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Science

Scientists Urge Creating Strategic Forest Reserves To Mitigate Climate Change, Protect Biodiversity (phys.org) 118

Posted by BeauHD from the protecting-America's-Amazon dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: The United States should immediately move to create a collection of strategic forest reserves in the Western U.S. to fight climate change and safeguard biodiversity, according to a scientific collaboration led by an Oregon State University ecologist. Bev Law, her College of Forestry colleague William Ripple and other scientists from around the West argue that climate change and biodiversity are inextricably linked and that strategic forest reserves would tackle both "emergencies" while also promoting the protection of water resources.

Describing the U.S.'s natural wooded systems as "America's Amazon" and forest protection as "the lowest-cost climate mitigation option," the researchers emphasize older forests' ability to accumulate massive amounts of carbon in trees, vegetation and soils, to provide homes for wildlife and to serve as sources of water for drinking and other uses. The scientists note that multiple nations have pledged to meet goals commonly known as 30x30 and 50x50; the former calls for protecting 30% of land and water areas globally by 2030, the latter 50% by 2050. Hitting the 50x50 target is widely viewed as necessary for ensuring the Earth's biodiversity, the researchers say. [...] The scientists note that multiple nations have pledged to meet goals commonly known as 30x30 and 50x50; the former calls for protecting 30% of land and water areas globally by 2030, the latter 50% by 2050. Hitting the 50x50 target is widely viewed as necessary for ensuring the Earth's biodiversity, the researchers say.

The framework produces preservation priority rankings by using spatial metrics of biodiversity, carbon stocks and accumulation under climate change and future vulnerability to drought or wildfire. In the West the highest priority forestlands are mainly under federal ownership, with substantial areas controlled by private entities and state and tribal governments. Many federal forest lands would reach GAP 2 protection simply by phasing out grazing, mining and logging and strengthening protection via administrative rule. Inventoried roadless areas make up almost 42 million acres of national forest in the West and are readily available for permanent protection. The researchers lay out their framework for developing the reserves in a paper published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

"GAP 1, as defined by the U.S. Geological Survey, refers to permanent protection such as wilderness areas and national parks, where natural disturbances such as fire can proceed without interference or are mimicked via management activities," notes Phys.Org. "On GAP 2 lands, uses or practices that degrade the quality of existing natural communities, such as road building, may be allowed, and suppression of natural disturbances is allowed as well."
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Scientists Urge Creating Strategic Forest Reserves To Mitigate Climate Change, Protect Biodiversity More

Scientists Urge Creating Strategic Forest Reserves To Mitigate Climate Change, Protect Biodiversity

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  • Pretty good (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @10:43PM (#62081589)
    I'll never argue against planting trees. Biodiversity? Sure. Oxygen production? Natch.

    Carbon? How many times to we have to go over this? unless you sequester the dead trees away and seal them off, trees are at best, carbon neutral.

    As soon as the tree or other vegetation dies, it starts releasing carbon that it took up, back into the atmosphere, in the act of rotting, or the fires that are actually part of the forest cycle. The dead or burnt trees recycle needed nutrients.

    All part of a healthy forest. I suppose we could try to emulate the carboniferous age and bury the dead stuff. We'd have ot find a new way to nourish the forests though, It's not likely to turn into coal either. A lignin eating fungus evolved around the end of the carboniferous age and we won't have much new coal. There is some question about that llast, but we'll have to wait a long time to find out.

    • The reason for trees being neutral is lignicolous fungus, which breaks down bark / wood. It was not always so. The reason we have coal is because for 300 million years, plants competing for sunlight learned to grow bark and wood, becoming trees, long before life learned to make lignicolous fungus to digest wood. For 300 million years, wood became buried and fossilized into coal. IF we want to repeat that process, we should move to eradicate lignicolous fungus from our biodiversity. I think with some years o
      • By the way, the name of the period to which I am referring is called the Carboniferous period, and only lasted 60 million years, but occurred 300 million years ago.
        • Do you have a life?
      • Coal is not the only carbon reservoir buried in the earth. The vast majority of petroleum comes from plankton, so it certainly is possible to capture carbon even using highly digestible organisms. You just need the right conditions. We could in fact deposit billions of tons today if there were enough incentive.

      • The reason for trees being neutral is lignicolous fungus, which breaks down bark / wood. It was not always so.

        Well put.

      • What we really should do is embrace the real levels of carbon in the biosphere, and return all that sequestered carbon back at once. We became a civilization when the earth was both unnaturally carbon-poor and cold, in contrast to its richer, warmer history. That is where we need to return to. The sea levels will rise, but the poles will become ice free.

        Humans and everything alive today evolved to thrive in a carbon-poor environment and cooler climate. We can possibly adapt but only slowly.
        The CO2 likely won't rise to the level to become toxic to humans but if the temperature rises too quickly we won't be able to adapt fast enough.
        Even if humans could move to the poles, the soil in the north is very poor and we would have a hard time growing the food needed for our
        current population in the rocky poor soil of the north and the engineering needed to move th

    • The main thing they are trying to do (according to the article) is stop mining and logging in our forests. You shouldn't think of this as creating more forests or planting trees, the net change would likely be very small (since loggers replant).

      So if you want to support them, it should be because you oppose mining and logging. I don't know enough about these activities to say whether their proposal is a good thing or not.

      • Isn't sensible logging actually good for carbon removal though? By cutting down trees and replanting the new trees absorb a lot of carbon as they grow and the removed logs are turned into wood products that last a lot longer before releasing their carbon than they would if just left to rot or burn in a forest fire. Essentially logging lets us store carbon as housing and furniture etc.

        • Isn't sensible logging actually good for carbon removal though? By cutting down trees and replanting the new trees absorb a lot of carbon as they grow and the removed logs are turned into wood products that last a lot longer before releasing their carbon than they would if just left to rot or burn in a forest fire. Essentially logging lets us store carbon as housing and furniture etc.

          Just guessing, but there is a lot of carbon release in that whole process, as well as a lot of sawdust produced. I've seen some huge piles outside the lumber mills, just rotting away.

          coating and preserving the wood slows the process down, but after a while, you have to take some extra measures. You usually don't want to sit on 200 year old chairs.

          I think aside from whatever carbon is released during the harvest process, that this can slow down, but not eliminate the re-release of Carbon.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            Those piles of sawdust can take a long time to rot away. Hiking around here, I once came across a huge pile of sawdust up the mountain, no sign of the original mill and 80 years since the mountain had been logged and the sawdust looked fresh, probably cedar sawdust.
            Burning sawdust to heat homes is pretty popular here now too. While it does release the CO2, it is more greener then burning natural gas for heat being close to carbon neutral.

          • Fine. Let's say that you only harvest half the carbon and you only keep it out of the cycle for 50-100 years. Logging has then still increased the carbon capture of a forest by a factor of 50-100% if the average life of a tree is ~50 years. Even if those estimates are highly optimistic any level harvesting of wood for housing and furniture is still better than not doing so since whatever you harvest will last longer before rotting than it would were it left in the forest.

            • Fine.

              When my wife says "fine" it means definitely not fine.

              Let's say that you only harvest half the carbon and you only keep it out of the cycle for 50-100 years. Logging has then still increased the carbon capture of a forest by a factor of 50-100% if the average life of a tree is ~50 years. Even if those estimates are highly optimistic any level harvesting of wood for housing and furniture is still better than not doing so since whatever you harvest will last longer before rotting than it would were it left

        • I assume the proposal will have little impact on carbon in the atmosphere either way.

      • The main thing they are trying to do (according to the article) is stop mining and logging in our forests.

        Yeah, well to Hell with that.

        I'm all for planting more and more trees,as long as we can eventually cut some of them down and use them. That's why we manage forests.

        The underlying attitude of so many of these "Save the Planet!" schemes, as George Carlin referred to them, is that man is a disease, and if we can't make him disappear completely, then he should at least have the good graces to stay in his cave and never come out and and do or use anything.

    • Carbon? How many times to we have to go over this? unless you sequester the dead trees away and seal them off, trees are at best, carbon neutral.

      If that's the yardstick, then quit bitching when I burn coal.. I'm just returning carbon to the ecosystem that was removed when said trees (and plants) were buried.

      Point is, coal seams are carbon that was sealed away, permanently...

      • Carbon? How many times to we have to go over this? unless you sequester the dead trees away and seal them off, trees are at best, carbon neutral.

        If that's the yardstick, then quit bitching when I burn coal.. I'm just returning carbon to the ecosystem that was removed when said trees (and plants) were buried.

        Point is, coal seams are carbon that was sealed away, permanently...

        The question was one of sequestering carbon. So we would have to perform a modern day analog of the carboniferous age. You don't plant trees, have them take up carbon, then they release it back after they expire.

        As for coal seams being permanently sequestered, I can take you on a tour of mid northern PA, to see how permanent that sequestering was. 8^)

    • How about we have less babies?

      • How about we have more babies [juliansimon.com]?

        • How about we have more babies [juliansimon.com]?

          Having children is no longer a good scheme, unless you like supporting your ex wife, and seeing your children grow up in stop motion.

          Stats don't lie about that. I been married a long time, but that's just luck. If I was a young guy today, there are a lot better life options than relationships.

      • How about we have less babies?

        I think nature is taking care of that. Testosterone levels are dropping like a rock, and we're still encouraged to eat more phytoestrogen food.

    • Re:Pretty good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @02:38AM (#62081943) Homepage Journal

      trees are at best, carbon neutral.

      Over the long term, sure. But a tree can sequester atmospheric carbon for centuries, which is roughly the same timescale as the half-life of carbon in the atmosphere. Putting carbon into trees may be only buying time, but if you buy enough time that has a number of worthwhile effects, especially if you're reducing emissions at the same time. The real problem is that tree planting programs are often badly designed. The trees die, which is worse than useless because you're emitting carbon to plant them. In some cases they encourage landowners to cut down existing natural forests to plant new trees.

      What's really important isn't the *trees* it's the *forest*. A mature forest may be in an equilibrium where it emits and absorbs equal amounts of carbon, but it *contains* a large amount of carbon that is better there than in the atmosphere. Losing a mature forest acreage is not a carbon neutral event; it puts CO2 into the atmosphere that has no place to go, except to slowly diffuse into the ocean. Gaining mature forest acreage stores carbon indefinitely, even if that acreage *eventually* reaches an equilibrium and stores no more *additional* carbon.

      The most important and cost effective thing to do with forests is to conserve existing ones. After that restoring additional forest acreage to a natural state is a worthwhile goal, but it's not simple, and it's not the same as planting trees.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Forest does a lot more to impact climate than just being a carbon sink. They do a lot manage atmospheric moisture as well. Even if it is fairly local in scope.

        When all the hemlocks in Shenandoah died, the temperatures of the streams leaving the mountains went up in some cases 10 degrees f on average in the summer months. Now maybe the total rainfall hasn't changed a lot but ask any of the old folks in the forest adjacent towns and villages and they will tell you as the forest makeup has changed due to inva

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Sure. There's flood control too. That's obviously a local issue, but a local issue made worse by global conditions and multiplied across countless locations.

        • Everyone is so hung up macro issues like atmospheric carbon being the drivers of climate change they can't see cause in their own back yards, which might be every bit as impactful.

          Big time. Things do not stay the same. Swamps change, beavers create lakes that silt up and create pockets of fertile ground that grow different plants. Forest fires, which destroy trees, also nourish and sweeten the soil, and provide for new growth. invasive insects come in and alter the treescape. Stasis is just about impossible.

          Up north of us, an a relative wilderness area, there was a big fire around 20 years ago. Many thousands of acres burned. Place looked like Mars. What was amazing is that Natu

      • A mature forest may be in an equilibrium where it emits and absorbs equal amounts of carbon

        Is it? If that were true then where do coal deposits come from? A new and growing forest may absorb carbon a lot more rapidly than a mature one but surely even a mature one still absorbs carbon and sequesters it in the soil.

        • A mature forest may be in an equilibrium where it emits and absorbs equal amounts of carbon

          Is it? If that were true then where do coal deposits come from? A new and growing forest may absorb carbon a lot more rapidly than a mature one but surely even a mature one still absorbs carbon and sequesters it in the soil.

          Largely from lignin, which was buried, then compressed, and over time formed coal as it carbonized. This will probably never happen again, as a lignin eating fungus evolved eventually. And any carbon in the soil is soon released.

    • Re:Pretty good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @06:26AM (#62082273) Journal

      Carbon? How many times to we have to go over this? unless you sequester the dead trees away and seal them off, trees are at best, carbon neutral.

      No.

      A tree in a steady state forest is carbon neutral. But the scientists here are proposing planting forests not individual trees. If you plant a whole new forest it sucks up a load of carbon and then stores it in trees and then the soil: trees die and become part of the soil and while eventually they break down it's slow and good soil has a huge amount of organic content.

      A new forest where one did not exist before will suck up a lot of carbon to create the forest. It won't keep sucking it up in perpetuity, but it will take hundreds or thousands of years before it becomes steady state.

      • And you can rolling harvest trees for wood for houses or other quasi-permanent uses.

        And by the way, old housing or just new trees, feel free to dump them in non-biodegrading landfills. That "we're running out of room" is leftover innumeracy from the 1970s. I can't count the times environmental discussions include virtue signalling of having your own compost pile.

      • Carbon? How many times to we have to go over this? unless you sequester the dead trees away and seal them off, trees are at best, carbon neutral.

        No.

        A tree in a steady state forest is carbon neutral. But the scientists here are proposing planting forests not individual trees. If you plant a whole new forest it sucks up a load of carbon and then stores it in trees and then the soil: trees die and become part of the soil and while eventually they break down it's slow and good soil has a huge amount of organic content.

        A new forest where one did not exist before will suck up a lot of carbon to create the forest. It won't keep sucking it up in perpetuity, but it will take hundreds or thousands of years before it becomes steady state.

        Seems like we could turn this into snowball earth just by covering most of the planet with trees, they will suck up all the CO2, we won't be able to get it back, and we'll enter a new ice age, because that CO2 is effectively gone for thousands of years, not to be returned until then.

        We better be careful that we don't kill ourselves by taking all of that CO2 out of the air.

        Check out the carbon cycle.

    • Trees and other vegetation is probably carbon neutral. Im all for keeping large areas of green which in turn helps reduce sprawl and paving over land that creates heat islands during summer. I wonder if more concrete and asphalt contributes to a higher average earth temp during the summer months since the planet cools less at night. I wish that every intersection in the US didnt have concrete paved over convenience stores and oversized parking lots. Its an eyesore and stupid use of land.
    • Not a good counter-argument. Industrialisation has & is reducing the quantity of living organisms on our planet. Life here is made out of carbon from our atmosphere so the more life there is the less CO2 there is in the atmosphere. A few more billion tonnes of forest means quite a lot less CO2 in the atmosphere. Yes, it will eventually die & decay but will be recycled & replaced by new life. It's a cycle. What matters is the overall tonnage of CO2 sequestered by life at any given moment.

      • Not a good counter-argument. Industrialisation has & is reducing the quantity of living organisms on our planet. Life here is made out of carbon from our atmosphere so the more life there is the less CO2 there is in the atmosphere. A few more billion tonnes of forest means quite a lot less CO2 in the atmosphere. Yes, it will eventually die & decay but will be recycled & replaced by new life. It's a cycle. What matters is the overall tonnage of CO2 sequestered by life at any given moment.

        I fear you might have taken up some incorrect notions, because you should know that if there was no CO2 in the atmosphere, the average temperature of the earth would be below the freezing point of water. Life here? Maybe around oceanic vents. But nothing like what we have now.

        The carboniferous age had a lot of Carbon cycling, and likewise oxygen in the atmosphere gave rise to a lot of life. Eventually, enough was sequestered that the average temperatures dropped. Note these things are interspersed with o

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      Carbon? How many times to we have to go over this? unless you sequester the dead trees away and seal them off, trees are at best, carbon neutral.

      That is grossly wrong and you have no idea what you are talking about.

      As soon as the tree or other vegetation dies, it starts releasing carbon that it took up

      False and misleading. The tree is continually casting off portions of itself, even evergreens shed leaves, and releasing a portion of the carbon it's mostly made of all the time. Yet trees are carbon-negative over their lifetimes for multiple reasons. One of these is that they produce a root structure which is underground and which is a substantial fraction of the mass of the part of the tree which you perceive above ground. I am talking

      • Carbon? How many times to we have to go over this? unless you sequester the dead trees away and seal them off, trees are at best, carbon neutral.

        That is grossly wrong and you have no idea what you are talking about.

        Educate me on how trees sequester, then never release the carbon portion of their substance. Hey - If I'm wrong, I'll admit it, but most of y'all here just tell me I'm w wrong. Here's the carbon cycle - tell us how that iis grossly wrong, and they have no idea what they are talking about.

        Explain how forests are carbon negative, that is removing Carbon dioxide from the air forever. If they return it in some way, to be carbon negative, some of it must be gone at timescales that are really long, like the ag

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      That's only partially true. Some of the carbon does get locked up in the soil and there are still anaerobic acidic swamps where the coal forming process still happens, often known as peat bogs.

    • I'll never argue against planting trees. Biodiversity?

      How about biologically-diverse trees and not fucking clones??

  • Strategic Branch of the Military (Score:3)

    by FeltLion ( 1289024 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @11:00PM (#62081617) Journal
    If the U.S. was actually serious about climate change they would create a branch of the military dedicated solely to defending ecosystems, with all of the budget that the rest of the military enjoys using to maintain billion dollar death machines "just in case" some obsolete form of warfare should suddenly become relevant again.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Arethan ( 223197 )

      Defending ecosystems. Interesting. Can you demonstrate how this could also support the military industrial complex? That's what military is really for lately.

      • Plant bombs.

        You think it's a joke, but hear me out.

        Set up bomb plants that literally create bombs to drop in uninhabited areas filled with seeds for plants. You get to feed the big names in the military industrial complex since they have the bomb tech pretty well figured out, feed a research branch to figure out how to explode seeds into the ground without destroying them, and feed the ecologically inclined by planting new forests. It can even include ground-cover seeds in the package to keep the trees fr

    • Re:Strategic Branch of the Military (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @12:21AM (#62081775)

      The US Department of Defense has been doing more work on protecting the environment than the Department of Energy. A big hurdle is Democrats in Congress. The US Navy wants nuclear powered frigates and cruisers. The Coast Guard wants nuclear powered ice breakers. The USAF, USSF, USMC, and US Army want nuclear powered fuel synthesis at sea and on shore. They what solar powered tents so they have more power without need for noisy generators that give away their position. The want small nuclear reactor they can hide under a aircraft bomb shelter.

      If you want better defense then end the bio-fuel programs. Make them go all on on the Navy seawater to jet fuel project. Every ship over 5000 ton displacement should be nuclear powered and have the means for fuel synthesis. This should put the end of the oiler as a ship that brings fuel to the fleet. It should go to the fleet to get fuel for forward opertiing bases.

      The Oiler job was primarily to bring fuel and lubricating oil; o the fleet. That changed to add bringing ammunition, parts,, spare uniforms, boots, food, mail, and maybe extra vehicles.. Bu if they are not bringing fuel then they can bring more food. bigger ammunition that might have to com by a special transport., more mail, more fresh water.. If there is no fuel on the oilier because ships are running nuclear then in peace time if it bringing more spare parts, field upgrades. More comfort items., more mail, more movies, more clothes, more water. Then they can leave with more fuel, take off along with more spare parts, more mails, more ammunition for the next stop. A stop at shore with need for this.

      In war the oilers will be carrying fuel as the ships might not make enough on their own. They will come with ammunition, possible water. medical supplies. They dump anyhing they don't need for personal protection on shore before going home.

      With nuclear powered ships, zero carbon synthesized fuels, and plenty of firepower to defend our trees I believe a nuclear navy will be quite effective in protecting hr environment.

      WE don't need a branch of the military to d this. Every existing branch will play a part.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by smap77 ( 1022907 )

        Thanks for the very limited insight into the wonderful world of a responsible nuclear powered military.

        Decommissioned military nuclear powerplants go to Hanford.

        Hanford has actively leaking plutonium waste tanks that the DOE is at best dragging their heels at actually fixing. Dragging for Years.
        https://ecology.wa.gov/About-u... [wa.gov]

        It doesn't take a scientist to play connect the dots when it comes to responsible spend nuclear management to say... the US is also not a responsible player.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Any tech that the military develops will be classified and unavailable for civilian use. They don't care about the environment, they just want a military advantage. No way they will give their enemies the capability to turn water into fuel.

        Naval reactors are useless for civilian use too, they cost far too much to build and operate.

        • Any tech that the military develops will be classified and unavailable for civilian use.

          It can't stay that way forever.

          They don't care about the environment, they just want a military advantage.

          Right, the military doesn't care but the people in Congress that fund them do. Or at least should. The US Navy wants nuclear powered cruisers for their military advantage. The US Coast Guard wants nuclear powered ice breakers for their endurance. Congress should give those to them for their lower environmental impact. The fact that the US Navy had nuclear powered cruisers before and don't now shows that Congress hasn't much cared about the environment. They appear to wan

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            How long? We need solutions now. Can't wait decades.

            • How long? We need solutions now. Can't wait decades.

              The hurdles to nuclear power are political, those hurdles will fall in the next election.

  • In the West you say? (Score:3)

    by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @11:16PM (#62081649) Journal

    Well, at least we do have a solid amount of federal land out there... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • I wondered about that, what are they proposing since so much of the forest in the west already is protected. They core is that they want to give it even more protection, and not allow mining, logging, and grazing on the federal land.

      • They core is that they want to give it even more protection, and not allow mining, logging, and grazing on the federal land.

        Eliminating the mining, especially the open pit mining, would be a good idea. Most of the logging, likewise. But eliminating the grazing is not a good plan. Grazers keep down underbrush and grasses which cause fires to be severe and spread. And frankly, there is a place for responsible logging on public lands. Unfortunately, the government works for corporations and not for The People, so it permits loggers to shit all over our wilderness spaces. The loggers can provide a service by creating access roads an

        • But eliminating the grazing is not a good plan. Grazers keep down underbrush and grasses which cause fires to be severe and spread.

          That may be true in some habitats, but in the Ponderosa pine forests of the SouthWest, the underbrush and grasses compete with saplings to prevent an overabundance. The little bit of old growth areas left have about 40 large trees per acre with grassy understories and tolerate fires well. Areas that have been historically grazed and logged have more like 400 smaller trees per acre with little understory and they support intense crown fires. I've seen the difference in forest structure and it's really obv

  • The researchers replied sorry, you're not new sexy and we can't take credit for you.

  • Great! Now allow people to defend them. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by javaman235 ( 461502 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @12:16AM (#62081769)

    On each few acres allocate 1000 square feet a homesteader can use, provided he or she commits to preserving the forest around, clearing the dead wood to prevent fires, etc. Call them humbabas. Then I will believe its not about artificially inflating real estate values by creating land scarcity.

    • Why? So the homesteader can have a dozen babies that they will home school into evangelical Christian assholes?
  • Why just the Western U.S.? How about we preserve some Appalachian forests too?

    • Why just the Western U.S.? How about we preserve some Appalachian forests too?

      Ok, lets say we do that, but then answer me this: From where would we then source our 'clean coal'?? The very resource where in lies the future of the global energy sector?

  • What a bunch of stupid "scientists". We're completely fucked and nobody will admit it. The world economy relies on an increasing population and that will eventually destroy us. There's nothing any of us can do except pop up some corn and enjoy the ride.

  • Forests: Good. Timing: Way too late. (Score:3)

    by mrthoughtful ( 466814 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @07:39AM (#62082411) Journal
    The UK government’s ONS produces an annual energy flow as a Sankey chart. https://assets.publishing.serv... [service.gov.uk] My interpretation of this is that, in terms of the energy production and imports for the year, 18.9 out of 246.5mto (mto = million tonnes of oil equivalent) energy was produced (or imported) that does not directly involve releasing CO2 into the air. Something like 7.6%. Which suggests that 92.4% of the energy produced/imported in 2020 does directly involve releasing CO2 into the air. This is despite the UK government saying that it is committed to reducing the UK carbon footprint. Given the evidence it follows that there is no chance whatsoever of preventing significant climate change or CO2 levels. Likewise there appears to be enough fossil-based energy remaining for us to destroy the human habitability of the planet before having to cold turkey our addiction to it. We aren't even close to preventing climate change. My own quick projections indicate that CO2 will continue to rise - even accelerate. Note also, following an article by Azuma et al. (cf. https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]) that human physiology begins to show deleterious responses to CO2 at just 500+ ppm which, while having nothing to do with climate, is a pretty horrific finding, given that current projections expect us to reach 500ppm by 2060; (bear in mind these values are for external averages - indoors always show higher ppm than outdoors). There is no long term future for humanity at all - we may have a few hundred - even a few thousand - years left, but atmospheric CO2 lasts a really long time. However life (in some form or another) will continue long after humanity has asphyxiated itself through it’s deep dependency upon fossil fuels. So yes, let's grow some forests.
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  • US Woodland Coverage is increasing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @08:15AM (#62082493) Journal

    The amount of forestation in the USA has been increasing since 1910, when the peak of deforestation occurred in this country. That's over a century now of reforestation within this country. In the rural county I live in now, most of the mountains were deforested in the 1800s to produce charcoal to operate crude cold-blast iron furnaces to process iron ore in-situ because roads and rail didn't exist to transport the ore out. Now, these mountains are are fully forested again, and while they can't be considered either virgin or old-growth, they are fully matured trees and very dense like they were originally.

    In this video I shot a few weeks ago, all the mountains shown in the first minute of the video had been deforested to feed the furnace at this site (that specific furnace is shown 3 minutes into the video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] As you can see, it's all dense forest now.

    Farmland in many mid-west areas have been reclaimed by nature. It isn't profitable for very small family-operated farms of just a hundred acres anymore. A village I lived in Ohio growing up had around 100 acres of dense woodland next to our house, which had been farmland in the 1800s. The long neat rows of stones piled a few feet high between the fields are now hidden away in the woods. The whole area has been reforested with large trees and you'd never imagine it had been farmland at one point. Farming has become more efficient and larger-scale, so many areas deforested for smale-scale farming have returned back to nature.

    I really don't think it is necessary for the government to buy up even more random land. Most of the kind of land the government does buy (in my county there are natural reserves of tens of thousands of acres, owned variously by the town, state and federal government) are mountainous terrain that can't be used for anything because of the geography.

    • Increasing coverage is a good thing, but only part of the story. Mature forests sequester more carbon than young ones, though this is counterintuitive at first glance it makes sense once you know that all growth occurs in the cambium and older trees have more of that. (It's a thin layer just beneath the bark.) So it's critical that we protect the oldest forests, not just that we increase forest extent. They are also more resistant to fire, although that still depends on clearing of the underbrush which used

  • National and State Park systems.
    • Yes, which we allow businesses contracts to extract resources from - oil, timber . . . also, you have to space them semi-evenly across the planet.

      I've been to a few countries with no trees in the countryside.
  • You see, they want to buy it for "research." This seems like the perfect kind. https://www.forestry.oregonstate.edu/elliott-state-forest [oregonstate.edu]

    Oh wait, https://www.opb.org/article/2021/09/08/elliott-state-forest-oregon-university-research/ [opb.org]

    Anyway OSU is in bed with forestry, so take this aspirational horseshit with as much salt as it takes to down it.

    I can't say about the researcher, probably an idealist. When's she's reminded her money (OSU's anyway) comes from the foresters, this'll quiet down.

  • The scientists note that multiple nations have pledged to meet goals commonly known as 30x30 and 50x50; the former calls for protecting 30% of land and water areas globally by 2030, the latter 50% by 2050.

    So the "plan" is to "protect" 50% of land by 2050... Seriously?

    So walk me through this math - we need to dedicate 50% of the US land mass to "growing trees" in order to "save the planet"?

    The idea is the government will legislate away the development rights for half the land in America, with the expectation that every other country will follow-suit and like-wise agree not to develop 50% of their land as well? Seems unlikely.

  • We don't want to create another California.

  • Too late for 'natural' wildfires (Score:3)

    by marcle ( 1575627 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @12:29PM (#62083329)

    Because we've suppressed wildfires for so long, and so much brush and other flammable material has built up, and because drought and climate change has made the forests tinder-dry and high intensity windstorms more frequent, what used to be a 'natural' wildfire that a healthy forest could easily recover from is now a much bigger disaster with a much longer recovery period.

    The goals expressed in the article are laudable, but there needs to be much more emphasis on practical ways to achieve them.

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