Should we just plant trees everywhere to fix climate change?

10 comments

1. Good article. Jonathan covers a lot of the issues surrounding reforestation. Reforestation is a popular idea right now.

   *“Heal the Planet/Restore the Forests” is an easy to understand, very appealing slogan.*

   It’s NOT just a matter of sticking seedlings in the ground.

   However, reforestation is the ONLY proven method that exits for actually pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere”at scale”. Everything else, is basically impossible with any realistic technology we can develop and deploy at scale in the next 50 years.

   Reforestation can work. But there’s a BIG price.

   The Crisis Report #40

   What if I told you there was a way to pull enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to cool the planet down over the next century. How many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to save the FUTURE? – On Reforestation.

   [https://richardcrim.substack.com/p/the-crisis-report-40](https://richardcrim.substack.com/p/the-crisis-report-40)

2. Reforestation can mean habitat destruction in some cases.  You need restorative activities that bring back ecosystems now gone.  Long Leaf Pine Savannah, Wetlands, and grassland. 

   Grassland is a great carbon sucker but these were the first ecosystems plowed under for non native domesticated species in North America.  Prairie/Savannah/Grassland whatever you want to call it is nearly gone now but also was formerly some of the most biodiverse. 

3. TLDR: You can’t “just plant trees” and hope it fixes the problem. The forestry industry has been planting trees for decades and its only made forest fires worse. When you plant a single species of trees all at the same time it creates a perfect fuel source for fires. A “monocrop” forest is highly susceptible to pests and disease, and when the trees die they are nothing more than kindling for forest fires. Monocrop plantations also lead to degraded soil health due to a lack of diverse root systems and organic matter. Poor soil can reduce the forest’s ability to retain moisture, creating drier conditions that are more conducive to wildfires.

   This is what happens when you plant a “monocrop” forest. Instead, you need to restore natural forests with a variety of native species in order to succeed at long-term carbon sequestration. To create a diverse ecosystem requires ongoing management and stewardship.

   A great read that goes further into the subject.

4. Planting trees at some northerly latitudes was found to actually increase global warming due to the impact on albedo affect being greater than the carbon capture.

5. so basically just re-establish forests the right way. let them grow the way they were natively.

6. Green washing is hilarious, it’s like if a 600lb person eats a salad to cancel out the decades of unhealthy eating habits.

7. It’s a good article and gets into some of the nuances of the subject. [Reforestation has impacted our climate in recent history](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47063973). Note that it was coupled with a horrible plague. We’d need to fully halt further emissions & not merely swap carbon credits for planting trees. And maybe have a horrible plague to boot.

8. I object to the word ‘just’. Yes we should plant trees use green architecture and other means to help plants thrive and remove CO2 naturally. We should also stop using fossil fuels and start more solar and wind and geothermal plants and insulate our buildings. We should improve public transportation and demand that industries clean up their waste or better yet learn how to produce less.

9. Yet another reason not to eat beef. A lot of the land that could be used for re-forestation is currently used to grow crops for livestock or grazing grounds for livestock. And of course there is all the deforestation due to growing livestock.

   And yes, before some carnivore bro points this out, not all land currently being used for grazing livestock is suitable to re-forestation, there is after all a sustainable amount of hamburgers that can be eaten, but that number is around 1 per week, not per day.

10. Nothing works unless we stop emitting as quickly as possible.