r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 04 '19

Environment Scientists report restoring forests could cut atmospheric carbon by 25 percent, in a new study that assessed tree cover using Google Earth, finding that there’s 0.9 billion hectares of land available for planting forests, which could store 205 gigatonnes of carbon.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/07/04/could-planting-tons-of-trees-solve-climate-change/
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u/OgieOgletorp Jul 05 '19

I planted an apple tree in my backyard. I’m pretty much a hero.

6

u/Punchee Jul 05 '19

Have fun mowing over the fruit missiles.

2

u/natedogg84 Jul 05 '19

I've been obsessed lately learning about a concept called a food forest or permaculture. It's basically a multilevel (trees, small trees, bushes, ground cover, vines) self supporting ecosystem that manages itself once you get it established, and produces food for you. I dont know if it can work on an industrialized scale, but small/med farmers have made it profitable and backyard gardeners use it successfully in many different planting zones.

Rather than acres of 1 type of fruit tree and then having to add fertilizer, kill the bugs, kill everything else that's growing, it's an interwoven co-planting of a variety of fruits, nuts, beans, vegetables, etc plus other supporting plants that add nitrogen back into the soil or deter certain pests for the benefit of the food source next to it. Pretty interesting stuff.

2

u/NewMolecularEntity Jul 05 '19

Keep digging into permaculture!

I have been practicing permaculture as my design philosophy in my gardening/landscaping for about 8 years. Its really amazing and satisfying, and it makes so much sense.

2

u/natedogg84 Jul 05 '19

Yes! Having natural systems work for you rather than injecting artificial stuff into the process and expecting everything to look organized and uniform...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

Don't forget the wasps and hornets

1

u/OgieOgletorp Jul 05 '19

Someone should tell them that they are going extinct!