The Crisis Report - 40
What if I told you there was a way to pull enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to cool the planet down over the next century. How many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to save the FUTURE?
So,
I have been thinking about the Climate Crisis that’s going on and trying to see a realistic path forward. A “real solution” that could be done with current tech, would require NO construction of massive numbers of Carbon Sequestration Stations, and could get us to “Net Zero” immediately. It seemed impossible.
Then today, something in my head clicked and I saw a way it could be done.
I was reading an interview with the author of “Forests Adrift: Currents Shaping the Future of Northeastern Trees”. Which is a great book BTW.
The northeastern United States is one of the most densely forested regions in the country, yet its history of growth, destruction, and renewal are for the most part poorly understood — even by specialists. In this engaging look at both the impermanence and the resilience of the northeastern forest ecosystems, Charles D. Canham provides a synthesis of modern ecological research and explores critical threats that include logging, fire suppression, disease, air pollution, invasive species, and climate change.
Providing a historical perspective on how northeastern forests have changed since the arrival of European settlers, Canham also utilizes new theoretical models to predict how these ecosystems will change and adapt to an uncertain future. This is an informed and accessible investigation of an endangered natural landscape that examines the ramifications of the scientific controversies and ethical dilemmas shaping the future of northeastern forests.
At the same moment, an interview with a Climate Optimist was airing on the Bloomberg channel. They do a Climate/Environment feature on Saturday that I watch.
Listening to the interview and reading an interview from two people discussing the same topic from different perspectives made something click in my head. A number of thoughts, that had been looping in dark orbits, came together and a pattern formed.
Here’s what I was reading.
“When I talk about resilience, I’m really talking about the forests of the eastern half of the country, which represent about half of the forests in the country. The Eastern US is about 50 percent forest now and it turns out, that’s a rebound from 120 years ago, when it would have been about 20 percent forest.
The abandonment of farmland has led to lots of forests. This is where most of the carbon sequestration in the US is happening. Eighty-five percent of the carbon sequestration in US forests is here in the East. That, and we don’t have the fires that are devastating the West.
Northeastern forests sequester 11 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. Will they continue to be so effective in a changing climate?
The data is showing that the average forest in the Eastern US is at sort of peak productivity right now, and there’s no evidence that it’s declining within the range that we observe. And it has to decline eventually. The question is, at what point? We easily have at least 50 more years where Eastern forests will be working at sort of maximum benefit in terms of the climate.”
- Charles Canham
Reforestation is a popular idea right now.
“Heal the Planet/Restore the Forests” is an easy to understand, very appealing slogan.
The problem, according to Mr. Canham, a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute, is that while planting new trees does create potential “carbon sinks”. It typically takes 20–30 years to reach the state where more carbon is stored than released annually.
20 years is the MINIMUM lag time between planting a forest of seedlings and their annual “break even” point as a carbon sink.
The amount of carbon that they draw down from the atmosphere and store will slowly increase year-after-year as the trees grow and mature. It takes about 120 years for temperate zone trees to reach full maturity and peak carbon sequestration capacity.
This is a brutal reality of reforestation. Young trees do not sequester nearly as much carbon as old growth forests. For the first 20–30 years of a tree’s life it actually contributes CO2 to the atmosphere.
This seems counterintuitive. Young trees spring up and grow fast. They have to be pulling lots of CO2 out of the air. It seems obvious.
It turns out, that what you see above ground is only half the picture.
Planting trees in large numbers, actually makes things worse in the short run.
Old Growth forests are the “workhorses” of carbon sequestration.
It takes a tree about 100–120 years before it reaches full efficiency.
Canham argues persuasively we do not have the time to wait for the benefits of new trees to offset emissions from present-day activities. Any new trees planted now, make things worse for the next twenty years.
If they live that long, and drought or fire don’t consume them, then they START to help the situation. To get the best results it will take about 100 years of stable climate until they reach full maturity.
It’s wildly optimistic to think that any trees planted today are going to have a stable climate for the next 100 years. Planting trees as a carbon sequestration plan is actually not just a waste of resources, it makes things worse in the short run.
Canham’s conclusion is that it’s better to protect old forests as “sacred” and look for more effective solutions to industrial emissions.
Now, the Climate Optimist being interviewed on TV was saying exactly the opposite from what Canham had concluded. He was rhapsodizing about the power of the LAND to regenerate and heal itself. Going on and on about how Maine used to be only 20% forested until the Civil War.
Then, after the war, so many farms were abandoned that the forests came back on their own. Nobody planned it, nobody managed it, the forests came back on their own. His conclusion being that, if we set aside land and let NATURE happen, reforestation will happen.
When it does, CO2 levels will drop. Trees will save us from Climate Change, if we restore the forests.
He is right about that. We know 100% that this can work. Because it has happened before.
The exploration and colonization of the “New World” brought diseases to the indigenous Native Americans that killed around 90% of the population. Around 100 million people rapidly died in less than 100 years. So many died, that the regrowth of forests over their fields and farms, pulled enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to cool the planet.
European colonization of Americas killed so many it cooled the Earth’s climate.
This “large-scale depopulation” resulted in vast tracts of agricultural land being left untended, researchers say, allowing the land to become overgrown with trees and other new vegetation.
The regrowth soaked up enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to cool the planet, with the average temperature dropping by 0.15C in the late 1500s and early 1600s, the study by scientists at University College London found.
“The great dying of the indigenous peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth system in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution.”
The drop in temperature during this period was the coldest of the “Little Ice Age”. During this period the River Thames in London would regularly freeze over, snowstorms were common in Portugal and disrupted agriculture caused famines in several European countries.
Reforestation can lower the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere if it's done on a large enough scale AND these forests are allowed to grow unmolested for 100 to 200 years. Assuming the climate stays stable enough that they don’t all die. IT CAN WORK.
It is a “real solution” that could be done with current tech, would require NO construction of massive numbers of Carbon Sequestration Stations, and would not require massive energy inputs whose waste heat would be as bad as the warming from CO2. Reforestation, under the right circumstances can actually work.
What would it take, to actually make that happen?
What's the “catch”?
Two things are needed.
Land that's available to “let heal and regenerate”.
Stabilization of the worsening Climate so that this regenerative growth has the best chance to reach the critical 20 year mark and start pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere.
How much land would be necessary? A rough estimate is about 30%.
That’s the goal of the 30x30 Initiative which was adopted at COP15.
30 by 30 (or 30x30) is a worldwide initiative for governments to designate 30% of Earth’s land and ocean area as protected areas by 2030. The target was proposed by a 2019 article in Science Advances, “A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets”, highlighting the need for expanded nature conservation efforts to mitigate climate change. Launched by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People in 2020, more than 50 nations had agreed to the initiative by January 2021, which has increased to more than 100 countries by October 2022.
In December 2022, 30 by 30 was agreed at the COP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and became a target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This includes the G7 and European Union. — Wikipedia
Currently only 17% of the Earth’s usable land area is “protected” in some way. We use the other 83%, mostly to grow food on.
The first problem with this plan, is that we have to reduce the amount of land we grow food on by a significant amount. Probably between 1/6th and 1/5 of current agricultural land would have to be sacrificed for this project.
The second problem with this plan, is that setting aside land for regeneration doesn't do us any good if we don't stabilize the Climate. We have to get to Net Zero as quickly as possible.
There are two ways to get to Net Zero quickly. Reduce emissions OR reduce population. We don't usually talk openly about the second because it involves sacrificing 30% of the population to save the other 60%.
Who would you vote to sacrifice?
If we had a vote to decide who should die.
Should it be, mostly BLACK and BROWN people?
They make up 80% of the Global Population after all.
Should it be, the people who use the most resources and who have gotten more than their “fair share”?
To put this in terms of Energy Usage.
Americans are consuming roughly eleven thousand watts every moment of every day.
A string of incandescent Christmas lights uses about forty watts.
It’s as if each American had 275 of these strings wrapped around their body, like the chains around Scrooge, burning 24/7/365.
This every-day-is-Christmas level of consumption,means that annual emissions in the U.S. run to sixteen metric tons of CO2 per person.
Per-capita consumption in Thailand and Argentina runs to around two and a half thousand watts per minute and emissions of around four tons of CO2 per person.
335 million fewer Americans is equal to 1.34 Billion living at this level of energy use.
Ugandans and Ethiopians use a hundred watts per minute and emit a tenth of a ton of CO2 per person.
335 million fewer Americans is equal to 53.6 Billion living at this level of energy use.
Somalis consume a mere thirty watts per minute and emit just ninety pounds of CO2 per person.
Should it be, an across the board, 30% of each countries population.
A global “Day of Sacrifice” when 1/3 of each countries population takes a pill (fentanyl perhaps) and dies painlessly. Knowing that by their act of sacrifice they will save the planet and save our civilization. Something like in this book from 1986.
Nature’s End: The Consequences of the Twentieth Century
It is 2025 and the planet is rapidly approaching environmental death. Dr. Gupta Singh, a Hindu guru with a Jim Jones-like following, has proposed the suicide, by lottery, of one-third of the world’s population. His followers have elected a Depopulationist majority in Congress…
Or maybe, we don’t get a vote.
Perhaps the Global Elite simply structures things so that 30% of us starve during the next 4–6 years. Let Nature do the work and consider it a “culling” of the “surplus populations”.
After all, it worked for the British in India and Ireland.
It's a proven technique.
With AI like ChatGPT a lot of us are now probably, “excess to needs”.
There's about to be a MAJOR HEAT SPIKE. Accompanied by Global Famines.
If 30% of the Global Population died in the next few years Global Warming would be brought under control.
Emissions would fall dramatically.
This would help stabilize warming and the overall climate situation.
It would buy time for a massive “regrowth and reforestation” of “abandoned land” to occur.
As the Climate Optimist being interviewed stated, “if we set aside land and let NATURE happen, reforestation will take place”. Nature will repair itself and in the process pull enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to cool the planet.
Without any CSS effort on our part. Without any energy cost on our part.
Those new trees will pull CO2 out of the atmosphere for the next 200 years.
IT'S THE ONLY WAY.
The Elites are better than us, stronger, tougher, smarter. They are used to making “hard choices” for all of us. Plus, we know how they feel about us. How much they “value” our lives.
Right Now not a SINGLE Government in the World is dominated by a GREEN Party. Not One.
This is not an accident of fate.
If we don’t decide together what to do about Global Warming. The Elites will decide for us.
How many lives do you think they will be willing to sacrifice to save their FUTURE?
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”
-rc 05072023
Excellent analysis. Totally on target. Rapid population decline is a logical consequence of our human trajectory.