Trees- good or bad for global warming..

[4dsc]

Should we plant millions of trees in the US as a way to fight global warming?? There are pro's and con's to the issue as I have found in my research but I'm of the inkling that we should perhaps be planting millions of more trees in the Us..

Your thoughts??

[liontamer]

1. we shouldn't just plant trees

we should stop cutting the big ones down. By using recycled paper and bamboo products we'd be doing more for the environment than planting trees. But if we did both that would be exponentially more effective.

[jdlh8894]

3. If we don't ,

Then how are the new ones supposed to grow w/out sunshine? Trees regenerate on their own. The acorn that falls from a mighty oak has to have sunshine and water to grow to produce another mighty oak.

[liontamer]

10. if the first mighty oak is still there

the new oak (which is far from mighty) isn't as necessary in that location.

[trotsky]

2. I thought I read that the plankton & algae in the oceans

absorb far more CO2 than land plants. Seems to make sense. Planting more trees certainly doesn't hurt, but what we need is some system to not only absorb carbon from the atmosphere but then remove it from the ecosystem entirely. Bury it, whatever.

[Guided by Wire]

19. RE: I thought I read that the plankton & algae in the oceans

Bury it, whatever.

Essentially, what's known as geological sequestration.

[michaelpush]

4. More trees, less cutting of large forest timber

Stop massive deforestation. Better management.

[4dsc]

5. More tree use more water..

http://www.rti.org/newsroom/news.cfm?nav=502&objectid=FF7764E1-A6F3-4EDE-A9B2E97D1EFFBED4

Here's some research I found that didn't really like the idea of planting more trees to combat global warming..

"Much is known about the great potential for forests to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thereby reduce the risk of climate change," said Brian Murray, Ph.D., director of RTI's Center for Regulatory Economics and Policy Research and one of the report's authors. "Previous work with my colleagues at RTI, Subhrendu Pattanayak and Tim Bondelid, has shown that there can be some 'co-benefits' in water quality from converting agricultural lands to forests as nutrient loadings are reduced; however, the Duke study shows that there could also be substantial water quantity losses from afforestation that are important to consider when devising strategies for addressing climate change and other environmental problems."

The study also found that leaf and needle fall from plantation trees adds acidity and salinity to the area's soil. Plantation soils were more acidic in 98 of 114 cases studied.

"Although carbon sequestration has potential benefits and can reduce the atmosphere's carbon dioxide levels in the short-term, the environmental changes that it triggers will need to be examined much more carefully to determine how wise a strategy this is for addressing climate change," Murray said.

[XemaSab]

15. Water is partly lost

but evapotranspiration can also change the microclimate and create more consistent moisture in an ecosystem.

[Viking12]

6. The effectiveness of terrestrial carbon sinks correlate w/ biodiversity

The more diverse a plot the better the sink. Planting trees often leads to the development of mono-culture plots.

I have a pretty comprehensive bibliography in my office, but I'm not going in for a week or two.

[skids]

7. Inconsequential -- but good for other reasons.

Best as a defense against desertification and erosion.

As far as global warming, not so much of a carbon sink on the scale that we could plant -- you might do better with a more low-lying thicket chosen to promote soil microbes for methane absorbtion.

Not that some form of intelligent reseeding of burn areas might not be in order.

[jdlh8894]

8. Before we had firefighters

Did't the earth replenish itself after a lightning strike?

[skids]

9. Yes, but it did so...

...on it's own timeframe. The question is whether we can speed up the recovery without generating undesirable unintended consequences.

And there are areas where it didn't. Like the Sahara. That didn't all used to be a desert, and, granted, it was destined by climate to become a desert, but one wonders how long it could have been prodded along by a capable entity, had one existed.

Anything we can do to stave off effects for timeframes on the order of decades can help. If all the various impending crisis happen at the same time, we will be a lot worse off than if we can postpone a few of them and buy time to prepare. That is of course that our attempts to postpone things don't create even more problems. We seem to have a knack for that.

[jdlh8894]

11. Here's what bothers me

I learned about Mother Earth,the wind ,water,fire and how it replenishes the space we live on. But yet some don't understand.Sometimes destruction is needed to make new growth.

[skids]

12. Most here realize that.

They also realize too much destruction at once can cause major setbacks to ecosystem evolution. The "theory of constructive disruption" only works (when it does at that, which is rarely) if the disruption is contained and isolated inside a more stable set of parameters. When it extends to the entire system, bad things happen. Like waking up ten years from now living in a cave burning stuffing from car seats for heat.

Also, they realize that while mother nature may like to destroy things and build anew, she also spares those who move themselves out of the way, or move something between themselves and the edge of the destruction.

[jdlh8894]

13. Don't quite understand

" move something between themselves and the edge of destruction" Please explain this statement to me. As the son of a man that spent over half his life devoted to reclamation of forest lands,strip mines,and underground rips,(plus I myself have spent many years ,out of 53, keeping the earth healthy) The " Eve of Destruction " was predicted a long time ago. I would like to think that because of my Dad and myself,this will not happen in my Grandson's lifetime.

[skids]

14. Sorry if that was a bit abstract...

...reworded: individual catastrophic change events have a flashpoint -- location, timing, character. By this I was saying a sentient being has two avenues to pursue -- arrange not to be near the flashpoint at the time it happens, which is becoming increasingly hard, or place obstacles in the way of the flashpoint, e.g. spraying one's roof with water might give one time to get his posessions out of his house before it catches fire.

I'm afraid at this point, unless there is a sea change in global willpower, those waking up to it are finding themselves in the latter scenario -- trying to delay the consequences of the inevitible, hoping that sea change will happen as the fire gets closer, and trying to preserve as much of our culture/population as we can.

Though some days after a trip to the supermarket, I do wonder whether saving this particular population is worth it :-)

I'm sure both you and your Dad have bought us time. How much is hard to say. I'm not sure if it will last your entire grandson's lifetime. Personally, my instinct says not, but that's just instinct.

[XemaSab]

16. I believe in seed banks

Most burned areas have the seeds they need to regenerate.

[Odin2005]

17. Generally good, but marine algae are more important climate-wise

It may seem counter-intuitive, but there is actually MORE total biomass, and therefore a healthier biosphere, during glacial periods then interglacial periods. This is because cool water supports algae groth better then warm seas. The strong temperatue grandient in tropical oceans prevents mixing, making the tropical open oceans nutrient-poor, basically marine deserts; in the cool seas there is vigorus mixing, meaning lots of minerals for algae. More algae equals more CO2 being pumped from the air into the oceans, eventually becoming tapped as limestone. The algae basically sustain glacial conditions.

The dangerous thing is that warming oceans would lead to a catastrophic decline is ocean biomass, it has been suggested that interglacials are triggered when low CO2 levels come together with the right configuration of earth's tilt and orbit shape to cause a collapse of algal biomass. If we warm the oceans too much as a result of global warming the ocean biomass could decline further.

[dcfirefighter]

21. One of the last ditch efforts at Carbon control

is the seeding of the southern ocean with iron, allowing biomass to grow where the water is fertile except for the lack of iron.

[Odin2005]

23. I think we need to start doing that ASAP.

[dcfirefighter]

24. It could have severe unknown consequenses

to the world's oceanic biology

[Dead_Parrot]

25. I was set against this when the idea came up...

Now I'm beginning to wonder. The marine ecosystems are collapsing under the weight of carbon anyway, so we might not have much to loose: I'd tentativly be in favour of a trial run to see what happens...

Hell, terraforming Terra. How low can you go?

[mopinko]

18. plant hemp nt

[The2ndWheel]

20. To me, the problem is that we do things

The planet has a natural balance, but we don't go for that.

[Odin2005]

26. The problem is that the negative feedback loops take too long to...

start showing thier effects, we don't have that kind of time. It will take a 100,000 years for all the CO2 we added to the atmosphere to be removed as limestone naturally.

Also, I consider climate control by intelligent life as the fullfillment of Gaia, since we are, after all, a part of the biosphere; I consider the dichotomy between "natural" and "artificial" be be a anthropocentric notion. I consider climate control by us as Gaia's fullfillment because it would allow life to surive on Earth untill the sun dies, without intervention the oceans will boil away a billion years from now because stars get slowly brighter over thier lifetimes.

[paparush]

22. Hey, if Al Gore urges us to plant lots of trees (Inconvenient Truth) then

you better start diggin... slight :sarcasm:

[theophilus]

27. All's I know is that there used to be an almost continuous tree cover from

the Mississippi to the East Coast....you know, the squirrel travels to the coast without setting foot on the ground. Anyway, man's hate affair with trees has very much changed that. I say replant every open area that used to have trees. Some farmland will need to remain so we don't starve, but yards, lawns, need to be done away with altogether. The benefits of no mow are augmented by the benefits of shade. Fruit and nut trees, natives, can be planted and the public can share in the maintenance and the bounty.

I think some trees should be selectively logged. The whole vast forest needs to be tended and managed in a sane environmental way. Don't sell timber to other countries at a penny a board mile, etc.

It used to be forested, it can't be that bad of an idea. The algae needs to be cared for, too, but lets give the trees a chance to come back.