"Planting 1.2 Trillion Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions, Scientists Find"
I'll expand on what I said before: Make front lawns illegal throughout the US. Require two or more trees to be planted (use some kind of a formula for the exact amount). We can probably get to half a billion trees just with this approach. However, this has the added effect of eliminating emissions from gas powered mowers, blowers, trimmers, etc. We would consumer less water to grow lawns, capture CO2 effectively to grow trees and reduce emissions from the aforementioned demonic devices in the process. I call that a good start until we figure out other methods that might operate at scale without destroying the planet in the process. Actually, there are at least a couple more things at scale we could do that would be net positive on many fronts. More on that later.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/planting-1-2-trillion-trees-cou...
The truth is that, short of a ground-braking discovery of a kind that is hard to describe we are not going to "save the plante" for thousands of years. No matter what we do.
We need to stop talking about destroying entire economies, solar panels, killing cars, trains and planes, and the ridiculous idea of buying carbon credits (really?) and start talking about the reality of this problem.
It is a planetary scale problem with a natural rate of change in the order of 100 ppm per 50,000 years. Anyone talking about "saving the planet" for the next generation or anything even remotely close needs to explain how we are going to accelerate this rate of change a thousand-fold without killing everyone in the process and using-up more energy than this planet can produce.
Basic scientific principle: You don't get something for nothing. If you are going to produce a planetary-scale change at 1000x the natural rate the side effects could be worse than the problem.
As I said before multiple times, the natural rate of change is what happened when humanity basically wasn't here --certainly our cities, power plants, planes, etc. were not here. Simple conclusion: If we destroy and eliminate ALL of humanity and all things we built it would take about 50,000 years to reduce atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm. Anyone claiming to make a 1000x improvement to this rate of change while we are all still here (and our toys) has a supernatural problem to answer for.
Yes, sure, let's stop polluting unnecessarily. Swapping lawns and mowers for trees seems like a win-win at many levels. You stop producing pointless pollution, reduce water waste and convert carbon into trees. After that we need to look at reforestation at a massive scale.
I guess my point is that trees is the only "technology" we know we can deploy at scale without killing everyone on this planet in the process and using-up so much energy and resources that we'll create a larger problem.
https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical...
More ice core data:
If we converted the ENTIRE planet to the most optimal forms of renewable energy, atmospheric CO2 concentration would continue to rise exponentially.
https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-...
This research came out of Google. What I find admirable is that the researchers went into this to prove that renewable energy sources were the solution to our problems. In fact, they went in convinced they were correct in having reached this conclusion prior to doing the research. Instead, they discovered they were wrong. And they went ahead and said so.
These days, when science and politics are so intertwined, the latter polluting the former, it is refreshing to see such honesty. That's what science is about: Verifiable, reproducible, evidence-based conclusions, not religion or politics.
Bravo Google Research for doing this work and publishing a conclusion that was diametrically opposite your own assumptions.
EDIT:
This down vote also demonstrates my point: This issue has become a religion (on all sides). Facts and science don't matter any more. People believe what they believe and simply refuse to consider they might just be wrong. Which happens to be the case for nearly EVERYONE who thinks they know the subject. If you think you do, see my first post and answer my questions.
Of course, in the increasingly religious climate (again, on both sides of the issue) scientists do not dare speak up for fear of losing everything from research grants to their jobs. It is as horrific a transgression of what science is supposed to be about as imaginable. It's politics silencing science.
To be absolutely clear (because these days you have to issue a disclaimer): Yes, climate change is real. Yes, we made it worse.
OK. Calm down. Explain.
Let's take irrefutable scientific evidence first: Based on ice core atmospheric samples we know that CO2 levels, over the last 800,000 years (and likely a lot longer) have fluctuated up and down about 100 ppm. We also know, from the same data, in rough terms, that it takes about 25,000 years for a 100 ppm rise and about 50,000 years for it to drop back 100 ppm. Again, rough strokes. It has never happened much faster or much slower than this. Let's say +/- 50%.
OK, so, the planet, THE ENTIRE PLANET, without a single human being, building, machine, power plant, cars, trains, planes, ships, etc. The entire planet, needs about 50,000 +/- 25,000 years to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration by 100 ppm. Hard to refute this based on the very reliable evidence we have from ice core samples.
In science we have been known to use simple analytical techniques to get a sense of proportion about things, about what the answer should or might be. A simple example of this is to check the units after a calculation to make sure we ended up with apples rather than oranges. Another example is to check the proportion or scale of things. If you accelerate a 1 Kg object with a 1 N force you don't expect to reach the speed of light in one second. That answer would be wrong and it doesn't take a lot to understand this.
Back to earth and our problem.
Here's the answer politicians (and others) need to provide:
Given that a planet devoid of humans and anything human-made requires at least 50,000 years to reduce atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm:
How do you propose to "save the planet" in just a few years by any method whatsoever, even the elimination of all human life and human creations on earth?
That is the question someone has to answer.
People are proposing to accelerate a process that would require a planet-scale system from a rate of change of 100 ppm in 50,000 years to, say, 100 ppm in 50 to 100 years. That is a ONE-THOUSAND-FOLD improvement on the rate of change!
To press the point further: If humanity did not exist and all of our toys were gone it would take at least 50,000 years.
Very simple analysis reveals that the narratives out there are laughable at best.
What's the next question then?
OK, say we develop a technology that could accelerate this rate of change --again, PLANETARY SCALE-- a thousand fold.
How much energy would be required in order to reduce CO2 by 100 ppm in 50 to 100 years?
How many and what kind of resources? Mining? Manufacturing? Surface area? Water?
How much pollution will be generated by this process? Remember, it is going to have to run 24/7 for a hundred years.
Will the process itself raise the temperature of the planet? Remember, we are trying to affect a planetary-scale system, not your backyard.
What are the ecological and other side-effects of deploying such massive natural and energy resources over a century?
Again, simple analysis reveals that even if we transported the entire United States into space (beam me up!) nothing would change. In fact, CO2 levels would continue to rise exponentially.
These people are demented.
The scientific community needs to rise against this madness and speak the truth. When you have scientists scared for their lives not to tow the politically convenient line you have the makings of a disaster worse than what we purportedly tried to fix in the first place.
What's the solution then?
I don't know. Nobody knows. Because there is no money in approaching this problem from a perspective that will go counter to what politicians need to use to win elections. And so, any researcher daring to do so is likely to end-up driving Uber for a living.
Here's what we do know: Plant billions of trees! This is the natural technology WE KNOW captures CO2 and WE KNOW how to deploy at scale without massive ecological and other consequences. Deforestation is part of the reason humans have contributed to this issue. Plant damn trees!
Here's something else we know: It will take THOUSANDS of years for a meaningful reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere. Generations. Hundreds of generations. Humanity might not even be around by the time this happens. So, let's cool it with all the crazy stuff and virtue signaling and start talking about real scientific reality for a change.
Easy example: Make front lawns in a megalopolis like Los Angeles illegal. No more grass in front of homes. It's a waste of water. And, to add insult to injury, there's all those damn gas-powered mowers, blowers and trimmers. It's a travesty. Instead, require one to two trees per home in the front instead of grass. It will make streets beautiful and capture CO2. It's a better use of water and you eliminate mowers, blowers and trimmers burning gas for no reason at all.
Anyhow, I could go on. Cloudflare would help the universe far more if they planted trees like it's the end of the world. It isn't, of course, but if we keep talking about the wrong solutions it will be, eventually, at least for humans.
Disagree? No problem. Explain how you would accelerate the planetary-scale historical rate of change a thousand-fold and not turn the planet into an ecological disaster in the process. Simple.