Hacker News Reader

Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

Didn’t read, but let me guess. We’re gaining more trees in countries like China where large scale project to prevent desertification exist or in places like Russia or Canada where warming climate is opening more space where trees can grow. All the while tropical countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia are losing tropical forest covers in ecological hotspots because of soybean or palm oil cultivation.

Tbh headlines like these do more damage to the climate change and ecological preservation conversation because they can be used to intentionally mislead what’s happening in the world.

View on HN

> Didn’t read, but let me guess

Why should we let you guess?

What do any of us gain by reading the opinion of someone who admits to being ignorant and who isn't willing to change that by reading TFA?

I read the article after commenting. What opinion do I need to change? Seems like I was correct?

Commenters who don't read the article do more harm than good.

The planet is actually greening due to warmer temperatures and more co2.

> The planet is actually greening due to warmer temperatures and more co2.

For now... No guarantees that's "the new normal" (and it very likely isn't going to be).

Do a bit of research into recent discoveries regarding that "greening" and how it's likely to play out in the longer term if we continue on this reckless path. It's definitely not looking very good for humanity's future overall when you zoom out a bit and start looking at "big picture" of it all... Worst of it is that we probably had multiple chances along the way to steer this mess in a more positive direction, but we're most likely well past the point of handling things in a "mostly painless" way now.

Depends where you are. Parts that were too cold are greener. Parts that were green are now brown [1]. That's how global warming works. That might be fine with you if you currently live in a colder climate, but it's going to result in a lot of territory becoming inhospitable to life and therefore mass migration and other social issues.

[1] https://fortune.com/2026/08/29/europe-summer-drought-deserti...

Trees are trees.

IIRC, there is no actual 'tree' biologically - there is no taxonomic group of 'trees'. It's a colloquial word for 'tall woody plant' or something like that.

That is not true in any but the most literal sense.

Is it true in the sense relevant to climate change?

Climate change is a lot of different things. For the statement that the count matters and a "tree is a tree",

Carbon sequestration? A giant redwood stores more carbon than a fir.

Healthy ecosystems? Different trees fit into different roles in a healthy forest.

The loss of biodiversity? Once a forest dies, a new forest somewhere else doesn't bring back the lost biodiversity.

In theory, Carbon sequestration is the closest to "a tree is a tree", you can plant large amounts of fast growing trees can capture more carbon over time, but that's specifying the later tree, which then matters.

Why did you mention ecosystems and biodiversity? Is the idea that those store more carbon, too, or was it just gratuitous?

Edit after downvote: but why though? It looks like conflation of climate change with the entirety of environmentalism. That is a misleading thing to do.

No, a 3 foot tall sapling and a 300+ foot tall monster are both one tree but have very different impacts on the climate.

Fast growth commercial forests have high density because the individual trees are relatively small with a vastly smaller amount of root mass.

Also, a five year old pine or teak isn't anywhere near a fifty year old mahogany

If I remember correctly, the youngest trees convert the most co2 (makes sense, they grow the fastest).

Not on a per tree basis. Young forests sequester more carbon per year because you aren’t losing old trees, however sustainable harvesting changes the dynamics here. IE a 50k year old natural forest is very close to carbon neutral, but you can harvest wood from an old forest and change the equation as you don’t need to let dead limbs or trees rot.

Unfortunately when you cut down an old forest and convert it into a young one the old forests root mass rots thus releasing a great deal of stored carbon.

Good points about the roots. TIL.

There is only truly literal sense.

If you cut a bunch of crappy pines and borderline brush (beyond whatever trivial square foot exemption they give you) the environmental authorities will be on your case same as if you cut down a 120yo hardwood forest.

Can't have your cake and eat it too. Either they're all the same or they're not.

>Tbh headlines like these do more damage to the climate change and ecological preservation conversation because they can be used to intentionally mislead what’s happening in the world.

The graphs show this pretty clearly.

But despite your misgivings the number of new trees growing 3 times faster than trees lost seems pretty good?

Like tropical countries have local issues for sure.

Honestly I prefer these bad headlines compared to "Lung of world gone we are dead in 15 minutes" sensationalism we usually get, and the data is good too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com