Climate Change News & Discussions

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[caltrek]

House Republicans propose planting a trillion trees as they move away from climate change denial

https://apnews.com/article/climate-chan ... bfa18b72c2

So, a lot of the criticism in the article is true, and I could even add some but I won't for the moment. There's nuance, there's a right way to plant a forest and an ineffectual way. Here's the thing though, the core idea here is a good idea. Americans, the media at large and partisan politics need to end on the grounds of ecology. Even if the GOP doesn't endorse anything else it would still be really good for the world to start a tree-planting initiative at this scale. Trillions of new trees is the kind of scale that we need to start rebuilding our planets ecosystem.

I agree that the core idea is a good one. It is certainly progress over the denialism that characterized the Trump administration and other prior GOP pronouncements on the subject. Still, the devil can be in the details and just planting trees without ensuring that they are planted in places that they will actually grow could sabotage the whole effort.

This is the first time I've seen a politician suggest something related to climate change that will actually have an impact. I hope to see more of it from our society at large.

So, Congress passed a spending measure that included $555 billion to address climate change and you don't think that will "actually have an impact?

Solve the problem, no; but not event have an impact?

Here is a New York Times article about that spending measure:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/clim ... -bill.html

(I'm not naive enough to think that the whole GOP is on board btw, or that they will propose good policies as a rule, but this is a good policy and it should be enthusiastically supported if it is genuinely implemented.)

So, can't we also support efforts already made under the Buden administration as I have referenced above? Or is it only Republicans that get to be rewarded for moving off the dime?

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[caltrek]

House Republicans propose planting a trillion trees as they move away from climate change denial

https://apnews.com/article/climate-chan ... bfa18b72c2

So, a lot of the criticism in the article is true, and I could even add some but I won't for the moment. There's nuance, there's a right way to plant a forest and an ineffectual way. Here's the thing though, the core idea here is a good idea. Americans, the media at large and partisan politics need to end on the grounds of ecology. Even if the GOP doesn't endorse anything else it would still be really good for the world to start a tree-planting initiative at this scale. Trillions of new trees is the kind of scale that we need to start rebuilding our planets ecosystem.

I agree that the core idea is a good one. It is certainly progress over the denialism that characterized the Trump administration and other prior GOP pronouncements on the subject. Still, the devil can be in the details and just planting trees without ensuring that they are planted in places that they will actually grow could sabotage the whole effort.

This is the first time I've seen a politician suggest something related to climate change that will actually have an impact. I hope to see more of it from our society at large.

So, Congress passed a spending measure that included $555 billion to address climate change and you don't think that will "actually have an impact?

Solve the problem, no; but not event have an impact?

Here is a New York Times article about that spending measure:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/clim ... -bill.html

(I'm not naive enough to think that the whole GOP is on board btw, or that they will propose good policies as a rule, but this is a good policy and it should be enthusiastically supported if it is genuinely implemented.)

So, can't we also support efforts already made under the Buden administration as I have referenced above? Or is it only Republicans that get to be rewarded for moving off the dime?

Thanks for all the partisan bullshit,

You arewelcome. Anytime.

it's incredible to me how your post reads like the AP article I already read. How I even mentioned my own reservations in passing in my post and you ignore that recognition in favor of useless argument. I left the details of those reservations out of the post deliberately because it isn't constructive in this case. This was explicitly stated in my post.

I'm sorry, but I happen to think it is very constructive to point out how such a proposal can best be implemented versus how it might fail. While I can understand why you would legitimately not want to get into the details on that score, I thought, for constructive purposes, that it was important to at least touch on those details

Anywho no, I haven't seen anything as ambitious as planting a trillion trees even suggested by any American politician who isn't a green before. It would require over twice as much land area as the Amazon Rainforest to accomplish. That genuinely is of a magnitude larger than anything you're referencing.

I suppose I am a little jaded at this point, but the support of growing a trillion trees put forward by one GOP politician is not all that impressive given the grandiose promises that often come forth from politicians. Putting such a proposal into a piece of legislation would be far more impressive, even if it were ultimately culled by other legislators. It would at least show something beyond just the putting forth platitudes without substance. Talk is cheap. Actually passing at least partially effective legislation including a substantial commitment of resources is far more of an accomplishment. It would be nice to see that acknowledged as such, rather than dismissed as totally inconsequential.

Well, at least we moved the goal post from "anything that will actually have an impact" to "anything as ambitious as planting a trillion trees."

I guess if one was already "green before," then they don't deserve any enthusiastic support for what they do now?

Still, to not be misunderstood, I will repeat that putting forth such a tree planting proposal is far better than absolute denialism.

Edit: In re-reading the article, I note that there actually was some legislative effort put forward by GOP lawmakers. So kudos on that score. Now if only they could also not be so supportive of continued fossil fuel extraction.

[wjfox]

[Vakanai]

These are the same people that want to gut government, slash investment and let people fucking die. They offer no solutions and the fact that 45% of this country supports them is truly scary to the core.

My belief is that to the "we can adapt" people don't want to explain why we're not adapting, because this is us adapting - in other words, most people will die during disasters, upcoming famines and droughts, be forced to move go homeless and so forth, climate change dwindling the population until the numbers are where rich people like it. That's the adaptation, a much smaller and more controllable and expendable slave population serving the ultra wealthy in the few parts of the world that with technology is still inhabitable.

Or at least that seems to be the only adaptation these people are allowing to happen.

[wjfox]

15 now...

[caltrek]

This is a follow up to comments I made earlier about the efficacy of tree planting to address global climate change. While it can be an effective method there are pitfalls.

Can Tree Planting Really Help Us Tackle Climate Change? by Alice Baghdjian
September 1, 2022

Extract:

(Zurich) But as governments and businesses pledge to undertake large-scale tree planting schemes to tackle climate change and restore biodiversity, there’s a realization that the method of reforestation or afforestation – what and where you plant – is just as important as the number of trees.

“To create healthy ecosystems and effectively capture carbon, reforestation projects must do more than simply put trees into the soil,” says Linda Freiner, Group Head of Sustainability at Zurich Insurance Group. “That means using a variety of native species, engaging local populations to look after the trees in the long term and, above all, protecting and restoring existing forests.”

Can all forests capture carbon?

The pitfalls of reforestation and afforestation are numerous. Much tree planting is initiated with the aim of capturing carbon to help tackle climate change. Yet poorly planned and executed projects could even increase CO2 emissions, with long-term negative impacts on biodiversity, landscapes and livelihoods, according to research by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI).

The reasons for this include planting trees in unnatural places such as grasslands, which already act as carbon sinks. A carbon sink is anything that absorbs more CO2 from the atmosphere than it releases. Disturbing such areas risks releasing these carbon stores into the atmosphere. Selecting the appropriate species, too, is crucial. Cultivating fast-growing, non-native trees could lead to monocultures: silent forests that cannot support life.
Biodiversity plays a significant role in forest carbon storage, according to the Kew-BCGI study. It is also key to unlocking other goals of reforestation. Biodiversity can help to achieve conservation of a species or the generation of economic benefits for local communities

Read more here: https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazi ... ate-chnage

In setting numeric targets, there is also the question of counting. If a lumbering industry business clear cuts a forest, and then re-plants that forest with new seedlings, do the new seedlings count toward a numeric target?

If so, then the net benefit, at least of that subset, may very well be zero.

There is also the question of the survival rate of newly planted trees. Do new seedlings count toward a numeric target even if they die within a year of their planting?

Also, the higher the number the more likely a higher percentage of planted trees will replace grasslands or be planted in other inappropriate or counterproductive areas.

I also fear that any Republican sponsored measures will involve their old practice of refusing to allocate resources to evaluate the effectiveness of the program of action that is put forth. This will obviously increase the chances of these programs having either minimal or no effect or even a negative effect toward reaching stated goals.

One may complain about such comments “not being constructive,” yet what is so “constructive” about proposals that may not work?

We are all very critical of proposal put forth by Democrats to combat global warming. The same level of critical thinking should apply to Republican proposals as well.

[wjfox]

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[raklian]

Little less than halfway to the boiling point. Great.

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July was so hot that scientists think it has already been the hottest month ever
Source: NBC News

The first three weeks of July have been so warm that it’s almost certain the month will become the hottest ever recorded, the World Meteorological Association announced Thursday.

Last month was the hottest June ever.

“Record-breaking temperatures are part of the trend of drastic increases in global temperatures,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a news release, adding that human-caused emissions are the “main driver” of rising temperatures.

Copernicus, part of the European Union’s space program, performs satellite observations of Earth. The new monthly record is based on climate reanalysis data, which combines on-the-ground observations, satellite data and climate modeling to produce estimates of temperatures across the Earth that date back decades. The approach fills gaps in the observational record, and it is used by scientists worldwide to evaluate the impacts of climate change.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environ ... -rcna96475

[raklian]