Just some notes.. Planting trees isn’t as easy as I thought. I plant maybe 10 a year and most of them die coz I forgot to water in the Spanish summer heat. But with every climate report more catastrophic and convincing (see below) it seems a basic idea to find out how to plant 1000 trees before I die, at least for the kids sake.

Of course trees just store CO2, and if someone burns or bulldozes my trees I’ve wasted my time. And the science of forest carbon sinks is a welter of contradictions. But all agree that the bigger the forest , the more carbon it stores, especially when growing.

Many researchers claim that reforesting the billions of hectares of degraded, abandoned or arid land could stop Climate Chaos for a generation. Okay, dismantling capitalism is the real answer, but time is running out. (It’s not a betrayal, just as a revolutionary Union accepts a wage rise!) So let’s just make the forests bigger! Indeed the rise in CO2 and nitrogen will help them grow!

First problem is where to plant. Okay, we can put a few trees in gardens and vacant lots, the more the better, and they say don’t forget native plants and bushes that are just as important. But to plant a lot of trees, even living in the country, confronts us with capitalist property rights, and even if you can find the last plot of common land it’s pretty sure someone will grab it or let loose their fucking goats.

One answer is to organize, and meanwhile get those first seedlings going in pots. There’s lots of institutions looking for volunteer tree planters.. most of them pretty capitalist IMHO. Look out for Greenwashers and polluters angling for carbon credit cash!

Here in Spain, for example, half the country is semi abandoned with degrading, arid land, but LOTS of people go back to the grandparents village every summer, and it’s possible to get permission and protection from local councils to plant trees.

Next problem… the trees die! Even in a wet climate they need care and water for the 1st 6 months till their roots get down to groundwater. One solution is to work up to a group of planters, and organize a rota of people who can take time off to take care of the plantation. see: DESERTIFICATION

Another solution I see here on the internet is a degradable 6 month watering system invented by a Durch eco engineer, … Ruys’s innovation was to develop a doughnut-shaped waxed-paper cocoon, the base of which is buried underground. It contains the sapling, enough water to sustain the tree while it establishes a root system, and a small lozenge of beneficial fungi which multiply the rooting ability.

The cocoon is cheap, easy to plant, scalable—a community can plant hundreds of acres of them in a short time—and biodegradable. Rubio told me that in the desert regions of Spain where his organization is working, other efforts have resulted in a success rate of ten to twenty per cent; “the cocoon,” he said, “is providing around ninety-five per cent survival rate of trees.”

They cost about 7 euros each, in Iberia from the eco group http://volterra.bio/ , not a rip-off, although the company seems willing to ally with all sorts of capitalist scum. Perhaps we could copy the idea.

Maybe more interesting than Ruys’s invention is the way he has worked himself into and around the bureaucratic complexities of the issue. The cheapness of the product and the ease of planting helped him to leapfrog over old-school N.G.O.s and establish direct relationships with villages 250,000 trees planted.

I planned to explain here in detail how to plant trees and bushes, but I see on the internet already lots of practical explanations, tips and videos. see: How to Plant a Tree (with Pictures) – wikiHow

Below you can read the depressing climate chaos post… Biosphere Collapse?!

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Saving the world with only trees ? No way ! Mother Nature says: “Trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants together”

These U.N. Climate Scientists Think They Can Halt Global Warming for $300 Billion. Here’s How

World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency

Want to limit climate change? Two months of global military spending could buy the world time

Biosphere Collapse?! A REALLY DEPRESSING POST

Five years ago: Nations of the world met in Paris to draft a climate agreement that was subsequently accepted by nearly every country in the world, stating that global temperatures must not exceed +2C pre-industrial. Global emissions must be cut! Fossil fuel usage must be cut!

Today: Following Paris ’15, global banks have invested $1.9 trillion in fossil fuel projects.

Not only that, global governments plan to increase fossil fuels by 120% by 2030, including the US, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Canada, and Australia.

Additionally, over that past 18 months China has added enough new coal-based power generation (43GW) to power 31 million new homes. China plans on adding another 148GW of coal-based power, which will equal the total current coal generating capacity of the EU.

India increased coal-fired power capacity by 74% over the past 7 years. The country expects to further increase coal-generated capacity by another 22% over the next 3 years.

China is financing 25% of all new worldwide coal plant construction outside of its borders; e.g., South Africa, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Meantime, China, kissing goodbye to its commitment to cut emissions, cuts renewable power subsidies by 30%.

Likewise in the United States, Trump proposes slashing renewable budget items, as his administration rebrands fossil fuels “Molecules of U.S. Freedom.” (Forbes, May 30, 2019) (Obviously, somebody in the WH scoffs at the general public as horribly gullible, simple-minded, ignorant, and just plain stupid to fall for that one!)

Meanwhile  America’s most northerly town, Barrow, Alaska is experiencing an unprecedented “massive spike in methane emissions” ongoing for the past 4 months, as monitored by Dr. Peter Carter (see more below).

And, in Madrid, COP25 (Conference of the Parties25) was underway December 2nd-13th with 25,000 participants from countries of the world gathered to hammer out the latest details on global warming/climate change. The question arises whether the conference had “legs.” By all appearances, it did not. Rather, it was another repeat climate sideshow.

Making matters even more surreal, because of the above-mentioned death-defying global plans to accelerate fossil fuels by 120% to 2030, the Stockholm Environment Institute claims the world is on a pathway to 3C pre-industrial, probably “locked-in” because of fossil fuel expansion across the globe.

But caution-caution-caution, the IPCC has already informed the world that 2C brings the house down; not only that, scientists agree 1.5C is unbearably unlivable throughout many regions of the planet.

In short, the world is on a colossal fossil fuel growth phase in the face of stark warnings from scientists that emissions must decline to net zero. Otherwise, the planet is destined to turn into a hot house. As things stand today, it appears “Hot House” is baking into the cake. And, Hot House implies too much heat disrupting, and destroying, too many ecosystems for the planet to support 7.8 billion people.

For an insider’s view of the goings-on at COP25, Dr. Peter Carter, an IPCC expert reviewer, was interviewed on December 10th:

The following is a synopsis of that interview: He first mentioned the fact that 11,000 scientists have signed a paper stating:

We are definitely in a climate emergency.

At COP a couple of years ago, there was a lot of media given to the terrible fact that four of the countries had gotten together to block the most important IPCC report ever. Which was the 2018 IPCC 1.5C report, showing that 2C, the old target since 1996, is total catastrophe, and 1.5C is still disastrous, but that is still where we must aim.¹

Scientists today agree 1.5C is possible only if we reduce emissions by 7% every year from next year so that we can reduce global emissions 50% by 2030. (Comment: “That’s laughable” – Check out global fossil fuel growth plans, bursting at the seams!)

COP has always been set up to fail. However, the first COPs were hopeful. Ever since then, things have gone down, down, down. The reason why they are set up to fail is because when the Convention was signed in 1992, it was stated that major decisions would be by “consensus,” but “we still don’t have a definition of consensus under the Convention.” That is absurd.

The entire COP set up provides for one or two countries to veto any major decision, and that’s what we’ve seen happen. The US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait “block the science from the negotiations.”

“In COP25 the science has been blocked completely.” (Carter)

“Right now all three major greenhouse gas concentrations, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are accelerating. It means we are on a trend for total planetary catastrophe. We are on a trend for biosphere collapse. Carbon dioxide is on a rate exceeding anything over the past millions of years. We are at 412 ppm. To put that into context, we have an ice core that goes back 2.2 million years. The highest CO2 over that period is 300 ppm.” (Carter)

The latest IPCC assessment requires holding temps to 1.5C, meaning emissions must be cut by 50% by 2030, which means emissions have to decrease rapidly from 2020 (Comment: That’s an impossibility because of global fossil fuel plans of +120% growth by 2030).

We’ve had four separate reports this year on the status of countries meeting, or not meeting, their mitigation targets to avoid catastrophe. Result:

It’s basically the end for humanity. We’re looking at biosphere collapse. The richness of life is being destroyed by deforestation and by catastrophic climate change. Africa is in severe drought. Chile is in a mega drought. Australia is in a drought expected to become a mega drought within the next two years. (Carter)

Absolutely nothing is happening to mitigate global warming. Furthermore, nothing will come out of COP25 to mitigate the issue. On the very first day of meetings Carter was told nations would not be looking at improving their national mitigation targets, which are a joke anyways.

It is unbelievable what these high emitting fossil fuel producing countries are doing. Countries that are blocking any progress on emissions are acting in the most evil way imaginable. We’re looking at the destruction of Earth, oceans and land. (Carter)

Furthermore, and chillingly, according to Dr. Carter: Currently, there has been a massive ongoing eruption of methane in the Arctic. It’s gone practically unreported. The only report of it was by the Engineering and Technology Journal.

Barrow, Alaska registered the aforementioned massive bursts of methane into the atmosphere, starting in August of this year.

We’ve never seen anything like it! And, it has stayed at elevated levels to the present week. Looking at the 2.2 million year ice core, the maximum methane concentration ever was 800 ppb. In Barrow, Alaska it is 2,050 ppb and staying there. It’s been up there for 4 months. (Carter)

Which is an ominous warning that has the potential to be a precursor to runaway global warming, burning-off mid-latitude agriculture and categorizing the Tropics as “way too hot for life.”

We (Carter and the scientific community) know that really bad things are happening in the Arctic. We also know that the land permafrost is emitting a lot of methane, CO2, and nitrous oxide (12xs more than scientists estimated).

Conclusion: COP25 is a farce as major countries ignore the threat of global warming by upping the ante on fossil fuels, adding nearly $2 trillion worth of new fossil fuel infrastructure since Paris ’15 warned of dangers associated with too much carbon in the atmosphere, a surefire recipe for Hot House Earth.

Lest we forget, Venus, our sister planet, has 96.5% CO2 by volume in the atmosphere. On average, temperatures run 864°F.

Carbon matters!

Postscript:

Accelerating heating of the Arctic Ocean could make global temperatures skyrocket in a matter of years.²

Since the start of the industrial revolution more than 200 years ago, that’s the worst possible news ever.

1. Dr.  Peter Carter, IPCC Expert Reviewer, Interviewed December 10, 2019. [↩]
2. “Arctic Ocean Overheating”, Arctic News, September 8, 2019. [↩]

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

^{shared with thanks from Dissident Voice}…..

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