Let's Plant Trees! 371 Million Acres- 4 Californias - Would Cover US Carbon Emissions For 2019

[hatrack]

EDIT

“To protect the environment, days ago, I announced that the United States will join the One Trillion Trees Initiative, an ambitious effort to bring together government and the private sector to plant new trees in America and around the world.”

President Trump did not use the phrase “climate change,” but the plan to plant one trillion trees — unveiled last month by the World Economic Forum in Davos and embraced by Republicans as a way to address global warming — will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As trees grow, they absorb and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving planetary warming.

But just how much all these trees will help is disputed. According to a report last year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the United States produced about 5.8 billion tons of emissions in 2019. Getting that much carbon out of the atmosphere with trees alone would require planting on about 371 million acres — about four times the area of California.

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/fact-check-state-of-the-union-02-04#to-protect-the-environment-days-ago-i-announced-that-the-united-states-will-join-the-one-trillion-trees-initiative-an-ambitious-

[Journeyman]

1. Yes, but who's going to rake all those new forests? I'm busy enough with the forests we have . . .

[Zoonart]

2. Here is the rub with the mass tree planting...

The head of the union claimed, however, that 90% of the saplings his teams have inspected so far have died because of insufficient water. Speaking to the Guardian, Şükrü Durmuş attributed the deaths to the saplings being planted at “the wrong time” and “not by experts”, as well as a lack of rainfall.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/30/most-of-11m-trees-planted-in-turkish-project-may-be-dead

Unless they are planted by the proscribed horticultural procedure... which can be expensive and labor intensive, many of the trees will die. How do you irrigate thousands of saplings at one time?

My husband is a horticulturalist ad he always said that for success with trees... you need to plant a hundred dollar tree in a three hundred dollar hole. While I laud the idea of mass tree planting, I think the whole idea is being oversimplified.

[NCjack]

3. Planting trees may buy time for continued antropogenic emission rates, but I don't

see it as a solution. The major problem occurs after the death of those trees. If that wood and products are burned, rotted or consumed by insects (e.g., termites), the carbon goes back into the atmosphere. Overall, the carbon dioxide captured by the live trees after their death is returned to the atmosphere. The money is better spent in reducing anthropogenic emissions.

[Mountain Mule]

4. And how many of those trees will survive to maturity?

Thanks to the changing climate, many burned over forests here in Colorado are not regenerating the way they once may have. This is true in Australia as well as in California and other Western states. Every year I plant all the trees I can on my property and I have to baby them all in hopes of getting them off to a decent start.

Plus, where are we going to find 4 California’s worth of open viable land?

[hatrack]

5. Yes indeedy, all these little quesions that somehow never get asked . . .

Reading an interesting piece about the San Luis Valley in Colorado, which is becoming a (sorta) popular place to live, since you can actually afford to buy land there, which isn't that common these days.

Anyway, it's, high, dry and windy - blazing in summer, freezing in winter and if you plant a tree there, plan on regular, systematic watering for at least 10 years, because that's how long it's going to take for it to grow a root system deep enough to allow it to survive.

But hey, the GOP loves trees!! Yay, New Green GOP!!!

[Mountain Mule]

6. I know the San Luis Valley well

And it’s one of the last places I would choose to plant trees. Given the cold, extremely arid environment, the ecosystem there tends naturally to low growing plants and shrubs like sage brush and mesquite. Meanwhile in places where tree planting might have a chance like Bear’s Ears National Monument just next door to where I now live is being sold off to the big despoilers of land in the American Wes like Halliburton. Oh, the Repugs have become so green, alright. Puke green!

[Forever Blue]

7. What about next years carbon? ... n/t