36.5 Trees

[DaveP]

I was talking to a Dutch friend about the implications  of living below sea level during the coming climate change.

She found this quite depressing so I decided to do some calculations to establish the scale of the problem.

Being a practical man, rather than an academic, I decided to calculate how many trees we would need to plant to absorb the excess carbon in the atmosphere.

If there are 410 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere now and we want to reduce that to the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm, then we have to remove  130 ppm.

According to Wiki, each ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere contains 2.13 gigatonnes of carbon, so to put this into ordinary numbers, that is 2,130,000,000 tonnes x 130.  Which is 277,000,000,000 Tonnes of carbon that need to be removed to get us back to pre-industrial levels.

The average weight of carbon in a large tree is roughly one tonne, so we need to plant 277,000,000,000 trees to absorb the excess carbon.

The world population at present is 7,600,000,000, so each man, woman and child would have to plant 277/7.6 = 36.5 large trees.

There is also the problem that many people live in areas where such trees would not grow, so others would have to plant extra trees for those populations.

This does not sound like an impossible task, but it would obviously need a worldwide organisation in order for it to happen and an industrial scale response.  The land for that many trees would need to be found and it would obviously cause problems for those that lose it.

But the problem is not really the practical scale of the task, it is doable, but the motivation and organisation for such a mission is fraught with difficulty.  A campaign needs to be started and a bandwagon needs to begin rolling.  We have the social media for this, but not the spark to make it happen, who is going to listen to me, I don't even do social media?

I think that the carbon tax should be put to practical use by paying companies to plant trees on our behalf, richer people could pay for more trees, a computing system on the scale of Google, Pay Pal or Face Book could handle the project.  All the practical and digital tools are there , it just needs some bright spark to put it all together.

DaveP

 

[cyrano]

A 4 km wide band of trees is being planted south of the Sahara desert as we speak. Not for carbon absorption, but to stop the desert from expanding any further. It seems to work...

 

[zamproject]

Hello Dave

That's interesting math !
Sill the main problem unsolvable... whatever form you put the C, we have too many at the earth surface as we extract more or less all the surplus we now see in the atmosphere (and ocean for about 30%) in CO2 form, the balance is broken, whatever we do.
So to go further we have to plant those 36 and half tree per human, cut them when big and pull them back underground, in the geological layer from 20 to 300 million years ago ...
We f..ked it up, that's it  :-\

Best
Zam

 

[ruffrecords]

I was talking to a Dutch friend about the implications  of living below sea level during the coming climate change.

I do wish people would stop talking about climate change as if it were something new. The climate has been changing for aeons.

If you mean global warming then say so. That also is nothing new. It has been going on ever since the last ice age as have rising sea levels. 15000 years ago the North Sea was a verdant plain abundant with life. It didn't flood when mankind began burning fossil fuels - it did that a long time before.

If you means anthropogenic global warming then say so. The existence of this is of course unproven.

Cheers

Ian

 

[DaveP]

If you mean anthropomorphic global warming then say so. The existence of this is of course unproven

Sorry for the confusion over the naming.
Yes, I was talking about canceling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by Man, so it should correctly be called anthropomorphic CO2.

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

Sorry for the confusion over the naming.
Yes, I was talking about canceling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by Man, so it should correctly be called anthropomorphic CO2.

DaveP

;D ;D ;D

I don't know if this helps but last year I planted three trees, two apple and one peach. The peach tree did not survive (rip).  ;D ;D :'(

This year I planted more trees; another peach tree, a fig tree, two plum trees (they don't self pollinate), and another apple tree.    ??? ??? ??? ??? ???

This time  I didn't name the trees until I see if they thrive (I had named the first peach tree hillary).

I do not question your math but the thesis is suspect ( too simple).

When the next ice age comes we would probably appreciate a little warming, but we are more developed than during the last ice age so should fare a lot better. We are clever primates. Of course the next ice age is not guaranteed either, (the future hasn't happened yet) but there is a well established pattern in the geologic record. 

JR

 

[PRR]

Uhhh... trees do not destroy CO2.

I am half-way to a goal of KILLING about the 36 trees you propose. A near equal number have just died since I bought the place. They have been dying since the clear-cut in 1944, and for thousands of years before that.

A tree does absorb CO2 in life to make carbohydrates. But a tree does not last forever. What happens then? Decay processes chew-up the carbohydrates and CO2 is released back to the air. I look at old dead-falls and see this is largely done in 20 years, though over a century for the last bits to fade away.

If I actually wanted to invest time/money to sequester CO2 "forever", I would dig deep into the rock, bury the trunks and limbs, and heap our nasty clay (nearly impermeable) onto the hole. Though "impermeable" may only be a couple of centuries. Giant Zip-Lock baggies? Rockets to shoot the trees into outer space? (Hmmmmm... safer than an axe?) But excavators or rockets probably need more carbon (from long-sequestered oil) than is in the trees.

In places not so tree-filthy as my place, trees do have uses. But thinking they can null-out the crap from our fossil fires is mis-thought.

 

[DaveP]

I don't often disagree with you PRR, but on this occasion I must, but you may have misunderstood my meaning.

If all these trees were planted, then they would remove that much carbon from the atmosphere as they grow and accumulate mass.

I think you are talking about a longer term effect whereby the trees die and decay and release carbon back into the atmosphere.

My point was that the trees would remove CO2 over the rest of this century as we face the worst effects as the human population reaches its maximum.  Hopefully by 2100, the world, or what's left of it, would have established a more sustainable method of creating energy by then.

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

I don't often disagree with you PRR, but on this occasion I must, but you may have misunderstood my meaning.

If all these trees were planted, then they would remove that much carbon from the atmosphere as they grow and accumulate mass.

I think you are talking about a longer term effect whereby the trees die and decay and release carbon back into the atmosphere.

My point was that the trees would remove CO2 over the rest of this century as we face the worst effects as the human population reaches its maximum.  Hopefully by 2100, the world, or what's left of it, would have established a more sustainable method of creating energy by then.

DaveP

Maybe get them to stop clear cutting the amazon jungle (if there is any left).

It is not quite this simple.

Planting trees should make you feel better. (I do it for fresh fruit, but I am a little optimistic to expect pie anytime soon.).

I did some research to see how much "climate harm"  : I am doing by burning my downed tree limbs every weekend. Apparently burning dead tree limbs is considered carbon neutral since the dead wood would naturally decay and release the carbon to the atmosphere over time.

JR

 

[Phrazemaster]

Let's keep in mind that CO2 is not the primary driver of anthropogenic global warming - my understanding is that it's water vapor, and also other gases like methane.

You know what creates massive amounts of methane? Cow farts. All this meat we are growing and eating. So we'd need to all become vegetarians or at least cut down on the amount of meat we are eating.

I think a very real issue here is we are overgrowing our habitat. Who says the earth was ever meant to support that staggering numbers of filthy vermin who pollute anything they get their hands on, indefinitely?

Present company excluded of course.

Mike

 

[PRR]

Tree is say a 70 year temporary storage. If you believe CO2 production will decline around that time, then you face the stored CO2 released by all the trees that sequestered all the peak CO2. This is literally kicking the can down the road.

_I_ don't care. I won't be around that long. If you have invested in children etc, you may wonder what your g-g-grandkids may think as all your trees die and rot and release the CO2 from you and your children.

Way I sit: global warming will *raise* the value of my property. Sadly not quick enough for me to enjoy the profits. Because warming is an uneven thing, weather will be more "exciting", like our recent spell near zero for weeks, followed by tropical rain. But I remember similar excitement in the 1960s, 1980s. Maine still remembers the ice-storm of 1998 which closed the state for weeks.

FWIW: trees here out-number people about 1000:1 along the coast, and far more inland.

While I have been cutting trees, before they fall on my (fossil-fuel power wire), I suspect that quickly my land will sequester more CO2 than now. The mature trees have shaded each other out to a standstill. Cleared, the light on the ground will invigorate the baby trees and they will grow (on CO2 carbohydrates) quickly.

Also, and for various reasons, trees planted by non-gardeners seem to have 50% mortality. Which is actually good: observation of the masses of spruce-seed on my land, and the number of baby trees, suggests 99% mortality for wild-sown. But this means your number should be like 73. That is a LOT of planting. Two nursery trees, with holes and fill, is a day's work here.

Pay shipping and handling, I'll mail you 10 pounds of spruce cones, thousands of seeds from proven growers. For a large extra fee I can ship a 70+ foot trunk to prove these things grow (and sequester CO2).

 

[JohnRoberts]

Also, and for various reasons, trees planted by non-gardeners seem to have 50% mortality. Which is actually good: observation of the masses of spruce-seed on my land, and the number of baby trees, suggests 99% mortality for wild-sown. But this means your number should be like 73. That is a LOT of planting. Two nursery trees, with holes and fill, is a day's work here.

Last year I managed 2/3 for new tree success.....

I am hoping for even better from this year's planting of 5 trees (and one blueberry bush). 

JR

PS: I can supply nearly unlimited pine cones, and would gladly give away about two truckloads worth of mature pine, but you would have to top the pines, in and around some nearby power lines  :. I expect that I will have to pay some long green to do the right thing.  Back before Katrina, loggers would harvest yard pines just for the free lumber, now they are more mercenary. 

 

[Scodiddly]

Actually this shouldn't be surprising at all. We've been digging up the concentrated remains of trees and burning them faster than they accumulated in the first place.

 

[Gene Pink]

... in and around some nearby power lines  :. I expect that I will have to pay some long green to do the right thing.

Check with your local power company, ours will come out and trim branches around power lines for free.

They don't want you messing around up there, either.

I called on a friday saying "no rush", and monday morning there is a big 'ol Bubba out there with a really long fiberglass pole saw, doing it manually.

He also had another pole that held a spraycan at the top, and a remote trigger at the bottom, sprayed that black pruning sealer stuff on all the cuts.

Nice touch.

Gene

 

[JohnRoberts]

Check with your local power company, ours will come out and trim branches around power lines for free.

They don't want you messing around up there, either.

I called on a friday saying "no rush", and monday morning there is a big 'ol Bubba out there with a really long fiberglass pole saw, doing it manually.

He also had another pole that held a spraycan at the top, and a remote trigger at the bottom, sprayed that black pruning sealer stuff on all the cuts.

Nice touch.

Gene

No doubt... The power company took down at least one tree on my property decades ago (with my permission) but this was back when I was working hard, and never home... It was kind of nice, the big tree just disappeared.  ;D

The play these days is to get the tree service subcontractor they use (asplundh***) to suggest this is a good idea to them...

The power company has avoided my tall trees with wires routing across the street to avoid dropped branches from above, but it would be a win-win for both of us (not to mention my neighbor across the street who is inside the radius of pain) to avoid future damage by taking them down (a significant job involving topping them... tall ass trees).

JR 

*** IIRC asplundh was cited for funny business wrt suppressing wages.