While forest mismanagement/fire suppression has surely wreaked havoc with the health of forests, even if we planted trillions of tree now, it would not move the needle in a meaningful way.
Why?
Consider the following:
The rapid thawing of permafrost has enormous implications for climate change.
There are an estimated 1,400 gigatons of carbon frozen in permafrost, making the Arctic one of the largest carbon sinks in the world.
That’s about four times more than humans have emitted since the Industrial Revolution, and nearly twice as much as is currently contained in the atmosphere.
According to a recent report, a 3.6-degrees Fahrenheit ( 2 degrees Celsius) increase in temperature — expected by the end of the century — will result in a loss of about 40 percent of the world’s permafrost by 2100.
Source, https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-melting-permafrost-is-beginning-to-transform-the-arctic
The above projections are based upon 2 C.
Here’s a 5 C warning, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-03/climate-models-are-running-red-hot-and-scientists-don-t-know-why
We have already opened Pandora’s Box with respect to runaway climate disruption.
13
When you think about this issue, read up on the importance of Early Successional Forest to all sorts of flora and fauna. And don't stop there, check out the 1937 Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, aka the Pittman–Robertson Act.
3
Trees, water, wind. Renewable resources. We should embrace them instead of wasting them.
6
Hate to be a debby downer but planting trees is not going to save us. These are destroyed ecosystems , with complex biology and life of all kind. You can't just stick another tree in the ground and think it is going to somehow magically recreate a forest/ Ask any scientist: oh that's right, trump says don't listen to scientists. Our hero suggesting we plant a trillion trees as he decimates the EPA and yes, this is about people like him.
15
It's about time we got rid of all those pesky trees, tarred the land over and turned it into one big parking lot. At least we're safe from such problems in the U.S.A.
4
Colorado is ripe for the Mother of all Forest Fires, with almost a billion dead trees across millions of acres.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetle_kill_in_Colorado
7
Remember Global Warming?
Turns out the world isn't warming so they changed that lie to the all encompassing "Climate Change".
Fools are born every minute and they believe in Climate Change.
2
For a perspective on how bad it can get in Europe, try re-reading.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/18/world/europe/portugal-pedrogao-grande-forest-fires.html
More people died in that fire than any wildfire in Portuguese recorded history.
6
Wildfires on all continents worse than they have ever been. Sounds like a solution to over population. Hopefully there will be plenty of wars as well.
Who will be the first nation to implement the ultimate solution? My money is on the US with it's oversized military and the general cruelty and stupidity of it's leaders and people.
7
As usual the NYT forces the climate-change narrative upon this story but a critical reading suggests that there is another story here, of farmers abandoning the land. When farmland naturally returns to forest, it goes through a scrub phase which is very vulnerable to fire. It seems that is what is happening here
15% above mean is hardly a catastrophe. Probably only one SD from the mean.
3
What good, what difference does it do in the long run to go ahead and plant 1 trillion trees at a time when the environment is, by and large, becoming hostile.
Virtue-signaling. Looks good on paper though, in effect, probably bound to fail. Let's already just assume that, in the best-case scenario, a sliver of that overblown number would be met with any real action.
For one, far too many vested interests and lobbyists lurk in the wings meanwhile pull the levers straight in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, they wait over every opportunity to, one at a time, overturn conservationist regulations to instead, get on with their plan to clear the land thus rehabilitate such spaces for far more profitable business ventures. Soybean plantations, beef... to name a few.
The process is already well underway this world over and expected to continue until all primitive forests have shrunk down to nothing.
This is why, by comparison, the feel-good notion of planting or replanting trees in huge numbers, despite being a pretty cut and dry solution to downsize ever-increasing carbon footprint levels may still have to take the backseat for a little longer.
10
I live in Languedoc and have seen an increase in fires over 20 years. This year I hired a man to help me cut down all the lower limbs of trees and low-growing plants in the pinede next to my home - hoping to prevent any fire on my property. I am grateful that the local pompiers seem to be able to respond very quickly to brush fires, yet still more and more hectares are consumed each year. The new normal is not knowing what to expect.
9
Everybody should read "The Hidden Life of Trees" by Peter Wohlleben. I promise you, you will never look upon a forest the same old way again.
What Wohlleben illuminates is the interconnectedness of trees, how they sustain each other, learn from each other, even protect each other. Underneath the forest floor, an intricate network of trees exists, drawing nourishment from each other and sometimes even keep trees alive that appear dead on the surface. It is so fascinating, and actually, quite frankly, a mirror of what our human life is all about. And it is not only touching and fascinating, but it makes it quite clear that cutting down trees, destroying forests, because trees can be planted again, either there or somewhere else, really misses the point.
We need to preserve our forests the way they are, and in addition to that, plant more.
12
@Margaret - the only thing is that trees are a 100% renewable resource, and forestry can be done in a way that is also 100% sustainable (check out the Forest Stewardship Council, whose evolving standards represent sustainable forest management at its finest). I work in sustainable forestry for a 3rd party certification body that audits companies to ensure they are meeting these rigorous sustainability standards. Aside from the importance of managing forests as a fire mitigation measure, consider how wood is a sustainable resource. If you want a green economy, trees have to be included in the mix. Did you know that our energy grid is still heavily dependent on coal? Probably so. Did you know that converting coal fired plants to woody biomass (or agricultural residues) reduces GHG emissions from those facilities by about 75%? Probably not. It's important to look at our society with all of these considerations in mind. Not to mention the social benefits of forestry. Often times these operations are located in impoverished rural areas. A saw or paper mill brings much needed jobs to struggling economies, and that helps people to lift themselves out of poverty. In short, there are a lot of benefits to harvesting trees and replanting them. The gut reaction to leave forests as they are without consideration of all of the important social and environmental benefits of sustainable forestry is too shortsighted, and focuses almost entirely on emotion/aesthetics rather than practicality.
1
@Margaret Agreed Margaret. And also read The Overstory by Richard Powers.
3
A few measures can easily be taken, against smoking, bbq’s, use of suv’s, in forests and on wild beaches, but even that seems to be very difficult.
8
Nice effort, Ms. Sengupta. (I reported on land use, wilderness issues, wildlife and the Forest Service for 13 years in the 70's and 80's). There's a lot of talk now about planting a trillion trees in a hurry. But that won't replace the complex eco-systems we are destroying, and all the life supporting benefits they provide. It's just a not very well conceived geo-engineering scheme to enable us to continue our over-consuming ways for a while longer. There's also a lot of fascination now with prescribed burning. Of course the timber industry has been blaming fuel buildup as the cause of forest fires for decades, when the real reason for big fires is the kind of conditions (excess heat/wind) that spark conflagrations that sweep away everything. As far as Catalonia goes, it's only going to get hotter there more often. Nature won't replace the species that used to be there because they won't grow in the new conditions. As many commenters here point out, we need to radically change the way we live now. Stop the over-consumption of resources and the destruction of resources, while developing site specific eco-system restoration projects where it is still possible, including as part of that the planting of more trees where it makes sense.
14
@Jeff Sher
Well stated, but it isn't going to happen. We are too greedy, too selfish, too ignorant and our leaders are in it for themselves. Throw in the rich who want nothing to change and voila, the future is not looking too bright. But I am sure whoever is left (and there will no be too many for long) will take a look at your comment and say, "wish we had listened to him'"
7
Forests do nothing for climate change. As long as we are releasing carbon from fossil fuel deposits deep underground, it doesn’t matter what we do at the surface! Short of depositing carbon back underground it will remain the biosphere and impact its greenhouse gas ratio. Also, the concept of planned ecosystems and designer forests is the epitome of human hubris. Let the forests burn naturally and whatever survives or grows back is what belongs there.
5
@Andy,
While simply planting trees won't solve our problem, it's not true that forests do "nothing" for climate change. They've always been sinks for atmospheric carbon. The increase in CO2 over the last 300 years is due to both increased transfer from geological sequestration, and reduced removal by land sinks. We should stop using fossil carbon for energy, *and* restore forests.
7
Your example shows the problem to be a lack of management, just as in Australia. Europe used to be very good at managing forests and never had fires. Management is all the more important now.
1
@Plank,
I agree with you, if by "management" you mean restoring fire to its ancient role in forest ecosystems.
2
I live in Provence, France and it's surprising how little concern people here — natives and transplants — give to the growing threat.
Robert from Bordeaux makes a good point that forests here are smaller and more manageable. However, in every direction, there is heavily wooded hills with isolated homes, much like Malibu CA.
Eventually, the fires will outnumber the firefighters in our 40C summers which, from the short time I've been here, seem to be increasing in duration and intensity.
7
Since the last glacial retreat, forests in Europe have been managed by grazing ungulates—aurochs, deer, and more recently domestic animals. Forests need grazers.
10
With time, our climate will bear almost no resemblance to the 20th Century's climate. Further, the rate of change seems to be accelerating, according to various studies. If we are going to stop the freefall, we must plant a trillion trees very quickly (in a few years) or else the benefits will be minimal. And we must, of course, end emissions right now. If not, then buying real estate closer to poles would be advisable.
2
Fires have consumed forests and grasslands for centuries. Unfortunately, few countries today have chosen to spend the money needed to lower the risks and to provide water storage tanks and water pipelines in areas that might burn. I guess it is easier to complain.
1
@William McCain,
You're not wrong, but risk reduction competes with all other demands for money. Meanwhile, even where wildfires have always occurred, anthropogenic climate change is making them more costly. Water storage and pipelines will help, but building out the carbon-neutral economy will help more.
4
Forests are huge carbon sinks but not just in the part of trees above ground. Cold boreal forests stoare a lot of carbon on the forest floor, which decomposes very slowing. Boreal and especially temperate forests store a lot of carbon below ground in soil fungi. Peat bog forests in all climate zones store huge amounts of carbon in peat. The carbon storing capacity of forest on and below ground is not widely known.
Forest are just not under threat from fire. The human spreading of earthworms northward into un-glaciated temperate and boreal forests is consuming forest litter and releasing huge amount of carbon.
The on-going loss of tropical peat bog forests to palm oil plantations today releases more carbon in the atmosphere than all the wind farms are saving in carbon release.
14
I'd like to temper this seemingly alarming paper. In most of Europe and because of our high density of population our forests are being scrutinised constantly. Even though big fires are an eventuality, we are not under the menace of fires to the scale the USA or Australia have had to fight recently simply because of the fact that our forests are way smaller.
7
You take issue with something that wasn’t written: nowhere does the try to compare the risk/threat in Europe to that in the USA or Australia. It presents what evidently is a very real concern without comparing it to elsewhere. If you take issue with that you should rewrite your comment and provide substantive evidence.
1
Planting trees, especially those that are native to a particular region, is a fine thing. In the end, though, the one thing people can do now and continue doing is parking the car and walking. Period.
18
Unfortunately, the trees that are native now may not survive as regions become hotter and drier. We can only guess what will survive in 50 years and plant those trees.
3
@Alan C Gregory,
That's not all people can do now. In particular, they can vote to replace the current government of climate-science deniers with representatives who will enact effective decarbonization policies, to drive the collective transition to a carbon-neutral global economy. Of course, economic forces lead us to damage the biosphere in multiple ways. Anthropogenic global warming itself, however, is relatively easy to address: people can still drive cars, they just need to stop fueling them with fossil carbon.
7
Globally, forests absorb 30% of atmosperic CO2, so forest fires in hot, dry regions make mature forests in cooler, more moist regions an even greater factor in the global carbon equation.
5
Yes for much of the Twentieth Century forests and woodlands expanded again in many developed countries as marginal farmland was abandoned with the rise of industrial agriculture.
However that trend is reversing again, and forests and woodlands are under multiple threats from not just a warming planet, but also exotic diseases and pests and all kinds of land development--expansion of cities and towns, vacation homes and resorts, new roads, pipelines, transmission lines, wind and solar farms, oil and gas, biofuel production, new agricultural land etc.
Increasing forest fragmentation is a particular threat to healthy forests and woodlands.
Just zoom in and out with Google Earth and see for yourself what land use patterns are and how they are changing.
In the USA forest land had been roughly constant from 1900 to 2000, but since 2010 it has been in decline, due to land development.
15
There is a glaring error in this article. When a forest burns, only about 20% of the site carbon goes into the atmosphere. The rest is in unburned trunks and charcoal that becomes a soil amendment.
When a forest is logged, it's the opposite. In spite of timber industry misinformation, only about 15% of the site carbon after a clearcut ends up in wood products. Logging truck gasoline, site waste (roots and branches), mill waste, noncommercial species and other factors are the reasons. This is hard science.
It's also not necessarily the case that "planting trees", often monocultures or non-native species, is the answer. Those efforts often end up as failed experiments, since given climate change foresters cannot accurately predict which species will thrive.
The best thing we can do here in the US is to stop building houses out of lumber, due to the carbon footprint, vicious clearcutting, and sending forests on different ecological trajectories (see: "Cumulative Effects of Forest Practices in Oregon"). Our media companies rarely address this, since they use paper, and accept advertising from wooden house (rare everywhere else) advertisers.
Butte County might rebuild with lumber, after the Camp Fire, where about 15,000 houses burned down, largely fueled by the wood in the houses (20 tons of it apiece). The town will then burn again, and be abandoned, as spokespeople claim, ridiculously, that wood is just fine for houses in fire prone areas. We need to address this.
17
@Mike Roddy
Buildings made from wood aren't the only problem. Alternatives, brick and concrete also involve quite a lot of CO2 in their manufacture and offer lower insulation properties.
6
@Mike Roddy
At no point do you say that it is unsustainable and environmentally damaging to have people living in these areas.
People also have to understand that every living thing has to move on to a new area eventually. Living in one area strips the environment of the resources to support the lifeforms living in that area.
Nature will never bend to our whims. Our nomadic ancestors were far smarter than we are.
14
@Mike Roddy
Thank you for writing this. Logging corporations have gotten a free pass for a long time now. In Canada on the West coast, they clearcut and spray herbicides to stop certain trees from growing. The herbicides kill wildlife as well.
Logging corporations have an extensive budget for PR and many governments heavily support them.
11
No, to forest management. We must get out of vast areas of the natural landscape. A natural landscape is one under the sole control of natural forces and processes. The VROC (vegan raisin oatmeal cookie [model]) does this separating. Then, both the cultural "islands" can be protected and the vast species' forests as far as the eye can see, can be protected. We are no longer part of life on this planet, the Species' Planet. We must end intermingling with nature (aka management). Every time we do we get it wrong. --- from the Deep Woods of the Species' Forest, Conway, Massachusetts
6
This shows the power of the current climate mythology.
Let's use logic instead of hysteria. Forests rebound. That means, they grow more dense and larger. What happens with more dense forests? There is more flammable burnable material. So, what you get then is more fires.
Yes, there is climate change. But not everything is due to climate change.
4
@George Tyrebyter
What "climate mythology"? Sure, you get more *potentially* flammable material when forests grow back after cutting or burning. But that material must be dry to burn, and the drier it is, the more easily it will burn. And all else equal, warming means drying. It works out in the physics: higher temperatures draw down soil moisture more rapidly, so fire seasons to start earlier and last longer; and also reduce fuel moisture during the fire season, so fires ignite more easily, burn hotter and spread faster. IOW, anthropogenic climate change is affecting fire regimes around the world. That's science, not mythology.
5
It’s fascinating to see how few comments we see for articles about climate change (And how outlets as sophisticated as the NYTs place a low priority on there placement in the app.)
Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. That is not an overstatement of the situation. Yet few people seem to be paying attention. And even among the readers of the Times we see climate deniers, as one of the comments to the story demonstrates.
Will you humanity wake up to the perilous situation in which we find ourselves? Or is it already too late?
8
@Bobby
It is not only the NYT but the lack of emphasis across the board. Look at the Democratic candidates and what are the saying about climate change, obviously not a major issue for them. The only candidate that spoke to this issue, Governor Inslee, was shouted out by the big mouths who couldn't even work together on plan. None of them are electable. Of course forget Trump altogether with his attack on the EPA and endangered species. A real disaster but maybe that is what our citizens want. More big cars and houses, etc. It never stops. Just the here and now except for making sure that they go to heaven based on who they vote for.
8
@Bobby
I am afraid that many people will wake up only when climate-threatened properties are no longer insurable and people start losing their life savings (or their vacation homes). Until it turns into money, it’s just not real to many people. Likewise, at some point, the corporations threatened by climate change may start fighting the ones that are all for it (oil, coal, gas). Whether that happens in time, I don’t know. Meanwhile, let’s do everything we can to extend the window of possible remedies.
@Bobby
I often comment on NYT climate change articles that allow it. It's usually in response to comments by denialists. There are fewer and fewer of those as time goes by. That's a good thing, IMHO. Capping the warming, however, requires an effective plurality of voters, to turn the current US government out of power and put climate realists in charge. NYTimes readers alone aren't enough.
2
Hold on a second! President Trump told us that the Europeans rake under their trees and don't have forest fires because of that act of gardening. He said, and I paraphrase, that California needs to do the same thing in order to stop wild fires. What foolery.
7
@John OBrienj
Trump has been remiss in not advising the Aussies
to rake under THEIR trees; his genius apparently does not include Forestry or reality testing.
Finally there arises a nightmare of sufficient scale and savagery, as to make his usual sarcasm and ignorance both irrelevant and obscene. Even the obtuse recognize that such degradation might not seem so profitable if they were compensated after deducting costs levied on the locals...like mine waste and tailing containment dams failing and killing residents nearby, smothering and poisoning growing things over miles...
Profiteers of planet degradation, the Exxons, the VALE's, skate with their profits intact, with the new Right watching over them. The president solemnly gives medals to the likes of Rush Limbaugh.
4
Mr. Castellnou's approach of managed burns sounds enlightened but the article didn't explain whether or
not this approach is finding favor among the land owners
in the region. Also, I was left hanging whether the new growth
was as heterogenous as the fire analyst expected.
5
The climate change mechanism is already in place. Droughts and extreme weather are more prevalent. Trump, the foremost climate change denier, has had to make an acknowledgement of the changes going on. So at Davos he proclaims he will plant a trillion trees. This after the climate denier PM of Australia was at the helm during the devastating Australian wild fires. Wild fires are happening all over the world as never seen before. Israel is facing temperature rises and drought conditions for the near future. Climate change has led to economic dislocation and political instability.
7
I grew up in a 'woods', thick with tall oaks that let little sunlight through. Six decades later, there are no young trees only old trees that occaisonally lose big limbs and even fall, shaking the ground and sometimes damaging houses. So neighbors are cutting them down, which bothers me. I stopped mowing my 'lawn' over a decade ago because mowing wastes time, energy, is noisy, and kills young trees. It became a lovely meadow, then less easily described. I've carefully avoided young oaks when mulching leaves and let parts just go. Fortunately, my neighbors tolerate my eccentricity. Now, there are many young oaks, growing slowly, the tallest being only a little over 6' after many years. It is worth the wait.
41
@Reuel
bravo: I have a cabin on the woods and my sister a small farm. We never mow except for a path to the barn to feed the horses and the garden. The field is alive with insects and birds that nest on the ground. And wildflowers. It is a piece of heaven . No lawns, not now or ever.
11
@Reuel
I think what you are saying is that trees grow (well) like families. I had heard that. Thanks very much for your comment. I don’t have trees in my yard. Yet.
2
There are two problems with forests: First, when they are young, they are fire hazards. Until the trees grow big enough for the canopy to shade the understory, when a fire starts, the while thing burns. Once a forest matures, the canopy is distinctly separate from the understory, and the whole thing is more resistant to fire.
That takes hundreds of years.
The second problem is that forests are only a short-term carbon sink. When the vegetation dies, it releases its carbon back into the atmosphere. The long-term storage is in the lithosphere, in the form of oil and coal.
We've been taking carbon that has been sequestered for geological ages in the lithosphere, releasing it to the atmosphere, and hoping that the biosphere will sink it. Meanwhile, the biosphere is sinking it into immature forests which tend to burn readily, releasing all their carbon and a whole bunch of heat back into the atmosphere.
By all means, plant trees. But don't fool yourself into thinking that you've done anything more than applying a bandage.
56
Trumps said in the state of the union speech that he has ordered the planting of millions of trees in response to Climate Change, and that is a good start. Problem is the random destruction of mature trees for no better reason than property owners say they are dirty. Meaning they have to rake the leaves in order to have picturesque, leafless lawns like seen in Travel brochures. The cutting down of trees needs to be regulated with permits , and good reasons for doing so....
27
@Moe Not really. Trump never explicitly said "Climate Change", he just said something about defending the environment.
If we really want to stop this crisis, we need an administration that recognizes it for what it is. It's more than just an environmental issue - climate change will affect all sectors of the economy, rather than just biodiversity or wild lands.
25
Thought provoking and important. You say “The forests of Europe have been shaped and reshaped by human hands over centuries.” This is true of most land everywhere, shaped by us, for us. I think it is most important to understand the effect we have had on the balance of nature and educate ourselves on managing it for the good of all. Burning definitely has a place in this future management plan.
5
Indigenous groups know how to use fire to manage landscapes and keep overgrowth under control. There are fire mitigration programs in development right now but they need funding and all the big foundations focused on climate change are holding conferences, or funding white papers, or giving to the big names in environmental groups, who hold conferences and fund white papers. They also fund agribusiness that contributes to things like giant piles of manure, instead of running animals in fields where their droppings regenerate the soil. We need more money behind the boots on the ground and programs that use regenerative, indigenous techniques.
30
Fire is a part of every landscape that has the vegetation to burn. We need to remind ourselves of the power of wildfire when living near forests, either from Sweden to Spain or Maine to California. They will all burn at some point in the future, and the only difference between spaces is time. This is entirely natural and anyone stating otherwise is likely misleading you, hopefully accidentally.
Often when I read articles regarding wildfire and climate change, I come across alarmist statements regarding wildfires typically highlighting the increase in a number of ignitions, anomalies for a ten-year burn average, or the largest structural loss on record. While these numbers are all of interest, they all ignore a critical wildfire statistic: wildfire area burned is at historic lows for the century. The time scale is important to note as these are the units of which wildfire and forest patterns operate. No single person's anecdote can encompass wildfire patterns in a region, as was stated in this article. A ten-year average of any wildfire statistic does not encompass the natural variability of wildfire in any region. And the number of ignitions does not say anything regarding the amount of area burned.
The problem with all wildfire problems across the globe is our inability to accept the natural ecology of fire. There was a good quote that Mr. Castellnou stated and it applies to Europe as much as it does to North America, “Instead of fighting fire, making peace with fire.”
18
@Phil : And that's why planting a zillion trees is not a solution for climate change. Trees and other vegetation are temporary storage; long term storage is under the ground in the form of oil and coal.
10
@Phil
You're right that wildfires are inevitable even without climate change. Scientists are confident, however, that climate change is making them worse in many areas. See, for example, "Human-caused climate change is now a key driver of forest fire activity in the western United States" (pnas.org/content/113/42/11649). Yes, California must "make peace with fire", but until the global economy is carbon-neutral, wildfires will be ever more likely to start, and more difficult to control when they do.
2
@Phil Agree--- and don't build houses in flood planes and on a beach..why do people continue to ignore natural forces????
Will planting trees instead of crops still fetch EU’s lucrative subsidies for land owner lords and autocrats?
40% tree coverage seems like a distortedly high number for all of Europe given the very high percentage coverage in Scandinavian countries (excluding Denmark and Iceland).
As scorched earth capitalism terror-forms our planet into an unlivable cinder, it is reassuring we still have a terraforming option of planting trees though not nearly enough to restore weather and rain patterns even a trillion trees at a time. Mono crop tree planting seems like it may cause other problems - it needs to be diverse as it is in nature. We need to follow Mother Nature’s recipe for it to work long term.
24
@PAN Mother Nature's plan is for a maximum of a billion humans, and for oil and coal to stay buried. We've exceeded all of Her parameters long ago: we broke it, we bought it. For better or worse, it's up to us now.
10
@mlbex
I completely agree.
Unfortunately the surplus population is needed to continue creating wealth to keep adding to the increasing the astronomical wealth hoard or those at the top.
5
@mlbex
Good reply
1
Planting trees to stop climate change is like recycling. It feels good, but it doesn't solve any of the underlying problems. We need to find ways to cut back on the resources we use as a community. I'm sure many of us in the Western world could find ways to cut back by 20 or 30% on our overall climate impact without significantly reducing our quality of life by, for example, eating less beef, flying less, buying less stuff we don't need. It also sends a political signal and can bring about broader change.
77
@Anna
What we really need to do is to restore historic land cover and land usage. We need millions of hectares more of porous surfaces for water to soak into the ground. We need to have the wildlife play their role. And we need to ban these mega cities. We also need to let the land rest.
10
@Anna
Great comment, every part should be implemented now, but it is missing one very important factor: population explosion (7.7 billion, increasing by 80 million annually > 1% annual rate of growth).
>>> 1.01 ** 26
1.2952563149674063
At an annual population growth rate of 1%, demand for resources increases by 30% in 26 years.
Thus while conservation is absolutely called for, equally called for is some kind of family planning, birth control, et al.
23
@Anna again this is a feel good attitude. eating chicken instead of beef is fine but wont move the needle. the issue is the use of fossil fuels (oil, nat gas, coal) which represents the large majority of the carbon emission. It necessitate huge investment and will at first cost more than the fossil fuel that are sold way below their real replacement value. that may mean more tax which most people dont want to hear currently. At the same time a huge effort to replant more forest is a smart move.
3
Fire behavior has been getting more extreme here in California, and around the world as we saw recently in Greece and Portugal and Australia and many other places. CalFire officials have recently described fire behavior here in California as "historic and unprecedented.”
The Rocky Fire in 2015 burnt 20,000 acres in one 5-hour period with little wind. That’s a speed normally associated with fires driven by the powerful Santa Ana winds. Fires now expand explosively at night and move downhill fast as the residents of Paradise found out the summer before last when the Camp fire incinerated their town.
My town could suffer that same fate before long. Dangerous climate change has arrived for many whether they realize it or not. The numbers affected will grow very non-linearly for a very long time.
20
@Erik Frederiksen
Poor forest management and lack of zoning is causing many of California's problems. Then again the land is beyond it's carrying capacity. I can go on about the environmental damage humans have done by taking water out of natural watersheds and flowing it hundreds of miles away. But the biggest crime against the environment and climate by Californians is to have industrial scale, high water need crops in a natural/historically arid region.
Californians like to blame everyone else for climate change and their problems with fires, landslides and such but really these are, for the most part, problems of your own making.
11
@Sierra Morgan
According to the people who fight fire for a living climate change is significantly exacerbating fire behavior.
I suggest you stop spreading false narratives.
2
@Sierra Morgan
The farmers complain here about not having enough water for their mega crops and recently received support from Trump in regard to California trying to protect their streams and wildlife. Of course they have to go after the other waterways since they have depleted the aquifers. Just greed as shown by their planting water hungry almond trees for export to China.
They just love Republican Nunes.
4