Easiest way to solve climate change is......

Road-Hog

........according to some experts planting something like 1.7 trillion trees Would sort out (reverse even) the rapid global warming that is taking place.....of this is true surely it’s what governments and environmental bodies world wide should be promoting rather than stuff like ‘electric cars’ etc. planting a tree is about as low tech and easy as it gets......practically no carbon footprint 👣 nvolved.....why is it that this never really features in the list of ways to tackle the issue....?

dwayneshintzy

Sure easy, piece of piss! Just plant 1,700,000,000,000 trees

gozunda

No need to plant the country wall to wall

Forestry is good and its good to plant trees but why cut off our own hand by obliterating agricultural land and the ability to feed ourselves?

According to the European Environmental Agency one of the best ways to sequester carbon is to utilise existing grasslands. Who would have thought eh?

Climate change mitigation. 

The most carbon-rich soils are peatlands, mostly found in northern Europe, the UK and Ireland. Grassland soils also store a lot of carbon per hectare...

The fastest way to increase organic carbon in farmed soil is to convert arable land to grassland...

On farmland, ploughing the soil is known to accelerate decomposition and mineralisation of organic matter. In order to keep carbon and nutrients in the soil, researchers suggest reducing tillage

https://www.eea.europa.eu/signals/signals-2015/articles/soil-and-climate-change

Vittu

Road-Hog wrote: »

........according to some experts planting something like 1.7 trillion trees Would sort out (reverse even) the rapid global warming that is taking place.....of this is true surely it’s what governments and environmental bodies world wide should be promoting rather than stuff like ‘electric cars’ etc. planting a tree is about as low tech and easy as it gets......practically no carbon footprint 👣 nvolved.....why is it that this never really features in the list of ways to tackle the issue....?

I would think why not is because trees will not give a financial return straightaway. Most other options governments use to save the planet involve taxes or charges. Trees would take many years to mature where they are worth something. We can't buy a printer correctly so the idea of the Dail trying to save the planet is laughable.

It's only my opinion. But one way would be to regulate family size worldwide. This would reduce the population and so reduce our impact. That's a vague idea with nothing to back it up.

frankdub

Do not increase the engine rpm through traffic stops + Do not run the engine in low gear

s7ryf3925pivug

frankdub wrote: »

Do not increase the engine rpm through traffic stops + Do not run the engine in low gear

I've been doing this but climate change is still happening.

Peatys

Plant trees on all small, unsustainable, grant dependant farms in Ireland.

sydthebeat

Do a thanos and wipe out half the earths population......

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

It's probably the single best solution that Ireland could use here. We have one of the lowest levels of forest coverage as a percentage in Europe. There should be a big push to grow as many native trees as possible over a 10 or 20 year cycle. There have been small scale plans by government to buy farmland to turn into woodland, but the uptake has been insignificant.

I think China has panted X million amount of trees over the last decade. But it suffered because it lacked diversity.

The positive things about having more forests, woodlands and wilderness is not simply having the added benefit to climate change. But it would increase animal and insect biodiversity, create a new tourism industry and improve people's health and wellbeing by having more nature spaces to explore.

RebelButtMunch

Two problems
Unlimited growth
Commercialism.

Try asking families to have one car. Or only drive suvs if they live in the city.

Try asking the eu politicians to penalise Asia and Africa to curb coal use. They have little option btw.

Try penalties for food waste.

Try making people bring bottles back to the shops.

Try limiting families to 2 or 3 kids

Etc

You'd be unpopular in no time.

randomspud

Have every single person leave their fridge door open all the time.

That'll cool the place right down.

blueshade

A good way to start is by not buying lots of things we don't need. Use electrical products until they break before we replace them. People don't need a new phone every year. We don't need cheap disposable fashion that is poor quality and won't last. Another way is to stop with the protest t-shirts that take obscene amounts of water to make. Bringing traffic to a halt in cities is another thing, protestors might want to consider all the extra fumes that are going into the atmosphere while drivers are sitting in stationary traffic. Buy locally produced goods as much as possible, those cheap veggies in the supermarket might be a great bargain but the cheap price has an environmental impact in shipping and on the amount of land used to farm it. It's important to remember that we are producing more global waste than it's possible to recycle.

SeaFields

It's a no brainer to me. In the current financial environment, people are effectively being charged to hold on to money by banks i.e. negative interest. If the government issued a green bond initiative, with a return only on a par with inflation it wouldn't cost a whole lot to raise the finance over the next few years. Green investments are popular these days. Start buying land and planting trees.

But policy makers seem intent that the only way to tackle climate change is that tax us. At least that's the perception by the public.

Hector Savage

Climate change would be solved in the morning if everyone changed their lifestyle.

But they won't, it's easier to scream and protest and DEMAND the govt solve it.

is_that_so

The longer we spend on the one thing hamster wheel the longer we will take to get anything done. There is no one way and it will happen in thousands of little ways.

Road-Hog

RebelButtMunch wrote: »

Two problems
Unlimited growth
Commercialism.

Try asking families to have one car. Or only drive suvs if they live in the city.

Try asking the eu politicians to penalise Asia and Africa to curb coal use. They have little option btw.

Try penalties for food waste.

Try making people bring bottles back to the shops.

Try limiting families to 2 or 3 kids

Etc

You'd be unpopular in no time.

That’s why tree planting on a massive scale is probably the simplest and would have least impact on the ‘masses’ life style.....!!

blueshade

Try banning disposable nappies and see how fast parents change their opinions on environmental change and the importance of halting climate change. All those disposable nappies and plastic nappy bags going into landfill and they will never disintegrate. I'd love to see the reaction among parents if Greta made that suggestion.

_Brian

The big problem is everyone wants the same solution to climate.

They want the governments to implement the changes immediately that will solve it by curtailing the activities or lifestyle of someone else but not them.

I could go with that. €50 tax onto every seat on every flight, including each connecting flight. I haven’t flown in 10 years, I think it’s perfect solution, heck maybe make it €75

A congestion charge on every urban area with a population over 10,000 people. I hate big urban areas and never by choice visit them, maybe half dozen times a year.

The money should be put towards farms and supporting farms to sequester carbon. There is amazing research out there that has proven methods to allow farm land both under cereals and grass to sequester 10x the amount of carbon thought before while boosting crop production in parallel, it uses fungi produced on the farms and could be implemented quickly and cheaply. I farm, the money collected should definitely go to farms.

Dr. Bre

Easiest way to solve it is to not think about it

Wanderer78

_Brian wrote:

The money should be put towards farms and supporting farms to sequester carbon. There is amazing research out there that has proven methods to allow farm land both under cereals and grass to sequester 10x the amount of carbon thought before while boosting crop production in parallel, it uses fungi produced on the farms and could be implemented quickly and cheaply. I farm, the money collected should definitely go to farms.

I think all the money should be sent directly to just your farm, fcuk the rest of them

blueshade

_Brian wrote: »

The big problem is everyone wants the same solution to climate.

They want the governments to implement the changes immediately that will solve it by curtailing the activities or lifestyle of someone else but not them.

I could go with that. €50 tax onto every seat on every flight, including each connecting flight. I haven’t flown in 10 years, I think it’s perfect solution, heck maybe make it €75

A congestion charge on every urban area with a population over 10,000 people. I hate big urban areas and never by choice visit them, maybe half dozen times a year.

The money should be put towards farms and supporting farms to sequester carbon. There is amazing research out there that has proven methods to allow farm land both under cereals and grass to sequester 10x the amount of carbon thought before while boosting crop production in parallel, it uses fungi produced on the farms and could be implemented quickly and cheaply. I farm, the money collected should definitely go to farms.

So you don't fly but feel that people who do fly should be penalised. You don't really visit urban areas so you want a congestion charge on people who live in urban areas. Do you see the hypocrisy in your post at all or are you being ironic? Most people who work in cities can't afford to live there so they have to commute, public transport is prohibitively expensive for many so driving is their only option.

I've yet to meet a nurse that can afford to live in Dublin let alone in the city. A large part of that problem is caused by vast amounts of inner city and urban housing being occupied by people who never have and never will work so don't need to be there while people who do work can't afford the rent or mortgage on a home in those areas.

magicbastarder

Let the uplands rewild. We're throwing money at sheep farmers for them to produce far less than what their grants they're getting are worth. Would help deal with flooding too.

kneemos

Get it as warm as possible before the next ice age I say.
It will inevitably come.

sydthebeat

25 sq m of native woodland stores 1 ton of carbon during its lifetime.

new houses built today generate approx 10 tons of carbon per year in energy demand (typical A3 - A2 BER rating)

rural houses are generally built on approx 2000 sq m min (typical 1/2 acre site)

one very simple "stroke of a pen" policy the government could do tomorrow is to legislate for 25% min of every rural site to be planted with indigenous trees and shrubs. That would equate to min 2 years worth of carbon at current levels.

as our heating systems are moving more and more towards electric sourced, the carbon output of dwellings is very dependent on the efficiency and fuel source of our grid system. Its a disgrace that out grid currently emits so much carbon to provide electricity. Currently per kwhr we receive, the grid emits 0.409 kgs of co2 .. thats every more than your solid fuel stove at home !!! We need, at government level, to honestly and seriously move away from fossil fuel based systems. Hopefully this coming foray into off shore wind farms will be teh big break we need to become CO2 energy free.

gozunda

Peatys wrote: »

Plant trees on all small, unsustainable, grant dependant farms in Ireland.

'Grant dependant' - do you mean the subsidies which were provided to produce cheap food? So we now want to provide more / funding grants to plant trees instead? How does that really change things? Grassland is one of the best sequesters of carbon out there. Let's use what we have and we can still reduce carbon and produce food. Forestry should be promoted but not as an Instant panacea - because it's not.

RebelButtMunch

Road-Hog wrote: »

That’s why tree planting on a massive scale is probably the simplest and would have least impact on the ‘masses’ life style.....!!

It's like blowing into a hurricane, and it's something to keep the masses happy. I doubt we'd plant enough to offset the damage. Besides, where's all the soya and palm going to grow .

Geuze

To get China to stop building new coal-fired power stations would be start.


https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2019/11/climate-clarity.html

Hector Savage

blueshade wrote: »

Try banning disposable nappies and see how fast parents change their opinions on environmental change and the importance of halting climate change. All those disposable nappies and plastic nappy bags going into landfill and they will never disintegrate. I'd love to see the reaction among parents if Greta made that suggestion.

I know a lad that used cloth nappies for his baby girl, fair play to him he stuck with it...

_Brian

blueshade wrote: »

So you don't fly but feel that people who do fly should be penalised. You don't really visit urban areas so you want a congestion charge on people who live in urban areas. Do you see the hypocrisy in your post at all or are you being ironic? Most people who work in cities can't afford to live there so they have to commute, public transport is prohibitively expensive for many so driving is their only option.

I've yet to meet a nurse that can afford to live in Dublin let alone in the city. A large part of that problem is caused by vast amounts of inner city and urban housing being occupied by people who never have and never will work so don't need to be there while people who do work can't afford the rent or mortgage on a home in those areas.

The hypocrisy was the thrust of the post as an example of how everyone wants a solution to penalise others but doesn’t hurt them, but WOOOSHhh, that went straight over your head.

_Brian

Wanderer78 wrote: »

I think all the money should be sent directly to just your farm, fcuk the rest of them

You might be onto something there. 😎

cruizer101

1.7 trillion is a **** lot, that's 220 trees for every person on the planet or about a billion for Ireland alone.
Don't get me wrong we should encourage tree planting, it has many other advantages such as preventing flooding, cleaning the air, increases wildlife biodiversity etc. but better to try set more realistic targets.
I see a lot of blame go to china and while they do produce massive amount of pollution a huge portion of it is due to western economies consumption.

blueshade

_Brian wrote: »

The hypocrisy was the thrust of the post as an example of how everyone wants a solution to penalise others but doesn’t hurt them, but WOOOSHhh, that went straight over your head.

Actually Brian, the tone of your self serving post was confusing. Try being clearer in your posts to avoid confusion.

randomspud

We should turn ourselves into immortal robots. Won't matter how hot it gets then.

I guess chaffinches and whatever will go extinct or whatever but that's their problem.

magicbastarder

cruizer101 wrote: »

1.7 trillion is a **** lot, that's 220 trees for every person on the planet or about a billion for Ireland alone.

If you're planting a new woodland, people will often plant a thousand trees per acre. So one billion trees would be one million acres. Which is about 5% of the area of ireland. If we did this, we'd still be below the European average for tree cover.

NewCorkLad

blueshade wrote: »

Try banning disposable nappies and see how fast parents change their opinions on environmental change and the importance of halting climate change. All those disposable nappies and plastic nappy bags going into landfill and they will never disintegrate. I'd love to see the reaction among parents if Greta made that suggestion.

We have moved to cloth nappies, turned out to be a lot easier to use than we assumed. So would be all for that suggestion and after some brief hysteria people would realize the benefits.

_Brian

blueshade wrote: »

Actually Brian, the tone of your self serving post was confusing. Try being clearer in your posts to avoid confusion.

Yea.
I sometimes forget how low you have to pitch to the crowd in AH, sorry about that.

NIMAN

We keep hearing about how food production and distribution is adding to the problem.

It's time we produced less food.

The world's population is on average getting fatter. Most western or developed nations are anyway.

Yet every single family throws out food. So it's obvious that we are chucking away food and still getting too much, so it's time to curb production
Whatever amount we are making now is obviously too much.



I'd love to see the fashion industry get tackled. If wardrobes around the world are anything like my OHs, they are packed to bursting with items only worn once, or sometimes never. It's time clothes were worn til they couldn't be any more. This whole " it's so last season" needs to be held up and ridiculed for the nonsense it is.

Greyfox

_Brian wrote: »

The hypocrisy was the thrust of the post as an example of how everyone wants a solution to penalise others but doesn’t hurt them

That's why most people waffling about climate change are just making noise, nobody cares about solutions that are going to hit them in the pocket. Also things like the housing crisis are 1000 times more important than climate change

sbsquarepants

magicbastarder wrote: »

If you're planting a new woodland, people will often plant a thousand trees per acre. So one billion trees would be one million acres. Which is about 5% of the area of ireland. If we did this, we'd still be below the European average for tree cover.

I've never planted a woodland, but just picturing an acre of land, it seems like it would be packed to bursting point with 100 trees, never mind a thousand?

But yea, the obvious and most simple (stop gap) solution is probably to start a massive tree planting scheme. There's no reason why we couldn't plant a billion trees on this island over the next decade or so? Well once we didn't let the Co Council shovel holders get involved, (6 men, 2 trucks, 5 days, 1 claim for a back injury and 4 trees planted )

Maybe drop them by helicopter and let them take their chances - nice few new native forests, sucking in carbon for centuries to come!

biko

cruizer101

magicbastarder wrote: »

If you're planting a new woodland, people will often plant a thousand trees per acre. So one billion trees would be one million acres. Which is about 5% of the area of ireland. If we did this, we'd still be below the European average for tree cover.

A thousand per acre seems very dense, an acre is ~4000 sqm so that 4 sqm per tree. That might be fine for a small young tree but if you are thinking long term I think you would need to reduce that density significantly.
I'm far from an expert on trees but I would be thinking at minimum half that density and more realistically a quarter or even less.
A tennis court is about 260sqm and in my mind would fit 12 decent sized trees, thats about 20sqm per tree.

Road-Hog

Hector Savage wrote: »

I know a lad that used cloth nappies for his baby girl, fair play to him he stuck with it...

What about the carbon footprint of the hot water and extra detergent used to wash the cloth Nappies......plus I bet the leakage and number of baby wipes used for cloth Nappies quadruples.....using cloth Nappies is not as ‘green’ as people think.?

gozunda

NIMAN wrote: »

We keep hearing about how food production and distribution is adding to the problem. It's time we produced less food.The world's population is on average getting fatter. Most western or developed nations are anyway.Yet every single family throws out food. So it's obvious that we are chucking away food and still getting too much, so it's time to curb production
Whatever amount we are making now is obviously too much...

It's not regular food which is making people fat - it is how it is being processed and bastardised to create demand. Highly processed muck full of soy and sugar and god knows what and calling it a plant burger or taking perfectly good produce such as a potato to make 'french fries' with added ingredients or adding half a pint of corn syrup to a perfectly good piece of meat. Or the billions of litres of cheap fizzy concoctions that people drink by the bucket full. It's true we do grow enough food to feed for everyone on the planet however that number is increasing. Eitherway I agree food waste is s massive issue and something at least everyone can do something about.

Road-Hog

NewCorkLad wrote: »

We have moved to cloth nappies, turned out to be a lot easier to use than we assumed. So would be all for that suggestion and after some brief hysteria people would realize the benefits.

Don’t forget the additional carbon footprint of the hot water additional washes plus detergent, water useage etc

sydthebeat

Road-Hog wrote: »

Don’t forget the additional carbon footprint of the hot water additional washes plus detergent, water useage etc

the answer to your weird "whataboutery" is half the carbon emissions.... so nothing additional

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45732371

FFVII

sydthebeat wrote: »

Do a thanos and wipe out half the earths population......

Really this^

Plus climate change is an easy fix if we gave a fu*k, but we don't. Money is more important.

Things have to get really bad first.

magicbastarder

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I've never planted a woodland, but just picturing an acre of land, it seems like it would be packed to bursting point with 100 trees, never mind a thousand?

Usually if you're planting a new woodland with native trees, you'll probably be using bare root stock maybe 3 foot tall; when you've planted an acre with 1000 of those, it doesn't feel crowded, they'll be on average a little over 2m from each other iirc. Also to bear in mind is that the earlier the canopy closes, the better, as it shades out competing plants (often grass and brambles, etc). And you're not necessarily going to expect every single one to survive.
For the purposes we're talking about here, many people would make a decent argument for pure rewilding too.

Sofiztikated

blueshade wrote: »

Actually Brian, the tone of your self serving post was confusing. Try being clearer in your posts to avoid confusion.

Nah, his tone was perfectly clear.

magicbastarder

I just had a quick Google in the topic and found one (forestry rather than natural woodland oriented) guide which suggested planting oak at 6,600 per hectare, over twice the density mentioned above. That's assumed at producing very straight grained timber, not necessarily a concern here.

blueshade

Sofiztikated wrote: »

Nah, his tone was perfectly clear.

Not to me, but not to worry, you stand up for your buddy. :rolleyes:

blueshade

_Brian wrote: »

Yea.
I sometimes forget how low you have to pitch to the crowd in AH, sorry about that.

Hardly a sparkling intellect are you Brian?