No, it's not good news. At best, it's clueless. At worst, it's propaganda. Trees are not interchangeable objects to count. What matters is not trees, but ecosystems.

I find the negative reaction to good environmental news indicative of the same mindset we talked about a couple of weeks ago on HN. That there seems to be some kind of deathwish around environmental catastrophe. Any sign that the environment might be able to adapt, or that we're not all doomed, is met with fierce, angry resistance instead of gratitude and relief.

If the article had said that there are less trees now than there were 35 years ago, that would be bad news. So the fact that there are more trees is indisputably good news. It's not the best news. There is undoubtedly better news that could be announced. But it is good news. It is better than the assumption that I think most of us had, that global tree cover is declining.

Can't we just be a little bit happy that it's not all utterly terrible?

Nobody is wishing death. People just want pure truth, not sugar coating like this headline implies.

The biodiversity has been lost, rainforest lost. One tree contains a whole environment. Various insects, birds, animals depend on it. So all of that is lost when the tree is cut.

Now some people planted industrial timber plantations, because of money. None of that is same as what was before. The trees that are planted are not even the same type.

Suppose a bank takes away a family's home with all objects in it. After that the bank gives them a plastic chair. There is some positivity in it because they gained one chair. People are asking why they are not happy about the chair. Why they bring the home into discussion every time we talk about the chair? They probably just want to hear sad things and hate the good news.

but that's not the situation. Biodiversity loss is measured in loss of habitat. More trees = more habitat.

What? They are planting "genetic deserts" of hundreds of acres ofof industrial trees. Biodiversity is lost, habitat is lost because these are not the age, type and woodland mix of plants that made an aan actual habitat. Rows as far as the eye can see of lumber pine trees are no more of a proper habitat than mile after mile of cotton or rice or almonds in the CA central valleyvalley are a reasonable replacement for the habitat and biodiversity that was there previously, not to mention the critical loss of micro wetlands.

Biodiversity loss would be measured in loss of biodiversity, I would think.

yeah you'd think so. But that's not how it works. Ecologists estimate species loss by habitat loss. If a million-hectare forest contains a thousand species, and half of it is cut down, then 500 species are assumed to be lost.

We're in the middle of a mass extinction, what more indication do you need that this in not going to go well? The immediacy and stern tone of environmental news reporting is totally appropriate as climate change compares only to nuclear war as a probable doomsday scenario. The environment is not going to "adapt" toward any state that is either pleasant for humans or conducive to our collective progress.

If a tree was fungible, it'd be great news.

In reality, we're replacing trees that you could let 5 people wrap their arms around with 'trees' that you can wrap a size z pants' belt around, replacing biodiversity with monoculture palm trees.

That having been said, I agree with the sentiment. There is actually a lot of great news that we don't report on, like child mortality or severe poverty dropping very sharply. Ourworldindata.org is a great place to start.

But in terms of this story, it's not part of the set of good news stories.

Seems more like a mix of good and bad news. If trees are growing where there should be snow, the suns rays are absorbed and not reflected back out to space

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/shift-northern-fo...

OK, how about this idea then? "Global warming over the recent past [reference favorite timeline here] may be largely due to the extensive regrowth of previously deforested areas."

The value of the good news is to keep hope alive.

I'll give an example of an unexpected improvement:

I volunteered at Audubon for a group that was trying to save wetlands, and by extension the wild salmon. At the time, we didn't have the science to actually mitigate wetlands. So all of our efforts were on conservation. (That didn't go very well.) Now we have more options. So we could, if we wanted to, increase habitat.

That's kinda cool.

Another example is a guy claiming that he has a way to restore grasslands (reverse desertification) by using ranching to simulate migratory herds. https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl...

If true, that's also kinda awesome.

Generally, the trends are pretty bleak, and awareness is a curse. So people like me need good news just to get out of bed every day.

Are you aware of the research which suggests that much of what we consider wetlands today may only exist because of prior deforestation in those areas? And that reforestation may naturally then lead to these wetlands shrinking dramatically in size?

I hadn't. If you have links handy, I'd be much obliged.

What I saw was from years ago, but here's an example of what a quick Google search turns up about it:

http://www.lakescientist.com/research-summary-effect-defores...

Agree with your sentiment here. And it's amazing to me the number of people who will make a statement like that ("Humans are destroying the planet and we're all doomed."), or at least agree with it, without realizing that it potentially represents a form of psychosis!

While it might be good news, the amount of trees is still nowhere near the amount that existed before the Industrial Revolution.

The confirmation bias here is astounding.

Care to expound on that?