Carbon storage in nature is temporary and therefore is not equivalent to permanent fossil fuel emissions
This is the crux of it. We are burning C-based fuel sources that would otherwise never enter the C-cyle, so even if we temporarily tie up that C in plant biomass it is eventually released. Granted, it’s taken up by other plants eventually, but we should view forests as buffering capacity in the C-cycle, not the sequestration capacity.
Think of it this way.
You have a bathtub. Attached to bathtub is a smaller bathtub.
You turn on the tap in the first tub, and let 'er buck. Eventually, the first tub will get full (where we are now). You’re still ok for a little bit, since you have the second tub next to you (forests), but eventually the water is gonna run all over your floor.
Now you can keep buying tubs (planting) to improve your capacity to handle water, but that doesn’t fix the problem. Meanwhile you have some jackass punching holes in your second tub, and other dipshits telling you that they will get you a tub to help eventually. They then fucking push back delivery of much needed tub. You also have people who don’t think the tub is going to overflow, and people who don’t fucking care if it does as long as their feet don’t get wet.
So what do you?
Turn off the fucking tap, already. Christ.
BuT tEh sHaReHoLdErS oF Big Tap nEeD tEh mOnEez!!!
Headline is a bit of an overstatement. Planting trees is still good (usually, don’t destroy other important landscapes to do so) but bogus carbon credits need to be eliminated.
In fact, I would say that urban tree planting is an important climate mitigation strategy. It’s a cost effective way to protect vulnerable people from extreme heat.
Degrowth first.
Every single ‘green’ solution that is hyped at this moment is just going to be used as an excuse to continue business as usual. Every promise of some greener battery tech, carbon capture solution, ocean cleaning effort, tree planting campaign will only make people complacent and distract from the one thing we need to do now: LESS
I planted two trees in my front yard so they will eventually block the morning sun in the summer and the house will use less energy.
BS. Trees absorb CO2 and produce oxygen. In fact, there are no other sources of oxygen other than that produced by plants, which is why it is an unequivocal indicator of life on other planets. Oxygen is a very reactive element that is used up quickly, combining with other elements, if it is not replaced continuously, not possible by inorganic or geological processes. Refusing reforestation because it serves as an excuse to pollute more is absolute idiocy, an ad hominem fallacy. What is needed is to kick out the fossil energy lobbies from politics and “climate summits”, because they are the cause, not reforestation.
Trees are not growing fast enough though, and globally algae produce more Oxygen. But of course it is a solution with many different smaller ones
Maybe he’s a shill for Big Electrolysis
“This highlights global tree restoration as our most effective climate change solution to date,” the study said. Crowther subsequently gave dozens of interviews to that effect.
Crowther, who says his message was misinterpreted
I can’t be assed to listen to a podcast right now, and the article didn’t really say anything about it but now I’m just curious if he ever bothered to correct it in those “dozens of interviews” he gave. You’d think that after the 12th interview it would be hard to misinterpret a message unless your original message didn’t have that correct interpretation to begin with.
As Track said between their two comments.
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His message wasn’t misinterpreted, he just didn’t realize the actual problem.
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It gave people an excuse to keep generating CO2. So instead of slowing the generation of CO2 people just pushed the problem off as “we’ll plant more trees and that solves it!”
To add, many people did have the right of it, but they weren’t given platforms because they weren’t saying what powerful people wanted others to hear. This guy’s message was boosted because it provided cover for the continued generation of CO2. It’s not the case that if this one particular guy didn’t make a mistake then we wouldn’t have wasted time on this false corridor. At least one scientist will make this mistake or a mistake like this, it is an inevitably. In that hypothetical universe the only difference is we’d be hearing from that person instead of this one.
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Oh I’m sure it was no accident. He believed he had solved the world’s problems, but forgot to carry the 1. Now he’s back tracking
Good thing I’ve been focusing on bushes, then /s
This really feels like a prime ¿Por que no los dos? moment. Like [@Track_Shovel](@track_shovel@slrpnk.net said, we need to be focusing on turning off the spigot of excess carbon entering the atmosphere, but we should be putting effort into buffering the system as well. Doing one isn’t reason to ignore the other.
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at - do both, obviously. I was typing this on a phone before bed, so I missed that part.
I was digging what you were filling
¿Por que no los dos?
As soon as I saw the headline I was like “$5 says this guy didn’t say stop planting trees, he said that planting trees isn’t enough. because it isn’t.”
Agreed, but I saw a chance for a cheap joke so I dropped the comment first. At this point a lot of folks in this field are advocating for drawdown by reduction and buffering/sequestration by restoring varied ecosystems.
In a cavernous theater lit up with the green shapes of camels and palms at COP28 in Dubai, ecologist Thomas
Wait a minute…
