Climate Change Is Turning Trees Into Gluttons (phys.org) 107
Hmmmmmm shares a report from Phys.Org: Trees have long been known to buffer humans from the worst effects of climate change by pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now new research shows just how much forests have been bulking up on that excess carbon. The study, recently published in the Journal Nature Communications, finds that elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased wood volume -- or the biomass -- of forests in the United States. Although other factors like climate and pests can somewhat affect a tree's volume, the study found that elevated carbon levels consistently led to an increase of wood volume in 10 different temperate forest groups across the country. This suggests that trees are helping to shield Earth's ecosystem from the impacts of global warming through their rapid growth.
Over the last two decades, forests in the United States have sequestered about 700-800 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which, according to the study, accounts for roughly 10% to 11% of the country's total carbon dioxide emissions. While exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide can have ill effects on natural systems and infrastructure, trees have no issue gluttoning themselves on Earth's extra supply of the greenhouse gas. To put it in perspective, if you imagine a tree as just a huge cylinder, the added volume the study finds essentially amounts to an extra tree ring. Although such growth may not be noticeable to the average person, compared to the trees of 30 years ago, modern vegetation is about 20% to 30% bigger than it used to be. If applied to the Coast Redwood forests -- home to some of the largest trees in the world -- even a modest percentage increase means a lot of additional carbon storage in forests. Researchers also found that even older large trees continue adding biomass as they age due to elevated carbon dioxide levels. "Forests are taking carbon out of the atmosphere at a rate of about 13% of our gross emissions," said Brent Sohngen, co-author of the study and professor of environmental and resource economics at The Ohio State University. "While we're putting billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we're actually taking much of it out just by letting our forests grow."
Over the last two decades, forests in the United States have sequestered about 700-800 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which, according to the study, accounts for roughly 10% to 11% of the country's total carbon dioxide emissions. While exposure to high levels of carbon dioxide can have ill effects on natural systems and infrastructure, trees have no issue gluttoning themselves on Earth's extra supply of the greenhouse gas. To put it in perspective, if you imagine a tree as just a huge cylinder, the added volume the study finds essentially amounts to an extra tree ring. Although such growth may not be noticeable to the average person, compared to the trees of 30 years ago, modern vegetation is about 20% to 30% bigger than it used to be. If applied to the Coast Redwood forests -- home to some of the largest trees in the world -- even a modest percentage increase means a lot of additional carbon storage in forests. Researchers also found that even older large trees continue adding biomass as they age due to elevated carbon dioxide levels. "Forests are taking carbon out of the atmosphere at a rate of about 13% of our gross emissions," said Brent Sohngen, co-author of the study and professor of environmental and resource economics at The Ohio State University. "While we're putting billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we're actually taking much of it out just by letting our forests grow."
Re: (Score:3)
Still the world emits 30gt+ of co2 every year from unnatural causes. If we stopped emitting trees should soak up excess co2 quiet quickly. Particularly if we can reforest more land
Re: The age of spin (Score:2)
Re: The age of spin (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The "missing lignase" theory is not really settled, FYI:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.10... [pnas.org]
Quite deniable - just not your stylistic choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me guess you have lots of cool theories about election fraud? Jewish space lasers? Any with Tom Hanks and baby blood? What is Hillary really hiding?
The mainstream media have 2 biases: truth and sensationalism. If you're subscribing to news sources telling you "everyone is lying to you but us, isn't that your first clue you're being manipulated?" I strongly disagree that the majority of mainstream media has a consistent ideological slant.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL. I would say, let me guess, you are left of center, but your straw horse "rebuttals" are basic NPC stereotypes that the left has of the right, so I don't even have to ask.
The media has a consistently left of center ideological slant. You aren't the center, nor is the center defined by the middle of you and your group of friends (and the same holds true for me).
Media bias is reflected in a lot of th
Re: (Score:2)
Viral videos featuring Black perpetrators have been circulating on social media. It is critical to contextualize social media and news coverage of such incidents as research shows that the media and crime news overreport and overrepresent Black suspects.
Official law enforcement statistics compiled by Dr. Yan Zhang and colleagues in a study published in 2021 show that compared to the proportion of offenders in anti-Black and anti-Latinx hate crimes the proportion of offenders in violent anti-Asian hate crimes are more likely to be non-white, but that 75% of offenders in anti-Asian hate crimes are white. These data were from 1992-2014.
Systematic analysis of media reports of contemporary anti-Asian incidents by the University of Michigan Virulent Hate Project shows that the majority of perpetrators are identified as male and white in upwards of 75% of news stories when the perpetrator’s race is known in physical or verbal assaults/harassment.
None of this says anything about the political affiliation of the perpetrators, these white people could be Democratic as you claim. There has been a downward change [yougov.com] in the popularity of China and Asian people among Democrats, and so the notion that Democrats might be committing hate crimes against Asia
Re: (Score:2)
LOL. That might have been true in 1965. It certainly isn't true today. In fact, the media suppresses the amount of violent crime inflicted by blacks on other blacks and other races, frequently leaving out an accurate description of perpetrators if
Re: (Score:2)
Brilliant. Air tight. You sure stuck it to "the media." They can't fool you.
Re: (Score:2)
>Your logic seems to be: violent crime among black people is high, therefore all violent crime is mostly committed by black people
It's not "my logic." Quantitatively and provably, the majority (and just in case you are numerically challenged like most leftists, that means >50%) of all violent crime in the United States, where an perpetrator is identified, is by blacks. If you need to figure out the difference between "majori
Re: (Score:2)
No, my logic is the vast majority of documented violent attacks against Asians were committed by blacks during the "anti-Asian violence epidemic."
This is not your logic, this is your claim. Your conclusion. The result of some logical process. I'm not disputing the facts that you're starting with, though I could because your claim that black people account for the majority of violent crime is apparently false [fbi.gov].
Let's say that was true though. Starting from that point, how are you getting to, "the vast majority of documented violent attacks against Asians were committed by blacks"? This is the logical process that you went through above which made no
Re: (Score:2)
That's arrest data. Not offence data.
If you go to https://crime-data-explorer.ap... [cloud.gov], you can pull up the "All Violent Crime Offender vs. Victim Demographics" report for 2021. The numbers for offences by race are: Black: 335,507, White: 328,817, Unknown: 74,048, American Indian: 11,984, Asian: 6,278. Excluding unknown, blacks were responsible for 49.1523% of violent crime
Conservatives seek validation, not information (Score:5, Insightful)
"You must be dumb and gullible because you believe giant corporations who own the media have a bias." Wow, you're a real fucking genius for that one.
Kewl straw man there, bud, but if you're going to pretend to quote me, use my actual words.
The media doesn't have a consistent bias. Individual reporters may not be perfectly objective, but the mainstream media has precisely 2 goals: 1. to make money 2. to do their stated job and provide information...in that order. A cynic would say they emphasize #1 to an extreme.
However, "conservative media" has an explicit and stated bias. There's a little bit of "liberal media" here and there, but it's never been successful. Conservative audiences seek validation. Everyone else, many who are not liberal, seeks information. CNN doesn't have to tell you not to trust anyone else...nor does the NYT. However, Breitbart, Fox, OAN, newsmax....they present themselves as warriors fighting the good fight while the world is against them....just like Scientologists and most cults do. Any time someone says "trust no one"...yeah...that's what cults do. You're being manipulated. That's what Putin and Bolsonaro and Duterte tell their followers. All the famous Despots since the 20th century, many we have gone to war with, have relied on that tactic.
Maybe the editorial pages have consistent bias among individual authors...but I don't really count explicitly stated editorials as a bias. Their bread and butter is the news and the news stories generally try to inform over influence.
Certainly, I personally think that someone calling a tree a glutton is not trying to ram climate change down our throat. I think the author just made a stylistic choice in communicating that some disagree with. I've stated many things that have been misinterpreted from my intention. I think that's more probable than some dude hates to share good news about Climate Change and thus is writing silly headlines just to scare you.
Liberal media isn't very successful (Score:2)
It turns out that few knew that conservatives seek validation, but everyone else doesn't require it. Conservatives adjust their information-flow based on their wo
Re: (Score:2)
A moderate's take: I thought it was a weird choice of words, but had no sense of a particular spin from it. When I read your comment, I had no clue which side you were on.
Re: (Score:2)
Tree's, and plants in general need a balance of nutrients to be healthy and often increasing one nutrient causes growth and weakness. The usual example is nitrogen, feed lots of nitrogen to a plant, it grows rapidly and actually ends up weaker. Enough nitrogen will burn and kill the plant.
It is why fertilizer needs to be balanced, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium in varying ratios depending on the plants growth cycle. And ideally the various micro-nutrients, plants that are deficient in lets say iron are
Re: The age of spin (Score:2)
Increased rainfall in certain areas. Only an idiot thinks that it means increased rainfall uniformly across the planet.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure it's spin, exactly, but the wording of the final quote seemed off. To say that reabsorbing 13% of emissions is "taking much of it out" (my emphasis) strikes me as wildly generous.
Re: (Score:1)
Save the Amazon! (Score:4, Insightful)
Except we are deforesting the Amazon much faster than the rest of the forests can sequester CO2.
Also, cutting down forests for livestock pasture is a global problem.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
La la la la la la la la. This is simply more proof that global warming is a yyyuuggee rigged liberal hoax! Oops, I forgot to mention “woke”.
(Hope you can detect the sarcasm).
Re: (Score:2)
(Hope you can detect the sarcasm).
Whoever modded you down failed to notice the sarcasm.
Re: (Score:2)
You’ll migrate north, all the while denying climate change and blaming obama and george soros.
People smarter than both of us
Re: Save the Amazon! (Score:2)
There is no irony. Modern methods do not require as much energy as medieval or iron age methods. It is only fossil fuel power generation that is a significant problem and it isn't required. Modern technology has made it unnecessary.
But you don't give an f about logic, you naturally assume that 1920s approaches ARE the modern way, forgetting we've had another 100 years since then, with all those lovely advances.
Re: Save the Amazon! (Score:2)
Well, yes, it is accounted for and it is measured, but don't let that spoil your prejudicial rant.
Re: Save the Amazon! (Score:2)
It would be a waste of time to attack the US. The war would generate far more waste and pollutants than removing the US would prevent.
Brazil, well, let's see what happens at the election. You'd not really need to attack Brazil per-se, though. All you need to do is take out the illegal mining operations and the illegal farms.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Save the Amazon! (Score:5, Interesting)
Really in a way that is being decided today with the Brazilian elections.
Lula is far from perfect but he's a far cry better for the Amazon than Bolsanaro who pretty much has an explicit directive to continue taking more of it down.
Re: (Score:2)
Looking like it's going to a second round of voting at the end of the month so I learned something about the Brazilian election system, that it is better than the Electoral College.
Re: (Score:2)
It means a month of violence while the incumbent basically says that he won't recognize a loss along with a small chance the military will support Bolsanaro.
Democracy seems to be failing all over the world with minority's doing their best to stay in power.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you are out there clear-cutting with the rest of the ranchers, no, you aren't deforesting the Amazon. Nor are many (any) of the posters here. Get a grip.
Re: Save the Amazon! (Score:2)
Every time you eat a hamburger, you kill a tree
Re: (Score:2)
I hope you're joking.
Save the midwest (Score:2)
Re: Save the midwest (Score:2)
Good idea!
However, we need to do both.
Solution to the CO2 problem. (Score:4, Funny)
Create a new drug based on CO2 which gives a greater high than any other drug on the market. All the smack heads will clean up the world for us while feeling good about it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Except they would die young and release all that CO2 back into the atmosphere.
Re: (Score:1)
Except they would die young and release all that CO2 back into the atmosphere.
It’s the circle of drugs.
Re: (Score:2)
It’s the circle of drugs.
I'm seeing the next Disney+ feature here!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm seeing Elon Musk point to too few people as a problem.
I think Elon is just rationalizing his behavior.
Is their "gluttony" adding fat or muscle? (Score:3, Interesting)
If trees are growing faster and larger while growing weaker tissue this could lead to premature failure of the trees structure.
Re: (Score:2)
On the flip side, it means that softwood trees for paper will also grow faster, which makes paper cheaper, and because we tend to bury that in the ground, where it sequesters carbon long-term, faster growth is great.
Of course, one could also argue that global warming is in part caused by the decline of newspapers.... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the fibre quality. Too fast growth might result in fibre that is crap. Really it likely depends on other nutrients availability.
Re: (Score:1)
Would not trees falling over in the wind, or whatever is the last straw to cause them to keel over, lead to spreading of seeds and expose land to sunlight by their leaves no longer being above it? The trees may fall over sooner but the forest spreads faster. No doubt some natural selection will take place to compensate one way or another. Trees that die sooner adds more generations in a given amount of time for mutations to spread more quickly. With an increase in the rate of natural selection we could
Re: (Score:2)
I, for one, ... (Score:2, Funny)
Welcome our carbon-bulked o-verdure ...
So basically (Score:5, Interesting)
It would seem that, at least for the trees in question, the availability of carbon dioxide has been the limiting factor in photosynthesis. This doesn't seem too surprising; anecdotally I remember reading, years ago, about a gardener who had a still for making moonshine at one end of his greenhouse. The plants nearer the still were consistently larger and more lush, and the speculation was it was due to excess carbon dioxide being generated as the mash broke down.
Re: (Score:3)
I'll give you one better.
ADM once setup a large industrial greenhouse fed on the exhaust of an ethanol plant (CO2). Not only did the plants flush under the much higher CO2, they found a "sweet spot" high level where people could be in the building, but where most bugs (and their lack of lungs) would suffocate. No pesticides required.
Yes, they took it down after a few years.
Can't help but wonder if it worked too well and went across too many established narratives.
Re: (Score:2)
Can be the limiting factor in photosynthesis. They need enough other nutrients to be healthy. Good fertile soil and extra CO2, more growth. Shitty soil, not so much, they get spindly and weak.
The greenhouse would be ideal for adding CO2 for growth.
Now figure out a way to turn trees into (Score:2, Funny)
hydrocarbons and you've got yourself a nice tidy package.
Re: (Score:2)
Now figure out a way to turn trees into hydrocarbons and you've got yourself a nice tidy package.
How is this trolling? Seems quite insightful to me. We've had proponents of bio-mass fuels discuss this as a possible solution to global warming for some time. Perhaps not this exact solution but certainly similar things like ethanol from cellulose, or aviation fuels from algae. Trees make cellulose, don't they? Cellulose into hydrocarbons is a thing, isn't it? Figure that out so we get the costs down and we got something useful for replacing petroleum as a fuel source. Trees growing faster would def
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Who said water is becoming more scarce? We just had a hurricane come through. I don't think the people in Fort Myers Florida are concerned about drought. After all climate change increases hurricanes and therefore water on land.
This entire line of discussion is designed to make us think that no matter what happens it is a) bad, b) caused by human made climate change, and c) we can only be saved by higher taxes, less freedom and more misery. Unless we're the super wealthy .0001% who cry out for these con
Re: (Score:3)
The entire American South West (Score:2)
And God, I hope you're getting paid to spew that nonsense. It would be sad if you were literally dooming human civilization "for the lulz".
Re: (Score:1)
Aquifer.
Re: (Score:1)
The desert being a desert has you concerned? Places that would otherwise be uninhabitable without shipping water from three states away should maybe go back to being uninhabitable.
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe they should. Or maybe we can just have reasonable policies not based on ignorance and power politics of the early previous century.
The Colorado river has *plenty* of water for everyone. We just have to be less stupid about it. We don't even need to be smart. Just less stupid and it'll be fine.
Re: YouTuber professor stick debunked this (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Nope. I'm mocking his climate change nonsense statements about water availability and usage. Some places are and always have been very wet. Others very dry. Some have changed over thousands of years. Others have remained pretty much as is for thousands of years. Shit happens to the climate, plants and animals respond to it, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But his statement that we know XYZ will occur when we've already seen the opposite as per the article is ridiculous and outrageous on its fa
Re: (Score:2)
"Scientists have already studied this and found..." No, they did not find it. What they, whoever "they" are, PREDICTED that would happen. With most scientific predictions, the theory is not accepted until the prediction is tested, not the other way around, the verdict before the trial.
Fat Trees (Score:5, Funny)
I knew the obesity epidemic was getting out of hand, but this is ridiculous.
So, in other words ... (Score:2)
It is a more effective action against climate change in the short term to keep a mature tree standing than to plant a new one?
I think it could also be cheap, depending more on the social and political climate in the local area than anything else.
Not that we shouldn't also plant new trees, and to choose the most eco-friendly building materials when possible (which might be wood).
Weed growers will be happy. (Score:1)
https://www.leafly.com/news/gr... [leafly.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Trees, the ultimate in "renewable" energy (Score:1)
Burn them suckers in steam locomotives or tree burning power plants, extracting energy shoving carbon into the air... add sunlight and water, and new trees suck the carbon out of the air to produce new bigger trees...
Turns out, we have a "carbon cycle" here on Earth...who'da thunk it? (well, aside from people who are old enough to have a basic science education before things went "woke" and things like carbon cycles and water cycles were replaced by 57 genders...)
Actually, even petroleum is a "renewable" an
Re: Trees, the ultimate in "renewable" energy (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:1)
I have also noticed plants and trees are greener... aka it appears trees have more leaves than in past years and weeds and grass is growing lusher as well. However readers remem ber that if we keep increasing CO2 there will come a point where plants can no longer assist and Earth will likely turn into another Venus so this experiemnt should be ended by slashing oil usage ASAP.
CO2 emitters will run with this (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2)
Forward To California, Plz: Re: Fires * Fat Tree (Score:2)
That's nice... (Score:2)
Awesome!! (Score:2)
Now all we need to do is stop destroying the remaining forests.
Re: Awesome!! (Score:1)
More plants, more oxygen, bigger insects (Score:3)
I've been thinking about this sort of thing occassionaly. If there's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that will naturally give more opportunity for plant growth. More plant growth means more oxygen is released into the atmosphere. And what's the limiting factor on insect growth ? The amount of oxygen available. Insects absorb oxygen through their bones (look up "spiracles" if you're interested) They don't have lungs so the amount of oxygen they can take in is determined by the amount in the atmosphere. The more that's available the bigger the insects can grow.
There are fossil records from the Carboniferous period (where there was much more oxygen in the atmosphere) of insects named "Griffinflies" (simlar to Dragonflies) which had wingspans of up to 70cm (28 inches for you USAians).
Now imagine a world where wasps, ants, hornets etc. grow to a similar size. That will make things "interesting" :)
Re: (Score:2)
Tree houses for all! (Score:1)
Not just trees (Score:1)
Translation (Score:2)
80% of our carbon issues is the fact that we have cut down 80% of our global forests to make grazing land which we then re-pave to make housing developments.
Gee, ya thunk, all of us who have been saying this problem would be significantly minimalized if we were to restore forestation and vegetation.
Save the earth... (Score:1)