Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @08:21AM
(#42696826)
I don't know that getting more trees than you lost is a useful or effective measure against climate change. It's a good thing, certainly, but I imagine the amount of carbon we're pumping into the atmosphere requires more than a steady state of trees. I wonder how much of the world we'd need to cover with trees in order to offset our carbon production, certainly more than we've had during modern civilization.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by internet_points on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @08:29AM
(#42696911)
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-many-new-trees-would-we-... says a new forest the size of New Mexico might offset the US's emissions. Or not. It depends. But first thing to do would be not to cut down the existing ones.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @08:43AM
(#42697097)
They say it would take a forest the size of New Mexico "to account for one year of American emissions" - given that trees both process CO2 during respiration and act as sinks when they grow, I can't tell if they'd be able to offset those emissions the next year as well or if we'd need a new forest.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by nfw2 on Thursday January 16, 2025 @03:48AM
(#42722988)
Trees produce CO2 during respiration and intake it during photosynthesis. The carbon captured during photosynthesis will be offset to some degree by the tree's own need to consume glucose.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by baq on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @08:25AM
(#42696869)
Basically we need to grow trees as fast as possible, cut them down and bury them deep, exactly the opposite of what we’re doing when mining fossil fuels. No wonder there’s exactly zero people doing that.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by gs17 on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @11:20AM
(#42699243)
Why are they focusing on making bio-oil to throw away instead of biochar that has many known non-fuel uses? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar#Applications
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by baq on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @10:34AM
(#42698488)
Nice!
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by pfdietz on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @10:11AM
(#42698151)
There's been a proposal to bury them not-so-deep, but saturated with salt to prevent decomposition. It's not necessary to sequester the carbon forever, just on a time scale for natural absorption of the CO2 into oceans and then into carbonates (which is something like 100,000 years, IIRC).
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by ieidkeheb on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @08:19AM
(#42710472)
So that someone in the future can discover these reserves and use it as fuel?!?!!?!
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by vixen99 on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @09:12AM
(#42710946)
No, by then it's at least conceivable that cold fusion will by then be a
reality. If an individual cracks this problem maybe they'll offer a paper ending with a comment akin to Watson & Cricks 1953 paper on DNA. "It has not escaped our attention that ..." Or words to that effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGgovWTBoWY (Hossenfelder) https://lenr-canr.org/ (Library)
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by pfdietz on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @10:22AM
(#42711862)
It's wonderful how pseudoscience is a renewable resource. Ghosts, then ESP, then pyramid power, and now cold fusion.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by abakker on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @11:13PM
(#42707226)
https://www.livingcarbon.com - they actually genetically engineered trees to grow faster.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by Atiscant on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @07:54AM
(#42710318)
Biochar is exactly doing that and is an active area of research in many places. There is several ongoing projects also showing that biochar can improve soil quality and crop yields.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by thfuran on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @08:50AM
(#42697181)
We need to be building a mountain range out of diamonds.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @09:04AM
(#42697327)
Can you imagine the extraterrestrial archaeologist trying to explain that?
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by bluGill on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @09:36AM
(#42697679)
No - stupid slow speed of light stops so many interesting science fiction imaginations.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @09:56AM
(#42697947)
Reality is very much a bummer.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by goatlover on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @03:53AM
(#42708811)
Some of those interesting scifi scenarios would not be so good for us.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by lupusreal on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @06:30AM
(#42709765)
It's true that the speed of light prevents it from actually happening, but you should still be able to imagine it.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by internet_points on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @03:45AM
(#42708765)
The nice thing about making diamonds as opposed to coal or bio-oil is that it's quite hard to burn the diamond, so less chance of someone getting tempted into using these enormous reserves that are just sitting there, depreciating, to fuel the helicopter of their bitcoin-mining luxury cruise ship or create an ultra-fast pizza delivery service using rocket launchers
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by tomrod on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @08:24AM
(#42696851)
Depends on where the carbon goes. Into a home? Locked up for a long time. Under a cooking stove? Released.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @08:36AM
(#42697015)
But does it help worrying about where we're putting logs while we're burning fossil fuels? We need to plant enough trees to offset all the trees we're burning, but also all the gasoline, oil, and natural gas we're burning as well as all the concrete we're producing. The math seems like it'll never balance.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by argiopetech on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @09:11AM
(#42697400)
I did the back of the napkin math below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42697255
Barring mistakes, it balances if we had avoided reducing the planet's vegetation by 20% since 1900. So much for that.
That's obviously not "the" solution, but it seems like reducing fuel burn while increasing forestation would benefit us beyond what is commonly expected.
Re:Plant CO2 uptake rises by nearly one third in new global ...
by SketchySeaBeast on Tuesday January 14, 2025 @09:15AM
(#42697445)
Interesting math, so it is mathematically possible. Important to note, 1 billion hectares is just over the size of all of the United States.