In this article, Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai proposes planting 1 billion trees to combat global warming/climate change. What real effect would this have? Any? Is this a realistic way to combat GW…or just a stunt or something?
-XT
It would help more if they were planted in Africa and S. America. As the article states, that is where the problem is.
For comparison, Canada and the US already plant about 2 billion seedlings every year.
Sure it is, at least qualitatively. Trees are carbon sinks. If there’s lots of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, increasing the number of trees will reduce it somewhat.
The question is how much an extra billion trees will slow the increase of atmospheric carbon, and my answer to that is a categorical “I don’t know”.
Doesn’t that include planting for harvest within the timber industry, though? The timber industry does plant a lot of trees but it also chops down a lot, natch. I think the goal of Maathai’s project is to plant an extra billion trees and keep them absorbing carbon for the rest of their natural lives.
I have heard that china embarked upon a massive re-forestation program in the 1950’s-does anybody know how they are doing? i would think that a huge area like China would also benefit from having tree re-established. Alos-the equatorial rain forets-do they actually remove CO2 from the air-I’ve heard they just recycle carbon from the soil to the tress-htere is no net sequestration of carbon. Or-are grasslands equally as good?
If I recall correctly, younger trees absorb much more carbon dioxide than older trees, since older trees do not grow a the rate of younger trees. And since many trees cut down in logging are dying or at the end of their lives, they don’t really do much to take CO2 out of the atmosphere.
I’m wondering if the US could try a massive reforestation project in the great plains region. I seem to recall reading about such a plan years ago, but obviously it hasn’t happened yet. I just wonder what such a thing would cost, or if its even possible (water and soil and such). I know there is a LOT of unused space in the US, especially in the mid-west where we could reforrest if we wanted too.
-XT
Reforestation implies there was once a forest there. The Great Plains did not become the “Great Plains” because all their trees were cut down. They are naturally plains.
How much fossil fuel will be used per tree planted? For instance, it’s good that the timber industry replants trees, but there’s still a net increase in carbon gas in the atmosphere due simply to the act of cutting and replanting, not to mention the processing of the wood into timber.
I could be wrong here, but I thought that there was evidence that there once WAS a lot of forest in that region. Even if there wasn’t, is there something (besides lack of water I assume) that would prevent forestation now?
-XT
I have wondered about this point…driving across the great plains, you frequently see farmhouse surrounded by trees-so obviously, there is enough water to support tree growth. I’m wondering if the native Americans 9and the bisons0 made the Great Plains Forest into grassland? Suppose the natives (who lived off the buffalo0 burned down the forests to provide grasslands for the bison?
Firts act of ecological destruction in the Americas?
Don’t forget that timber companies aren’t the only things deforesting our planet either. Cryphonectria parasitica (Asian Bark Fungus) has all but obliterated the American Chestnut, Dutch Elm disease has done much the same to the American Elm. While it’s possible that other species of tree could be replanted in those areas affected by massive native timber die offs, it’s hard to say what impact that could have ecologically on other plant and animal species in the area.
The master speaks.
Why don’t trees grow on the Great Plains?
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050708.html
Unfortunately, reforestation may not prove to be much of a panacea. I fear the idea that carbon sink forests will allow us to continue to emit may prove far too optimistic and simplistic.
Of course, there is only so much carbon that can be stored in the form of trees. My recollection is that the amount is enough that planting trees could have a measurable positive impact on CO2 levels but not so much that we can completely get out of our predicament merely by planting trees.
Note also that land use changes are a mixed bag…While more trees reduces the CO2 in the atmosphere, trees also tend to be darker and thus absorb more radiation from the sun than deforested land (although perhaps not true once it is paved!) Thus, they tend to decrease the earth’s albedo (reflectance) and have a bit of a warming effect. I think that the warming effect of the CO2 is believed to have a larger effect than the direct effect on temperature due to albedo…so that planting trees is a net benefit, but the benefit is reduced by this effect.
I tend to think the net plus makes it a worthwhile thing to do, but “plant a gazillion trees” plans can’t be viewed without skepticism, re. their ability to make much of a dent compared to the increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases we hope to offset, especially if vegetation itself limits its cooling capacity through things like heat absorbtion and their own gaseous products. I think it’s a great idea, I fully support doing it, but lets not kid ourselves that planting trees will help much if little else is done.
Reducing carbon levels and increases in the carbon levels cannot be accomplished with one fix. It will take a many prong approach.
There is a large list of approaches that must be utilized differently in different areas and different countries.
- Reduce carbon emission via clean coal plants
- Build new nuclear plant to eliminate the need for new coal plants and start taking old coal plants offline
- Build large solar farms
- Build large wind farms
- Start building smarter house that are more efficient for heating, cooling and lighting
- Build and regulate for low emission cars
- Tax gas-guzzlers extra and tax break highly efficient cars. (Allow exceptions for commercial vehicles to some degree)
- Support various gasoline replacement technologies and help the market pick a winner
- Plant more trees, a billion sounds like a good start, there are many other potential benefits to this
- Reduce population growth world-wide
- Keep push for better, cheaper and more efficient solar panels
- Governments should push hard for incandescent lighting to be largely replaced by compact fluorescent, LED, OLED, and perhaps fiber optic lighting.
- Ban all forest slash & burning farming. (Again many good reasons for this)
- Plan on a stage reasonable approach; do not attempt to go cold turkey.
- Never forget about the economic impact, ensure this can be balanced.
There is more of course, this is all off the top of my head.
Jim
Carbon sequestration will be more effective than planting trees. But as What Exit? said, you can do all the above. It’s all good.
I know it’s counterintuitive, but managed forests where trees are systematically thinned and turned into lumber are far greater carbon sinks than forests where trees are left to absorb carbon for “the rest of their natural lives”.
I’ll get into the details if you want, but the simple explanation is twofold:
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Managed forests are managed for growth, and growth = carbon sequestration. In contrast unmanaged forests very rapidly plateau in terms of growth and these senescent forests have little capacity for carbon sequestration.
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Lumber ends its life as stable landfill. Whether it gets turned into a kitchen cabinet or a newspaper most wood products end up as landfill. Landfill material doesn’t decay much and gradual turns into coal. As such it represents an impressive stable carbon pool. In contrast wood in unharvested forests either decays, gets eaten or is burned. All those processes release most of the sequestered carbon immediately. As such the stable carbon pool represented by an unmanaged forest is orders of maginitudes lower over any useful timescale.
Trees are a double edged sword over most of China. Along with the benefits in terms of fuel wood and environmental services trees also represent a major detriment to agriculture. Worse yet trees remove a lot of water from catchments. Huge areas of China are arid and semi-arid and in many places new forests have had t be destroyed because they were depriving local populations of all drinking water. In some places trees were reducing stream flow by 90% in fairly major rivers. Many smaller streams and creeks had gone from reliable year-round flow to annual flows.
No stable ecosystem removes CO2 from the air, nor does it produce any oxygen. That’s an inescapable fact of chemistry and physics. Doesn’t matter whether we are talking about grasslands equatorial rainforest or arctic tundra; once an ecosystem has stabilized it ceases to produce or remove anything.
In the context of this discussion however forests do represent a massive carbon pool. That is to say the forest has carbon tied up as biomass. If the forest is removed all that carbon gets released, converting the forest from a massive carbon pool to a massive carbon source. If you are concerned about atmospheric greenhouse gas levels this is a definitely a bad thing.
Nope, the Great Plains were once treed, or at least much more was treed than is the case today. IIRC the minimum amount of the Great Plains that is anthropogenic is around 30%. Evidence suggests that as much as 90% may have been timbered pre-humans.
I don’t have those figures to hand, but plantation forestry represents a significant carbon sink.
Firstly there way more carbon in a log than the amount of fuel used to produce that log.
Secondly we can’t legitimately ignore half the equation. If not wood then what alternative do you propose? Synthetic polymers, soft particle boards and concrete all require far more energy to process than timber. As such forestry continues to represent a carbon sink under any reasonable accounting system.
Thirdly, as I mentioned above, the management of forests for growth and the disposal of wood products as landfill make the whole life cycle extremely carbon negative.
[quote=jshore]
Of course, there is only so much carbon that can be stored in the form of trees. My recollection is that the amount is enough that planting trees could have a measurable positive impact on CO2 levels but not so much that we can completely get out of our predicament merely by planting trees.
[quote]
The figures I’ve seen suggest that realistic afforestation/reforestation can account for at most 10% of the ‘business as usual’ emissions for the next 100 years. That’s a worthwhile contribution, but certainly not magic bullet. Of course this depends a lot on how you define ‘realistic’ but amongst other things its assumes that we aren’t going to abandon all the world grasslands and rangelands such as the Great Plains or the Cerrado.
Just to complicate the equation further trees increase evaporation and and also enhance cloud formation in other ways. That increased cloud cover has a major cooling effect all by itself, and in warm climates the high level rain systems represent a potentially massive heat dispersal mechanism. As a result afforestation/reforestation potentially has a far greater impact on global temperatures than simply the effect on carbon balance.
This has been proposed as one of the major feedback mechanisms that regulate temperature on Earth. Temperature increases, trees spread, rainfall increases initiating a positive feedback. All those new trees and all that extra cloud and rain pull temperature back down. Of course now that humans have prevented any responsive increase in tree cover we better hope this isn’t an important mechanism.
Blake, I have heatedly butted heads with you before and I need to say that, your last post was one of the politest and most informative posts I have seen. Thank you for some excellent feedback and information.
Jim
There is a lot of research suggesting that clean coal technology could lead to a massive temperature increase. In all current models particulates and sulphates from coal burning are one of the major sources of global cooling. And the models need that factored in to explain why global temperatures haven’t tracked global CO2 levels. If we are to have any faith in the models (and the hypothesis) then we need to accept that significantly cleaning coal could be a disaster.
My understanding is there is still debate about whether solar plants represent any carbon saving. Solar cells are getting better but it still takes a wad of carbon to produce each one and then ship the electricity from the (necessarily remote) solar farm to the end users.
Aside from the fact that there is no known way to reduce population this doesn’t stand to reason. North America, Australia and Western Europe have the lowest rates of population growth in the world, yet the highest absolute and per capita carbon emissions in the world. There is simply no provable or logical correlation between population growth and carbon emissions. Indeed a decline in population growth is inevitably linked to an increase in carbon emissions, so I would suggest your solution would exacerbate the problem.
I can see the point you are trying to make here, essentially “people are the problem”. However the problem clearly isn’t the rate of growth of people or even the number of people, it’s the way people think. Education is far better than plans for population control that can’t be implemented and have no proven effect.
Can’t agree with this at all. Swidden agriculture has been practiced for millennia. Best evidence suggests that >80% of the Amazon for example has been cultivated. Swidden agriculture is probably the only sustainable and carbon neutral way to utilize much of the world’s forests To implement a blanket burn would force the abandonment of these forests and their conversion into a massive economic and social problem for those states in which they exist. That is one guaranteed way ensure the destruction of any land type.
I agree with the rest of your list, but would add a couple of other obvious points:
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Tax energy wastage. Recreational computer use, entertainment TV, intensively produced meat, recreational air travel and an endless list of many other things the wealthy quarter world is addicted to. Rather than proposals to penalize and manipulate the poor with schemes to cripple agricultural and economic development and destroy their population base we should be bringing the problem home to the biggest culprits: the wealthy.
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Remove all tariffs and subsidies from fossil fuels. It’s ridiculous to be subsidizing an industry that we are actively trying to discourage.
Planting trees is carbon sequestration.