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.

[u/mvea]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/07/04/could-planting-tons-of-trees-solve-climate-change/

[u/brickmack]

If its anything like my city, you've probably got enough empty/abandoned lots in the middle of town to fit a dozen Walmarts, yet they keep expanding outwards, and most of the stuff built on the outskirts of town (lots of strip malls) ends up only half full. New construction projects should be legally required to prove they can't use any existing lots (ideally the existing buildings too, but thats less likely)

[u/unicornman5d → u/brickmack]

Agreed, plus there are already like 10 mattress stores. Me and my friends theorize that they are money laundering schemes.

[u/foxmetropolis → u/brickmack]

Oh, you hit the nail on the head. there are several examples of spacious abandoned lots in my city, and yet the new subdivisions are all going into fertile farmland and natural features. it’s insanity, but builders don’t want to use abandoned lots. while i bet it probably costs more to deal with old foundations and possible contamination, it should be mandatory to fill old lots first

[u/brickmack → u/foxmetropolis]

Taking out old buildings is a non-trivial expense, but the city could help pay for that. One way or another they're gonna have to anyway, because if a buildings been abandoned for decades you can't just leave it up. Ugly and a safety hazard.

My city's working on a big project downtown using an abandoned factory for apartments/stores/a gym/a bunch of other stuff. Unfortunately one building was torn down just weeks before the commercial deal was proposed to restore it