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Wait a sec, planting trees is... good!? :o

Lerticus

Senile Old Coot
☭ Communism ☭

Planting trees on 0.9 billion hectares of land could trap about two-thirds the amount of carbon released by human activities since the start of the Industrial Revolution, a new study finds.
...
The analysis revealed space to nourish enough trees to capture some 205 metric gigatons of carbon in about a century. That's close to 10 times the savings expected from managing refrigerants, the top item on a list of climate-fighting strategies from the nonprofit Project Drawdown, a worldwide network of scientists, advocates and others proposing solutions to global warming.
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Even something as simple as the darkness of tree leaves can change how much heat a landscape absorbs or reflects. Expanding forests into formerly snow-bright, reflective zones, for instance, might warm them. In the tropics, however, the enhanced cooling from clouds might be the more powerful effect.
Fucking James Cameron and Ferngully, stop being so smug! How were we to know that savaging the world's forests would turn out to be a bad thing!?
 
Again, this is a bit dependant on the case. Here in the balearic islands pines are extremely abundant and are 'designed' in such a way that fires do them good, as they get to spread a shit ton of seeds. In that case you need to take out saplings and cull a few of the pines least you compromise the local biodiversity, as the pines will strangle to death the rest of plants.

But that's an entirely different thing. Yes. You should plant trees and ensure the subsistence and prosperity of wildlife.
 
Again, this is a bit dependant on the case. Here in the balearic islands pines are extremely abundant and are 'designed' in such a way that fires do them good, as they get to spread a shit ton of seeds. In that case you need to take out saplings and cull a few of the pines least you compromise the local biodiversity, as the pines will strangle to death the rest of plants.
Yes, it isn't as simple as "just plant trees and claim victory". Even as the article pointed out, there are considerations as to cooling effects of cloud cover contrasted with higher temperature from a lower albedo.
But that's an entirely different thing. Yes. You should plant trees and ensure the subsistence and prosperity of wildlife.
While also a good consideration, wildlife doesn't tend to absorb CO2. The main reason of this proposal is that global warming can be seriously curtailed by just planting a shitload of trees to remove much of our excess carbon dioxide. Lower CO2 results in slower temperature rises and gives people some more time to get the rest of their polluting shit together before we kill the planet.

Though most people are idiots, so they would look at this as a replacement for good environmental policy, or as a permission to pollute more. Still, it could do a lot of good. Who would have thunk that restoring the planet to a past natural condition might make it able to maintain past environmental condition too!?
 
 
Well, planting trees are good things in general, assuming that no one immediately chops them down for fuel.
 
There are places I know of where they are against there being more trees, as they suck water out of the ground, or something.

Never mind the great advantage of tree-roots in preventing erosion.
 
There are places I know of where they are against there being more trees, as they suck water out of the ground, or something.

Never mind the great advantage of tree-roots in preventing erosion.
Trees can be pretty thirsty things, depending on the species. The non-evergreen species -if I remember right- tend to have the thirstier ones.

Also, a little factoid that people forget when they go 'plant more trees!' is that -from my recollection- there are tree species that make things worse at night by releasing any unused CO2. Also, trees tend to be space-happy things...
 
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