As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Climate Change: Where every storm is Perfect

12930323435100

Posts

  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    High latitude (and high elevation) forests grow quite slowly. I don't know that we have time for that.

    Global warming would expand the growing season in terms of temperature, but at some point daylight becomes a limiting factor.

    VishNub on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    VishNub wrote: »
    High latitude (and high elevation) forests grow quite slowly. I don't know that we have time for that.

    Global warming would expand the growing season in terms of temperature, but at some point daylight becomes a limiting factor.

    Reintroducing arctic grassland climates may be a more effective option purely from a carbon standpoint as they can be almost as productive as forests as well as preventing permafrost melts. The only problem is that a lot of the species that those ecosystems were dependent on are long gone, so its a bit like trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

    The Russians have had some limited success, but often attempts to use substitute herbivores have proven unpredictable, as well as many candidate species being rare in and of themselves and difficult to acquire.

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    MorganV wrote: »
    I did a back of the envelope calculation once that if you magically converted all the excess carbon since 1900 into a diamond it'd be larger than Everest.

    <tahani>Can I.... can I have it?</tahani>

    Again this is extremely back of the envelope. I am not a chemist, mountaineer, or mathologist.
    Per this article CO2 was 291 ppm in 1900.
    Per this one it was measured at 414.7 in 2019.
    That's a different of 123.7 ppm. That converts to 0.01237% or 0.0001237 as a raw decimal.

    Most of the rest of the constant values here were pulled from wolfram alpha. Links to calculations provided.
    The mass of the Earth's atmosphere is 5.1441x10^18 kg, so that excess CO2 is 6.36325x10^14 kg.
    Carbon makes up 27.29% of carbon dioxide by mass.
    So that excess CO2 comes out to 1.73653x10^14 kg of just carbon.
    The density of diamond 3515 kg/m^3, so dividing that mass by the density gives 4.94x10^10 cubic meters.

    Measuring the volume of a mountain is kinda rough, but this website gives 2.1 trillion cubic feet. Converted to cubic meters gives us 5.947x10^10.
    So actually Everest wins. Its 20% larger, but it's still within the same order of magnitude.
    edit: Also that's just since 1900. CO2 would probably win if you went back further towards the beginning of the industrial revolution.
    editedit: It just occurred to me you were asking about the diamond, not the calculation...

    Tofystedeth on
    steam_sig.png
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Phyphor wrote: »
    A tree might sequester 10-20kg CO2/year, to cover our 40 billion tons emissions we would have to plant some 2 trillion trees which would take some 20 million square kilometres, reforesting nearly 15% of all land on the planet

    Yea in order to cover all current emissions... but we already sink about 3/4 of current emissions (rudimentary googling show net incresse is 2ppm and mass/mass 40b tonnes is 8 ppm) so getting to carbon zero (no increase) only takes 1/4 of that.
    a5ehren wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Trees. You just fucking plant trees. They run on sunlight and sequester carbon. We can even cut the trees down later to make homes and sequester the carbon for even longer!

    And then you stop clear cutting all the jungles! It would be cheaper and more efficient to pay brazil to stop burning the amazon than to do this.

    Trees are a part of the long-term solution.

    Carbon capture factories are another part, at least for the developed world, especially if we ever want to get to the "removing old carbon from the air" part of this.

    Not really no. Functionally youre always converting solar power to carbon unless you have an energy positive reaction. Building a solar power plant to make a plant to store carbon compared to just... planting a solar powered machine that naturally stores carbon isnt likely to be efficient.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    We sink a lot of current emissions into the ocean, and not doing that is important. So we do need more than your numbers there suggest.

    Solar panel are more efficient than trees and don't lock up soil nutrients. (The total end process isn't as efficient but it's not as bad as you might think).

    And that's before we get to people destroying ecosystems by converting them into poor quality forests which then die and release the carbon :/

  • Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    Bamboo. It grows fast, in many places, and in poor soil. It can be used to make durable goods, which holds carbon for the lifetime of the item.

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    MorganV wrote: »
    I did a back of the envelope calculation once that if you magically converted all the excess carbon since 1900 into a diamond it'd be larger than Everest.

    <tahani>Can I.... can I have it?</tahani>

    Again this is extremely back of the envelope. I am not a chemist, mountaineer, or mathologist.
    Per this article CO2 was 291 ppm in 1900.
    Per this one it was measured at 414.7 in 2019.
    That's a different of 123.7 ppm. That converts to 0.01237% or 0.0001237 as a raw decimal.

    Most of the rest of the constant values here were pulled from wolfram alpha. Links to calculations provided.
    The mass of the Earth's atmosphere is 5.1441x10^18 kg, so that excess CO2 is 6.36325x10^14 kg.
    Carbon makes up 27.29% of carbon dioxide by mass.
    So that excess CO2 comes out to 1.73653x10^14 kg of just carbon.
    The density of diamond 3515 kg/m^3, so dividing that mass by the density gives 4.94x10^10 cubic meters.

    Measuring the volume of a mountain is kinda rough, but this website gives 2.1 trillion cubic feet. Converted to cubic meters gives us 5.947x10^10.
    So actually Everest wins. Its 20% larger, but it's still within the same order of magnitude.
    edit: Also that's just since 1900. CO2 would probably win if you went back further towards the beginning of the industrial revolution.
    editedit: It just occurred to me you were asking about the diamond, not the calculation...

    Oh my god, was not ready for that ending

  • Void SlayerVoid Slayer Very Suspicious Registered User regular
    One problem with reforestation is replacement of old growth forests or grasslands with fast growth tree farms may also be damaging ecologically. To activly sink the carbon my understanding is you would need to cut the trees in that 15% regularly and plant new ones, so it is less parks and more agribusiness.

    An advantage to hydroponic farms, algae tanks or chemical removal would be it takes up a lot less land even if it is more energy intensive.

    I guess both would work to take marginal land and reforest it with fast growth tree farms and have other more dense carbon removal.

    Also crazy thought but the ocean is mentioned as a carbon sink, could you pull the carbon out of there without iron seeding or whatever?

    He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
  • KruiteKruite Registered User regular
    One of the craziest solutions I have heard is to just mass grow pines and sink the logs to the bottom of the ocean.

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    One problem with reforestation is replacement of old growth forests or grasslands with fast growth tree farms may also be damaging ecologically. To activly sink the carbon my understanding is you would need to cut the trees in that 15% regularly and plant new ones, so it is less parks and more agribusiness.

    An advantage to hydroponic farms, algae tanks or chemical removal would be it takes up a lot less land even if it is more energy intensive.

    I guess both would work to take marginal land and reforest it with fast growth tree farms and have other more dense carbon removal.

    Also crazy thought but the ocean is mentioned as a carbon sink, could you pull the carbon out of there without iron seeding or whatever?


    Again depending on the grassland new growth forest may not be significantly more carbon favorable.

    The real gains would be converting ecologically marginal arid areas like tundra and desert into grasslands or forests, but those kinds of terraforming projects tend to be difficult, unpredictable, and time intensive.

    Edit: nevermind, I get what you are saying... If you are going to cut and dump though, are we sure tree farming is more efficient in raw mass production than just growing switchgrass or something and cutting it once a year?

    Jealous Deva on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    One problem with reforestation is replacement of old growth forests or grasslands with fast growth tree farms may also be damaging ecologically. To activly sink the carbon my understanding is you would need to cut the trees in that 15% regularly and plant new ones, so it is less parks and more agribusiness.

    An advantage to hydroponic farms, algae tanks or chemical removal would be it takes up a lot less land even if it is more energy intensive.

    I guess both would work to take marginal land and reforest it with fast growth tree farms and have other more dense carbon removal.

    Also crazy thought but the ocean is mentioned as a carbon sink, could you pull the carbon out of there without iron seeding or whatever?


    Again depending on the grassland new growth forest may not be significantly more carbon favorable.

    The real gains would be converting ecologically marginal arid areas like tundra and desert into grasslands or forests, but those kinds of terraforming projects tend to be difficult, unpredictable, and time intensive.

    Edit: nevermind, I get what you are saying... If you are going to cut and dump though, are we sure tree farming is more efficient in raw mass production than just growing switchgrass or something and cutting it once a year?

    Trees degrade much slower than grass. You cut down a tree and use its wood to build something that thing will be around for a hundred years or, if its taken care of, more

    wbBv3fj.png
  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    I guess you could sequester the grass somehow? Bottom of the ocean, or empty mine shaft (which you then seal), perhaps?

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    I guess you could sequester the grass somehow? Bottom of the ocean, or empty mine shaft (which you then seal), perhaps?

    This just sounds like the second act in a disaster-horror movie the future documentary about the end of civilization

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    One problem with reforestation is replacement of old growth forests or grasslands with fast growth tree farms may also be damaging ecologically. To activly sink the carbon my understanding is you would need to cut the trees in that 15% regularly and plant new ones, so it is less parks and more agribusiness.

    An advantage to hydroponic farms, algae tanks or chemical removal would be it takes up a lot less land even if it is more energy intensive.

    I guess both would work to take marginal land and reforest it with fast growth tree farms and have other more dense carbon removal.

    Also crazy thought but the ocean is mentioned as a carbon sink, could you pull the carbon out of there without iron seeding or whatever?


    Again depending on the grassland new growth forest may not be significantly more carbon favorable.

    The real gains would be converting ecologically marginal arid areas like tundra and desert into grasslands or forests, but those kinds of terraforming projects tend to be difficult, unpredictable, and time intensive.

    Edit: nevermind, I get what you are saying... If you are going to cut and dump though, are we sure tree farming is more efficient in raw mass production than just growing switchgrass or something and cutting it once a year?

    Trees degrade much slower than grass. You cut down a tree and use its wood to build something that thing will be around for a hundred years or, if its taken care of, more

    Yeah, we have so many safe sealing options and with fire-treating a lot of conifers plus something ecological like linseed oil you can get a wooden structure that is both sturdy and will last longer than most modern construction. The only thing hampering its use is that we've deforested so many places domestically that hardwood is very expensive. Mass argibusinesses focusing on lumber growth would be both a way better use of land than many farms AND could coincide with many forms of other agriculture like livestock if done properly. Groundfowl, pigs, and goats can all graze quite well in many types of woodland on the unwanted undergrowth and now that we have rdf tagging there is no reason to really need to migrate with the herd/flock as it roams in a 1000 acre area. When you need to cull, just track down where they are and check on the animals in a ranger fashion.

    Is it as efficent as what we have now? No. But meat is going to be a luxury either way moving forward and multi-use agrigculture zones are probably one of the future industries.

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Goumindong wrote: »
    One problem with reforestation is replacement of old growth forests or grasslands with fast growth tree farms may also be damaging ecologically. To activly sink the carbon my understanding is you would need to cut the trees in that 15% regularly and plant new ones, so it is less parks and more agribusiness.

    An advantage to hydroponic farms, algae tanks or chemical removal would be it takes up a lot less land even if it is more energy intensive.

    I guess both would work to take marginal land and reforest it with fast growth tree farms and have other more dense carbon removal.

    Also crazy thought but the ocean is mentioned as a carbon sink, could you pull the carbon out of there without iron seeding or whatever?


    Again depending on the grassland new growth forest may not be significantly more carbon favorable.

    The real gains would be converting ecologically marginal arid areas like tundra and desert into grasslands or forests, but those kinds of terraforming projects tend to be difficult, unpredictable, and time intensive.

    Edit: nevermind, I get what you are saying... If you are going to cut and dump though, are we sure tree farming is more efficient in raw mass production than just growing switchgrass or something and cutting it once a year?

    Trees degrade much slower than grass. You cut down a tree and use its wood to build something that thing will be around for a hundred years or, if its taken care of, more

    Yeah, we have so many safe sealing options and with fire-treating a lot of conifers plus something ecological like linseed oil you can get a wooden structure that is both sturdy and will last longer than most modern construction. The only thing hampering its use is that we've deforested so many places domestically that hardwood is very expensive. Mass argibusinesses focusing on lumber growth would be both a way better use of land than many farms AND could coincide with many forms of other agriculture like livestock if done properly. Groundfowl, pigs, and goats can all graze quite well in many types of woodland on the unwanted undergrowth and now that we have rdf tagging there is no reason to really need to migrate with the herd/flock as it roams in a 1000 acre area. When you need to cull, just track down where they are and check on the animals in a ranger fashion.

    Is it as efficent as what we have now? No. But meat is going to be a luxury either way moving forward and multi-use agrigculture zones are probably one of the future industries.

    This sounds rad

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    I guess you could sequester the grass somehow? Bottom of the ocean, or empty mine shaft (which you then seal), perhaps?

    Reading up, it looks like cellulose eventually metabolizes to co2 and ch4 even in anearobic conditions through bacteria, so maybe trees would be better in the long run. I don’t know how much of that would eventually leech out if you just deep buried it or sank it Into the ocean. Its an issue with trees too but wood takes a lot longer to degrade.

    It also looks like from a quick google search that the optimal cut time is actually 75-150 years for pine if carbon sequestration rather than lumber production is your goal, so just doing “set it and forget it” planting of pine forests might be a lot more practical than trying to dispose of unneeded forestry products anyway.

    Jealous Deva on
  • LilnoobsLilnoobs Alpha Queue Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Are people really suggesting to create an ecosystem, and then destroy it, and sink it in the ocean in order to save the planet?

    So we plant trees to soak up our problems, and then kill those trees, and send them to mass graveyards so we can forget about the trees and our problems. I'm sure this plan will go well for everyone.

    Lilnoobs on
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Lilnoobs wrote: »
    Are people really suggesting to create an ecosystem, and then destroy it, and sink it in the ocean in order to save the planet?

    So we plant trees to soak up our problems, and then kill those trees, and send them to mass graveyards so we can forget about the trees and our problems. I'm sure this plan will go well for everyone.

    Tree farms are already a thing.

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Lilnoobs wrote: »
    Are people really suggesting to create an ecosystem, and then destroy it, and sink it in the ocean in order to save the planet?

    So we plant trees to soak up our problems, and then kill those trees, and send them to mass graveyards so we can forget about the trees and our problems. I'm sure this plan will go well for everyone.

    As a potential alternative to building thousands of giant factories to make limestone blocks to bury in the ground or dump in the ocean? Sure.

    Ultimately the problem we have is that we took a lot of carbon that was in the air and put it in the atmosphere, so at some point taking the carbon back out of the atmosphere and burying it back where it came from is going to need to be a thing.

    Jealous Deva on
  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Or we can wait a few million years and geology will do it for us

    VishNub on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    VishNub wrote: »
    Or we can wait a few million years and geology will do it for us

    There are probably very few human problems that cannot be solved by waiting a few million years.

    Right now, though, if you want to stop mass extinction/ keep things compatible with human civilization/etc you need to think about some kind of sequestration strategy because emissions limitations probably won’t be enough.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Lilnoobs wrote: »
    Are people really suggesting to create an ecosystem, and then destroy it, and sink it in the ocean in order to save the planet?

    So we plant trees to soak up our problems, and then kill those trees, and send them to mass graveyards so we can forget about the trees and our problems. I'm sure this plan will go well for everyone.

    You seem to be willfully ignoring 1) the replanting part and 2) the implicit forestry management piece that would go into it. It's not: lets go plant a forest and then cut it down, leave a wasteland, and call it a day. It's create a woodland and selectively manage it to ensure that it remains an active woodland and that the lumber being produced by the older growth can be removed and used to replace worse-for-the-environment materials and replaced by new growth to ensure moving forward.

    The dumping logs into the sea is an odd and impractical option. But the idea of managing forests as carbon sinks and as production replacements is both ecofirendly and one of the more affordable short-term actions we can take. Replanting just a coupld dozen sq miles in each county of the US would be something legislatable over a generation and could slowly replace de-zoned low density housing to create both more green spaces for wilderness but also contribute to making greater density in cities and providing more wildland for grazing or for local fauna.

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    How big or how many farms do we need

    Who should we invade to get land for Treesylvania

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    I’m just getting ideas for my eco-populism platform

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    How big or how many farms do we need

    Who should we invade to get land for Treesylvania

    It would have to be somewhere that doesn’t have many trees now but could theoretically support a bunch of new trees.

    I don’t know, a lot of places that can support trees already have forests on them. You’d probably need to focus on optimizing human land usage (both agricultural and urban) and reforesting cleared land.

    And also for fucks sake everyone needs to stop cutting down tropical forests and old growth temperate forests asap as those are probably holding vastly more carbon right now that you would ever get back by replanting them.

    Jealous Deva on
  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    How big or how many farms do we need

    Who should we invade to get land for Treesylvania

    It would have to be somewhere that doesn’t have many trees now but could theoretically support a bunch of new trees.

    I don’t know, a lot of places that can support trees already have forests on them. You’d probably need to focus on optimizing human land usage (both agricultural and urban) and reforesting cleared land.

    And also for fucks sake everyone needs to stop cutting down tropical forests and old growth temperate forests asap as those are probably holding vastly more carbon right now that you would ever get back by replanting them.

    A lot of the rustbelt could be re-naturalized, like all of Michigan could be twice as dense as it currently is.

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    How big or how many farms do we need

    Who should we invade to get land for Treesylvania

    It would have to be somewhere that doesn’t have many trees now but could theoretically support a bunch of new trees.

    I don’t know, a lot of places that can support trees already have forests on them. You’d probably need to focus on optimizing human land usage (both agricultural and urban) and reforesting cleared land.

    And also for fucks sake everyone needs to stop cutting down tropical forests and old growth temperate forests asap as those are probably holding vastly more carbon right now that you would ever get back by replanting them.

    A lot of the rustbelt could be re-naturalized, like all of Michigan could be twice as dense as it currently is.

    But white people have been fleeing SE Michigan for 2 generations- we’ll take everything from Ann Arbor to Lake St Clair in Ohio*, and everyone else can squeeze into GR

    *and Muskegon

    Also we can resettle the 937 area code in Cinci and most of 419 can be squished up to New Detroledoit

  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    How big or how many farms do we need

    Who should we invade to get land for Treesylvania

    It would have to be somewhere that doesn’t have many trees now but could theoretically support a bunch of new trees.

    I don’t know, a lot of places that can support trees already have forests on them. You’d probably need to focus on optimizing human land usage (both agricultural and urban) and reforesting cleared land.

    And also for fucks sake everyone needs to stop cutting down tropical forests and old growth temperate forests asap as those are probably holding vastly more carbon right now that you would ever get back by replanting them.

    A lot of the rustbelt could be re-naturalized, like all of Michigan could be twice as dense as it currently is.

    But white people have been fleeing SE Michigan for 2 generations- we’ll take everything from Ann Arbor to Lake St Clair in Ohio*, and everyone else can squeeze into GR

    *and Muskegon

    Also we can resettle the 937 area code in Cinci and most of 419 can be squished up to New Detroledoit

    I meant dense with trees.

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    I’m dense

  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    vwhwktfiq82n.png
    kqasgm6qutrh.png

    Key word there is virgin (ie. old growth), but forest coverage in general is down about 30% from pre-columbian days. Density is, presumably, down quite a lot more than that.

  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    Basically it would be a pretty cheap, pretty helpful thing for the US government to be actively buying up unused land and planting trees as fast as possible.

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    *chants*

    Public Lands!
    Public Lands!
    Public Lands!

  • SyngyneSyngyne Registered User regular
    Jragghen wrote: »
    Output is calcium carbonite, so we'd need to figure out what the fuck to DO with that much calcium carbonite

    what’s missing is a thriving bounty hunter industry

    5gsowHm.png
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    VishNub wrote: »
    vwhwktfiq82n.png
    kqasgm6qutrh.png

    Key word there is virgin (ie. old growth), but forest coverage in general is down about 30% from pre-columbian days. Density is, presumably, down quite a lot more than that.

    I would assume a European map would look pretty similar to that, as well. There’s a lot of area in the UK, France, Germany, Poland, and Russia that used to be forest but isn’t so much anymore.

    Outside those areas, with proper conservation there has been a lot of work done recently in greening the Sahel that could use some help in encouraging and expanding. Dense forests are nice, but converting marginally productive semi-deserts (or tundra even) to moderately productive grasslands and light woodlands might have just as much importance in the long run.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Why not both

  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    Is there anybody funding that sort of thing?

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • VishNubVishNub Registered User regular
    Reforestation? Yeah. There's a bunch of nonprofits doing it on small scale.
    The US gov does do land buybacks for conservation, but again, on small scale, and not explicitly for reforestation/carbon sequestration. More for generic re-wilding.

    Nothing I'm aware of that would be measurably impactful on a climate level, yet. The reverse does occur on large scale -- as others have mentioned, we often pay developing nations to not clear their forests.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    and then some of them, at least, do it anyway.

  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    Here's the thing: the carbon storage capacity of an area of land is proportional to how wet it is. The two biggest limitations to how much plants can grow is their growing season and water availability. Hence the importance of tropical rain forests - endless growing season and lots of water. Restoring rain forests would be the fastest and most efficient method of extracting carbon from the atmosphere if we're just talking plants here, way more cost effective than almost any mainland US property. A partial exception would be wetlands, since again, more water = more carbon storage. Wetlands keep a lot of dead plant matter buried which means a lot of carbon. But that's different from some scheme to, like, turn Nebraska into a forest or something. The forest would never be tall or dense enough - or fire resistant enough - or grow fast enough - to justify the cost of it when that could've been used for subtropical swamps or buying rain forest land.

    [This is also the point where I plug iron fertilization of the open oceans since there's a lot more Pacific Ocean than feasible land territory. It would also have the benefit of improving fish stocks, and collapsing fisheries is another problem that we have to deal with.]

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    Mayabird wrote: »
    Here's the thing: the carbon storage capacity of an area of land is proportional to how wet it is. The two biggest limitations to how much plants can grow is their growing season and water availability. Hence the importance of tropical rain forests - endless growing season and lots of water. Restoring rain forests would be the fastest and most efficient method of extracting carbon from the atmosphere if we're just talking plants here, way more cost effective than almost any mainland US property. A partial exception would be wetlands, since again, more water = more carbon storage. Wetlands keep a lot of dead plant matter buried which means a lot of carbon. But that's different from some scheme to, like, turn Nebraska into a forest or something. The forest would never be tall or dense enough - or fire resistant enough - or grow fast enough - to justify the cost of it when that could've been used for subtropical swamps or buying rain forest land.

    [This is also the point where I plug iron fertilization of the open oceans since there's a lot more Pacific Ocean than feasible land territory. It would also have the benefit of improving fish stocks, and collapsing fisheries is another problem that we have to deal with.]

    This is true, but mismanagement can “bump” an area downwards to a lower grade in productivity.

    Like maybe you have an area in the sahel that has theoretical precipitation to be a lightly wooded grassland, but because of overgrazing and overcultivation it’s a desert. Or maybe you had an old growth deciduous forest in Europe or North America but it got cut down for farm land and even though that farmland has been since abandoned the land is now a grassland because it hasn’t had time to be recolonized by trees yet.

    Those are the kind of situations that would eventually stabilize over hundreds or thousands of years but that (well planned and responsible) human intervention can speed along and help correct.


    But yeah preservation and restoration of rain forests and wetlands is certainly important.

This discussion has been closed.