Re: Tree planting 'has mind-blowing potential' - sorry, not really. Archived Message
Posted by Ian M on August 4, 2019, 12:14 pm, in reply to "Re: Tree planting 'has mind-blowing potential' - sorry, not really. "
You might well be right that there are other factors at play which the researchers haven't considered or are ignorant of. Wouldn't be the first time! There wasn't much discussion, for example, over the difference between immediate 'biophysical' effects of a lighter or darker landscape vs. the longer term absorption or release of CO2 from afforestation or deforestation respectively. Does sequestration in the long term outweigh local heat absorption by darker colours? Or is it more important to keep the local temperature down so that other processes, eg: permafrost melt, peat fires etc don't escalate emissions in the short term? 'the more the global temp rises the further north the permafrost begins' - yes, it sounds like they've taken that into account up to a point: '[T]he magnitude of cooling due to albedo change would likely become smaller after 2100 as the length of the snow season is reduced further; we noted a slight decrease in the surface albedo over boreal region during the period 2010–2100.' (from the first paper) 'Denude a landscape and you poison it (as with the tar and shale mining in Canada's chunk). When you do that, not only do you remove the carbon sinks from ground level and upward biological life, but from below it too.' - yes, good point. Pics from the tar sands show a near-totally blackened landscape - not great from an albedo perspective apart from anything else! The wider political context should be taken into account. I share your suspicions about research like this feeding into the glee of logging and mining execs and enabling their operations. It would be interesting to see who has funded this and if any others apart from climate websites have picked up on it and used it for darker purposes. Agreed about the basic good of allowing/encouraging natural habitats to reassert themselves. All this talk about climate and ecosystem engineering smacks of hubris and begs unintended consequences, as you illustrate with your sahara example. I think in a very real sense the planet knows what is best for it and self-willed ecologies will (generally speaking) spontaneously assume the forms that will balance things out. My only concern is that indiscriminate tree-planting could lead to similar unintended consequences if hastily implemented as part of government or corporate off-setting programs with no sensitivity to local conditions. cheers, I
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