Can someone explain to me why planning a ton of trees to suck up excess C02 won't work? It seems so obvious and simplistic that it must have been thought of already so I can only assume that there are problems with it.
It would. It was even mentioned in the article. The problem is we'd have to convert back the land that's currently used to make food for everyone, which I'm sure will get tons of pushback. From the article:
"The radical transformation also would mean that, in a world projected to have more than 2 billion additional people by 2050, large swaths of land currently used to produce food would instead have to be converted to growing trees that store carbon and crops designated for energy use. The latter would be used as part of a currently nonexistent program to get power from trees or plants and then bury the resulting carbon dioxide emissions in the ground, leading to a net subtraction of the gas from the air — bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS."
Tangentially, I am not sure this is that easy to find a tree that will resist to a rapid climate change. In a few decades, a place can become too dry, or an invasive species can move from a hotter place and decimate the trees. Probably both will happen at the same time.
Oaks can live up to 500 years, and Sequoia for a few thousands, but finding the place where to plant them is probably trickier than expected.
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Can someone explain to me why planning a ton of trees to suck up excess C02 won't work? It seems so obvious and simplistic that it must have been thought of already so I can only assume that there are problems with it.
It would. It was even mentioned in the article. The problem is we'd have to convert back the land that's currently used to make food for everyone, which I'm sure will get tons of pushback. From the article:
"The radical transformation also would mean that, in a world projected to have more than 2 billion additional people by 2050, large swaths of land currently used to produce food would instead have to be converted to growing trees that store carbon and crops designated for energy use. The latter would be used as part of a currently nonexistent program to get power from trees or plants and then bury the resulting carbon dioxide emissions in the ground, leading to a net subtraction of the gas from the air — bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS."
Tangentially, I am not sure this is that easy to find a tree that will resist to a rapid climate change. In a few decades, a place can become too dry, or an invasive species can move from a hotter place and decimate the trees. Probably both will happen at the same time.
Oaks can live up to 500 years, and Sequoia for a few thousands, but finding the place where to plant them is probably trickier than expected.