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Re: Ecosia: Does it do anything?

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:26 pm
by brimstoneSalad
Jamie in Chile wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 7:53 pm Planting trees in the tropics, and avoiding cutting them down, is a genuinely good global warming reduction tactic. But planting trees in the temperate zones makes little difference because the albedo effect counteracts the carbon effect. This is the scientific consensus.
I think you'd do better to look at the substrate. Replacing highly reflective white sand with trees even in the tropics wouldn't be a great idea for albedo, but if you have darker sand or dirt then trees can be a benefit even in temperate zones provided there's not a lot of winter reflection due to snow. And if there is, the type of tree matters too: deciduous trees that drop leaf will have very little effect on a snowy albedo during winter. Evergreens could be an issue.

However, if you're engaging in forestry and pulling carbon from the forest as wood then there can be more long term carbon capture that overcomes the albedo change. This is common for evergreen forestry. Albedo is a one time change, if you can capture more carbon than the tree biomass over time you will inevitably surpass albedo. Of course we are most concerned with short term effects, but even there there's a lot of potential in soil biomass for deciduous trees (of course limited, but it brings up important questions of soil quality too).

Anyway, complications like that are at least why I wouldn't recommend putting energy into tree planting unless the trees will be productive.
Jamie in Chile wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 7:53 pmI did a thorough analysis on the effect of tree planting on global warming and posted my findings on another forum. If you are interested ask me to copy and paste it here (it will be a large amount of text including many links) or you can PM me for the link. (I am not going to post links to a competing forum here unless I get told it's OK.)
You can repost it here, I'd suggest a new thread. I'd love to read it.

What's the forum called? If it's a good one maybe we can do a link trade (helps both forums on search ranking).

Re: Ecosia: Does it do anything?

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:14 pm
by Jamie in Chile
It's called Vegan Forum.

Re: Ecosia: Does it do anything?

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 2:58 pm
by brimstoneSalad
Jamie in Chile wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:14 pm It's called Vegan Forum.
Oh, our arch nemesis!

I thought they used to only allow vegans there, or am I thinking of somewhere else? Or have they liberalized?

Looks like they have fewer posts than we do but I think they've been around longer, did they reboot and lose everything or do they prune?

Re: Ecosia: Does it do anything?

Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:39 pm
by Jamie in Chile
I honestly don't know much about the history and I'm not sure I can speak about the forum accurately to be honest. It seems to change over time.

Re: Ecosia: Does it do anything?

Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2019 7:54 pm
by Lay Vegan
I'm an active lurker on that forum and the Effective Altruism Forum. I haven't bothered registering an account because I've grown too accustomed to this site's interface (I know, I'm weird).