PLANT FORESTS TO CONTROL GLOBAL WARMING —EUREKA DISCOVERY!

REPLANTING FORESTS BEST WAY TO CONTROL ATMOSPHERIC CARBON

REPLANTING AREA THE SIZE OF USA TO CONTROL MOST GLOBAL CARBON EXCESSES

Thomas Crowther Professor of Environmental Systems at Ecole Polytechnique Federal, Zurich, Switzerland, co-author of a fascinating analysis of trees and forests as a means of controlling global  atmospheric carbon dioxide has just  published his  findings in “Science” yesterday (July 4, 2019)   In the report: “Global Tree Restoration Potential,  Crowther and his co-author Jean Francois Bastin and colleagues  analyzed  global  satellite images from Google Earth data sets (!) to generate calculations regarding areas which have the potential for reforestation.  Their data indicates that there are vast areas—which are presently not in agriculture or pasture are vacant with no forest cover.  About half of these potential areas are found in the nations of China, Russia, Canada and Australia.  This EPF study identified areas for potential reforestation, and as well quantified the potential benefits were these areas to be reforested.   Their calculations indicate that  reforestation would have a major impact on efforts to address the  imminent problem of the  accumulation of carbon (CO2) in the atmosphere and global warming.

Crowther and  Bastin concluded that reforestation of an area (@2.2 billion acres) roughly the size of the continental USA (@2 billion acres) would increase the world’s forested area by one-third and would sequester (or take out of circulation)  approximately 66% (or 200 billion metric tons) of the estimated 300 billion metric tons of excess carbon in the atmosphere.  That amount is equivalent to the amount added to the atmosphere by man since the beginning of the Industrial Age.  

In one of the earth’s great natural cycles —green plants —such as forest trees—take in atmospheric carbon dioxide and convert it to sugars and cellulose (by photosynthesis) creating oxygen as a waste-product.  Thus, green plants remove carbon dioxide  from the atmosphere to create plant tissues— such as leaves and wood.    Animals (as well as plants) utilize atmospheric oxygen by combining it with the sugars (produced by plants) extracting energy from the process and  producing carbon dioxide as a waste product.   This recycled carbon dioxide from natural combustion (burning of wood) and metabolism  goes right back into the atmosphere.  This earth cycle is (was) a perfect system of users and consumers, kept in balance by a continuous and conservative  recycling process.  And as a result of that balance. the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere under those circumstances remained relatively stable (at @ 0.02 percent) for long periods of time.  

But once humans discovered a black colored hard substance (coal) which could be dug up from below would burn longer and hotter than wood—-they preferred to use it.  It was discovered at a time when rising populations and need for energy had just about depleted many forests of sizable trees.  Coal was so common that it could provide an almost inexhaustible source of energy.  Not more than a century later petroleum (rock oil) another source of buried carbon was exploited.  It was even easier to extract and transport and burned as hot.  It was eventually preferred over coal. 

These fossil fuels are burned in the atmosphere to produce energy for our needs. In this combustion process the fossil fuels combining with oxygen of the atmosphere to produce new CO2!  That is carbon dioxide which had (been recently unearthed) not been part of the recent carbon cycling from green plants on the earth’s  surface,  This new carbon dioxide is added to the original natural recycled carbon dioxide of the atmosphere and thus the percent of this gas in the atmosphere rose steadily.  It presently comprises at about 0.04 percent of the atmosphere.    Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has the unusual property of absorbing heat radiated upward through the atmosphere from the sun-warmed earth surface, trapping earth heat (like—but not exactly— a greenhouse)  and thus warming the atmosphere.  

 More heat (energy ) in the atmosphere results in more, larger and more intense  storms, , more rain, more flooding in some places and more intense droughts in others.  yes and even more snow in some places too.  In general, more energy in the atmosphere causes more intense forms of storms and atmospheric phenomena which are only processes which function to disperse excess heat energy as wind clouds, snow and rain. 

The problem for modern humans is how to put that bad “new carbon” back into the box—back underground or in some solid state where it can not act as a heat absorbing gas in the atmosphere.  

Crowther and Bastin have thankful given us some tools to work with to achieve that goal—to sequester put underground or in a solid state the new carbon we have Crete’s as an industrial society.  We can of course also plant trees in urban areas, plant trees on our own lands, fight to keep others from indescriminately cutting trees, reduce wasteful and harmful forest clearing, reduce and replant waste areas like unused parking fields, and reduce our wasteful consumptio. of fossil carbon fuels.  Move toward expanding use of electric vehicles, and reduce heating and cooling waste, etc. etc.—-But if as Crowther and Bastin claim that we can replant forests  to take up as much as two tries of the carbon we have generated over centuries of fossil fuel use may be able to keep our heads above the proverbial water—-so to speak— as we all learn how to become more circumspect on how we use and conserve energy. 

This study is indeed a Eureka moment.  Kudos to the authors!