No easy way to plot this - planting trees to sequester CO2 may or may not have a net positive impact at scale for a variety of reasons:
1) The timescale is very long - a single tree to drive carbon neutrality is MOST optimistically pegged at 40 - 100 years depending on species. With expanding populations planning or guaranteeing execution on that time scale is limited. AKA it's very unlikely that most efforts, unless planted in an evergreen protected land will actually drive a net positive impact.
2) Forest soil and topsoil (from dropped branches, leaves, etc) can sequester up to 2x as much carbon as the actual trees themselves and is typically counted in the "net negative" C02 impact. But warming temperatures creates a negative feedback loop increases the rate of C02 release from soil.
3) Governments, in their effort to drive commercial tree planting, are accidentally driving the wrong incentives - farmed forests are <50% as effective at C02 sequester as natural forests and the act of burning wood pellets for fuel and or even using for building materials dramatically reduces and in fact calls into question ANY C02 benefits.
Effectively the only sure fire way towards atmospheric CO2 reduction is cutting consumption
Electricity from solar photovoltaic generation has life cycle emissions 90-95% lower than fossil-derived electricity, per median figures in the IPCC's 2014 tabulation of global warming potential of selected electricity sources. Geothermal, concentrated solar power, nuclear power, and wind power have even lower life cycle emissions.
Displacing fossil-derived electricity with enough low-carbon electricity to supply an air conditioner is more effective than raising the AC temperature one degree or planting a tree.
The key issue is to reduce emissions. Sometimes that necessitates reduced consumption of energy services [1]. But reducing consumption is not sufficient and often not necessary to deeply cut emissions.
If 3 tons of CO2 per capita per year is a sustainable emissions rate, then the US emits at about 550% of the sustainable rate. Even Cuba emits at 107% of the sustainable rate. No polity is going to voluntarily reduce their material standard of living below that of Cuba. And even a super-emitter like the US could reach the sustainable rate with a combination of more efficient energy use and non-fossil (renewable and nuclear) primary energy production substituting for fossils. So I think that "stop burning fossils for air conditioning" is a prescription closer to solving the root problem than "endure a little more discomfort in the air conditioning season."
[1] For example, there is no foreseeable technology that will enable trans-Atlantic passenger flights without burning chemical fuels. Long distance flights could burn synthetic fuels made using non-fossil electricity, but that would raise fuel prices. Whether by fiat or by pricing, long distance air travel will necessarily become less common if/when aviation faces pressure to reduce CO2 emissions.
I 100% agree. I originally started banging out a comment saying forget the trees, build more nuclear power but didn't want to invite a downvoting brigade, which I effectively walked into anyways :)
Introducing nuclear power in climate discussions tends to cause flamewars because it's often introduced by someone making extreme blanket statements, like "humans cannot be trusted with nuclear power" or "nuclear is the only available solution to climate change."
Just mention it as one of the low-emissions alternatives to fossil power. Cite climate-focused organizations for support rather than industry-specific organizations. The aim is to reduce emissions, not to promote one specific technology toward that end.
I wish that we just had carbon tax-and-dividend instead of a thousand different regulations and tax code incentives mandating or nudging toward specific kinds of efficiency measures and fossil replacements. At the same time I understand that carbon taxes face enormous popular opposition while tax credits and CAFE standards don't, so I'll accept having 3 different kinds of federal tax incentives to separately promote nuclear power, wind power, and solar power (plus a myriad of differently structured state level incentives) as the best the US can currently do.
The problem with Nuclear is it needs huge subsides to be cost competitive with battery backed Wind / Solar or Hydro, even more if you want it to load follow. With just a carbon tax and no specific Nuclear subsidies, Nuclear is rarely a good option.
In theory it seems like a great idea, in practice with decades of 10’s to 100’s of Billions in R&D it’s unlikely to improve that much within the next 5-10 years. (106 Billion and counting from the US government alone: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/07/09/nuclear-...)
I agree that new nuclear power doesn't appear to be competitive with new renewables in the near term. It might be competitive again as renewable penetration gets high and storage costs rise. If there were just one tax incentive scheme, aimed at reducing CO2 emissions, we could be sure that tax incentives were optimizing for low emissions without distorting the market in favor of overly specific technology choices. But as I mentioned before, I'll take the overly specific and distortionary incentives if the alternative is "no incentives at all for reducing emissions."
It's probably needed in northern countries for COMPLETE decarbonization. And basically all large infrastructure has some level of subsidy, definitely including wind, solar, and hydro.
Lithium-air is one technology that would easily enable transatlantic flights. Even lithium-sulfur/metal/etc (which are much nearer term and can be had in small batches now if you call around) you could get you transatlantic (Canada to Ireland) with a very efficient airframe and even with lithium-ion with a very efficient airframe if you hop over Canada, Greenland, and Iceland.
How is using wood as a building material bad? I would think that putting carbon into our walls and patios would be as good a place as any to keep it out of the atmosphere?
We should also look to compare hempcrete or similar lightweight materials with superior insulation qualities; "an un-rendered 30 cm thick hemp concrete wall enables a storage of 36.08 kg of CO2 per m2 [1]."
If we can get all those steps onto electric power instead of internal combustion, then (assuming the power's coming from renewables, hydroelectric, or nuclear) that should eliminate the issue, right?
I agree completely. I live in a century home. The spruce lumber in my walls is safe and dry and has been there decades longer than it would have been if those trees had been left to die and rot on their own.
Farmed forest can be very effective in the short term for CO2 sequestration how ever, although the net CO2 sequestration over 200 years or so may be lower the sequestration in the short term can be very high. This gives you time to reduce the amount of emissions that are being made in the first place. Planting trees is not a long term solution in and off itself but it is an important tool in reducing emissions
I would say in 40 years we’re going to be in a much much worse situation so is your argument don’t bother ? Else we should do both, plant a trillion trees and replace fossil fuels and civilisation might be ok?
Sorry but it just seems like you’re trying to make this a negative idea, when it’s a clearly positive thing outside of just sequestering carbon, there are other areas of the eco system improved by having more trees.
If you look at his further posts, his positions are fabricated worst case scenario. For example he suggests that there is no point in planting trees because you're going to drive there in your SUV and then come home and run your AC. This might be true for some people, but it's not for me as my house doesn't have AC and I don't own an SUV. I car pool or drive a prius to plant trees. Also we're not planting trees in places that are then harvested.
When I see people who are anti-tree planting, I wonder if there is some authoritarian predilections at play and anything that doesn't result in central control or provide some mechanism for rent seeking or corruption is going to get down played.
The reality is that if you go and work with your local land management folks who can give you guidance on the types of trees and where to plant them, then going out and spending a weekend putting fifty trees in the ground, will give you quite a nice reduction for the CO2 emissions necessary to plant them. What's more is trees reproduce on their own. If you get a tree into the ground it will likely produce two additional trees over its lifetime if not more.
Where do you go to plant trees such that you can be certain the trees won't just be cut down in a few years, and also don't simply displace other trees that would otherwise grow?
Also, do you keep track of the trees to make sure they actually grow? Just planting the seed or even a sapling is far from sufficient to ensure that carbon sequestration occurs. Young trees are food for a variety of animals and insects. Do you know what fraction of the trees you plant actually reach maturity? I've seen estimates that far fewer than one in five do.
So... no where? Where I live you either live in an apartment or in a house that is 5 feet away from neighboring houses in all directions. What percentage of the population is rich enough to own empty land that they can plants trees on?
Maybe sounds too much like spouting from the climate change denier camp?
Which I am the opposite of.
There are a lot of flower & daisy soft solutions to C02.
Drive to the suburban forest in your SUV, plant 100 trees that will inevitably be cut down long before they have a carbon negative impact, come home and run your AC.
You're still running 1000/1 in negative C02 balance.
Vs finds ways to dramatically cut use, double down on investigative hard solutions like nuclear and major infrastructure projects like mass transport, car banning, new taxation on major freight (sea and road) to force efficiency adoption etc.
Lots of hard solutions are readily available to solving the problem, but by definition they're hard.
We've gotta get past the argument pattern of "don't reduce consumption; sequester!" and "don't sequester; reduce consumption!" A lot of both are needed.
I agree with the point that planting 100 trees should not leave anyone feeling they've done their part. Repeating the math until we're blue in the face is what helps there I guess.
But convincing the entire population of the world to set their thermostat 1 degree higher during the summer months would have a 1000x multiple impact on a 40x shorter time scale than if every one of those people planted a tree.
The spirit of my comment is that in general people LOVE the path of least resistance.
Ask the average person about combatting climate change and their response is "plant more trees".
Because that's easy, shit you can pay the gardener to do it or donate $10 to a plant the tree collective and feel instant gratification with no sacrifice.
Vs the highest possible impact solution which is cutting personal consumption - even a little bit!
You can easily plant 1000 trees to cover some of the people who won't bother, but setting your thermostat 1000 degrees higher in the summer won't do anything more.
This is all well and good, except that you cannot easily plant 1000 trees and ensure they continue to exist in mature form forever. At least, you cannot for most values of "you." Maintaining 1000 mature trees is not a trivial matter.
I wonder about this too - all these charities for planting trees or renting carbon scrubbers or buying carbon offsets, they all have a certain level of capacity after which they'd be sold out. So buying carbon offsets don't really offset all your carbon.
> But convincing the entire population of the world to set their thermostat 1 degree higher
This confused me for longer than I'd care to admit, but now that I get it, I'd just say that a much smaller proportion of 'the entire population of the world' - even the developed world - has AC than it might seem to an American perspective.
Trees can keep running for 40-100 years using your figures. Governments can compulsory purchase and designate regions as wilderness or reserve, and require region appropriate planting. Perhaps to resemble former natural forest.
You can't ask people to set their thermostat 1 degree warmer every year for that 40-100 years. You can expect there to be scope for continued tree planting for decades.
Neither is a sole solution, but both are part of a holistic, reasoned and coordinated journey to carbon neutrality.
"Drive to the suburban forest in your SUV, plant 100 trees that will inevitably be cut down long before they have a carbon negative impact, come home and run your AC. You're still running 1000/1 in negative C02 balance."
So do 1000 times that, and don't plant them in a suburban forest but one that will stay around longer. Or contribute money to tree planting initiatives who do it right.
Each apple, each year, for the last 40 years, that somebody grow in their garden, is an apple less that must be moved burning gasoline from Idaho or Colorado to a market near you, one piece of fruit less that must be waxed and wrapped in plastic and put in one-use wood boxes, before to be moved again to your house, probably burning a litte more gaz.
I didn't downvote, but I suspect those counterpoints are second-order and very minor compared to the sequestration rates of a tree itself. I can't bring myself to believe that because of those counterpoints, every new tree on average sequesters zero carbon. The important stat is on average, how much carbon does each new tree sequester; that's what drives the models.
I'm pretty confident OP up there also loves trees. But we're at a point where we need to calculate efforts and allocate resources wisely. Maybe we need fewer forests and more nuclear. idk.
I know for a fact every tree I can plant with my bare hands would be carbon negative, because I did the math.
1) The timescale is very long - a single tree to drive carbon neutrality is MOST optimistically pegged at 40 - 100 years depending on species. With expanding populations planning or guaranteeing execution on that time scale is limited. AKA it's very unlikely that most efforts, unless planted in an evergreen protected land will actually drive a net positive impact.
2) Forest soil and topsoil (from dropped branches, leaves, etc) can sequester up to 2x as much carbon as the actual trees themselves and is typically counted in the "net negative" C02 impact. But warming temperatures creates a negative feedback loop increases the rate of C02 release from soil.
3) Governments, in their effort to drive commercial tree planting, are accidentally driving the wrong incentives - farmed forests are <50% as effective at C02 sequester as natural forests and the act of burning wood pellets for fuel and or even using for building materials dramatically reduces and in fact calls into question ANY C02 benefits.
Effectively the only sure fire way towards atmospheric CO2 reduction is cutting consumption
(1) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/epa-declares-burni...
(2) https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/trees-carbon-emissions-bo...