause problems. But I think it's worth noting that replacing trees with another is not what I would call, or what most people likely think, when referring to new forests, and even if we ignore that point, the problem is not the new forests in general but the incentives used to cause it to happen.
- Carbon sequestration may be overestimated because if the ground is already rich in carbon, some of that may be reduced so the overall additional effect of sequestration is less than one might assume.
Neither of those are really in support of "new forests can do more hard than good" in my opinion. They may be worth discussing, but this isn't a good start for a useful conversation on the BBC's part.
It's complaining about:
1) Corruption in Chile led people to tear down existing forests in order to plant trees again to make money.
2) "Some study" found out that planting trees in soil which is already rich in carbon does not lead to a significant increase in carbon soil.
None of these suggest "more harm than good", it's just a sensationalistic piece ... against planting trees? What an extremely distorted agenda to push.