by themantra514 on 11/24/21, 9:57 PM with 285 comments
by DoreenMichele on 11/25/21, 12:20 AM
I don't think it makes sense to see human settlements as separate from nature. I think of nature as the fabric within which such configurations occur.
It isn't inevitable that human development must be a concrete jungle. You can include plants, permeable surfaces, etc in your plans so people can live more lightly and less intrusively on the land.
I also think America has a lot of room for adding back walkable mixed-use neighborhoods where at least some people can live, work and shop in the same neighborhood. Or at least live and shop if they are retirees, teens, or similar groups who aren't seeking a job or who already work at home or from home in some capacity.
Studies suggest this leads to greater wealth in such neighborhoods (such as more sales) and we know vehicle traffic is a significant burden wrt human-caused climate change. Making it possible to skip the long commute makes for a better quality of life and less pollution adding to this issue.
We currently frame this issue as a painful choice between short-term gratification and current high quality of life with a long-term cost of global disaster versus short-term sacrifice for slim hope of assuaging our guilt with no guarantee of real improvement in the future. I don't think that's necessary.
I've lived without a car in the US for more than a decade. I think you can live that way and live well. I think we can design and build a world that provides a high quality of life for people and doesn't destroy the environment in the process.
by andrewstuart on 11/24/21, 11:24 PM
The solution needed by politicians is highly technological, expensive, allows us to keep selling coal, and isn't understood by people so can be easily spun into ridiculous tales by politicians.
"Just plant trees" would be ridiculously expensive and is totally impractical, the politicians would say.
by lucidguppy on 11/24/21, 11:13 PM
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/chart-shows-worlds-land-...
by hasmanean on 11/25/21, 2:59 AM
Walking into a forest, I notice the air is several degrees cooler than outside.
Even a house made of clay will be a few degrees cooler in certain weather than one made of concrete due to the increased surface area and evaporation causing cooling.
It isn’t rocket science. Greenery makes the earth a much better place.
by 1cvmask on 11/24/21, 11:23 PM
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-an...
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144540/china-and-in...
by olivermarks on 11/24/21, 11:44 PM
by joshuanapoli on 11/25/21, 1:01 AM
I wonder if tree cover decreases local surface temperature (as described in this article) while actually increasing global warming because less light is reflected back to space.
[0] https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/vegetation/deforestat...
by foxhop on 11/25/21, 2:14 AM
by gmuslera on 11/25/21, 12:05 AM
Everything helps, but in the end the solution to the problem is elsewhere. Not tackling the problem and only going to partial mitigations is almost as bad as doing nothing, because it is just a delay to avoid solving the problem until is too late or doesn't matter anymore for you in particular.
by betwixthewires on 11/25/21, 3:31 AM
Thankfully it happens all by itself.
by CallMeJim on 11/25/21, 3:12 AM
> The cooling effect from greening is less significant in tropical forests with high leaf areas.
Does this mean that cutting down the Amazon rainforest to use the land for farming is net-beneficial for slowing down climate change?
by toto444 on 11/25/21, 10:04 AM
I have no idea of the order of magnitude we are talking about so I might be entirely delusional.
by peter_retief on 11/25/21, 5:58 AM
by nend on 11/24/21, 11:06 PM
by irthomasthomas on 11/25/21, 9:53 AM
E.g. "Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert," begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos." https://youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
Back on planet Earth, a review of the current scientific literature firmly disproves this thesis. Nasa satellite images clearly show the deserts are retreating, and on average there is a strong trend to global greening...
Greening of the globe and its drivers - Nature 2016 https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004 "Satellite records from 1982–2009 show a persistent and widespread increase of leaf area (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing leaf area (browning). Ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilisation effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (4%)."
Elevated CO2 as a driver of global dryland greening - Nature 2016 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20716 "Recent regional scale analyses using satellite based vegetation indices such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), have found extensive areas of “greening” in dryland areas of the Mediterranean, the Sahel, the Middle East and Northern China, as well as greening trends in Mongolia and South America. More recently, a global synthesis from 1982-2007 showed an overall “greening-up” trend over the Sahel belt, Mediterranean basin, China-Mongolia region and the drylands of South America."
Global Greening Is Firm, Drivers Are Mixed - Harvard 2014 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFM.B31A0515K "Evidence for global greening is converging, asserting an increase in CO2 uptake and biomass of the terrestrial biosphere. Global greening refers to global net increases in the area of green canopy, stocks of carbon, and the duration of the growing season. The growing seasons in general have prolonged while the stock of biomass carbon has increased and the rate of deforestation has decelerated. Evidence for these trends comes from firm empirical data obtained through atmospheric CO2 observations, remote sensing, forest inventories and land use statistics."
Rise in CO2 has 'greened Planet Earth' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36130346 Prof Judith Curry, the former chair of Earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, added: "It is inappropriate to dismiss the arguments of the so-called contrarians, since their disagreement with the consensus reflects conflicts of values and a preference for the empirical (i.e. what has been observed) versus the hypothetical (i.e. what is projected from climate models).
by ecommerceguy on 11/25/21, 12:43 AM
edit https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-touts-tree-...
by breakyerself on 11/24/21, 11:47 PM
by crawsome on 11/24/21, 11:48 PM
by marsdepinski on 11/25/21, 12:34 AM
by vmception on 11/24/21, 11:42 PM
How long heat stays in one area
I get that more plants = good, for other reasons but surface temperature wasnt something we have been aiming to optimize for?