I think most people reading a headline about tree count would care primarily about deforestation and loss of habitat of indigenous species.
This article isn't about that, and explicitely states it doesn't touch deforestation per se, just sheer tree count, including production targeted tree farms.
TFA:
> While the classification may seem simplistic, powerful conclusions can be drawn from the data, including assessing agricultural expansion, climate-driven expansion and contraction of ecosystems, and forest clearing and recovery.
There are certainly more trees where I lived than there were a hundred years ago, but there are also more trees than there would have been a thousand years ago. I live in an area that should be natural prairie and humans have planted a lot more trees than the ecosystem would support in a natural situation.
I don't know if this is good or bad from an environment situation, but it is a part of a reason I am suspicious of claims that more trees are good.
With efforts some desert areas get reclaimed with trees. Sure, ic nature took its course the deserts would grow, but there are efforts to push them back and some have had success. I think that’s positive despite going against the natural course of things.
Tell that to the desert-dwelling species that rely on that habitat for survival. Deserts aren't empty wastelands that are valueless without human development.
Maybe I saw too many Disney movies as a kid, but it took me a very long time to consider, “There’s nothing inherently good or right about what would have happened in the absence of people.” There’s nothing kind, nurturing, decent, or fair about natures course. It’s a thing without direction, not a “one true course of events” that we interrupted.
It makes those kinds of situations much harder to evaluate than the simple worldview, but I think it’s more honest.
And yeah, the hazard is in thinking the opposite is true. Lord knows we’ve done some objectively dumb shit, too.
Trees alone aren't enough. For example, ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest are highly balanced ecosystems that are in a perpetual recursive loop. You can't tear them down and then rebuild them by just planting trees. The rainfall the Amazon gets is itself generated by the canopied rainforest. And you can't bring back all the diversity of life that gets lost.
And this goes for any other ecosystem.
And the staggering statistic is that only 30% of the Earth is covered by forest now, a drop from 60% prior to humans going nuts.
Exactly. I have seen some estimates that if you tear down a forest and then let it re-grow it is estimated to be upwards of 300 years until it starts to resemble the kind of diversity that was originally present.
Tree counts or green coverage is an awfully reductionist statistic. It can use a truthful statistic to imply something that isn't as clean cut as presented.
We use less farmland to produce the same thing mostly because we artificially juice land with fossil fuel derived fertilizer. Declining farmland utilization could be a good thing, but I think in most actual cases it isn't because it represents higher fossil fuel usage and more aggressive usage of the top soil, which leads to its depletion.
This could change though, with better top soil management and more green energy production to produce fertilizer without fossil fuels it could turn into a good thing in practice.
> Agricultural land area expanded 7.6 percent between 1961 and 2020 and currently occupies 32 percent of the world’s land area. Irrigated area more than doubled.
The process started in the first decade of the 20th century. It was largely finished by the 1980s. As for increases in irrigation, that's a few different things, but the largest part is substance farmers finally getting some infrastructure. I'm sorry to tell you, but the world isn't ending. Guess you will have to find another way to scare the plebs.
No one thinks the world is going to end. What we know is that it's going to be a harder to much harder world to live in if we are not able to coordinate globally. It's not just the climate, it's how much food we can grow, scarcity, poverty the politics of scarcity (authoritarianism), massive migration waves and how long we are going to be able to enjoy life outside during the year.
Wood the rarest material? Pfft! I know you're joking, but I'm glad you raised that things that are common on Earth can actually be rare in the universe, and vice-versa. I forget that unless reminded. There must be zillions of times more gold than bronze in the universe.
I tried to think of the rarest thing in the universe, but decided it's probably whatever short-lived element was created recently that hasn't decayed yet. How many people in the world know whether there's any Mendelevium in existence today? There are plenty of gold and silver price-tracking websites. Is there one for Mendelevium? Commodities futures?
Thinking instead of the rarest naturally occurring material would just depend on how specific you wanted to get. Do Oak Apples just count as wood? How about Saint Helena Olive seeds?
Not without steady water. Photosynthesis has 3 inputs. Sunlight energy, CO2, and water. Easy to forget the water but that is the most variable and volatile.
Didn’t read, but let me guess. We’re gaining more trees in countries like China where large scale project to prevent desertification exist or in places like Russia or Canada where warming climate is opening more space where trees can grow. All the while tropical countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia are losing tropical forest covers in ecological hotspots because of soybean or palm oil cultivation.
Tbh headlines like these do more damage to the climate change and ecological preservation conversation because they can be used to intentionally mislead what’s happening in the world.
> The planet is actually greening due to warmer temperatures and more co2.
For now... No guarantees that's "the new normal" (and it very likely isn't going to be).
Do a bit of research into recent discoveries regarding that "greening" and how it's likely to play out in the longer term if we continue on this reckless path. It's definitely not looking very good for humanity's future overall when you zoom out a bit and start looking at "big picture" of it all... Worst of it is that we probably had multiple chances along the way to steer this mess in a more positive direction, but we're most likely well past the point of handling things in a "mostly painless" way now.
Climate change is a lot of different things. For the statement that the count matters and a "tree is a tree",
Carbon sequestration? A giant redwood stores more carbon than a fir.
Healthy ecosystems? Different trees fit into different roles in a healthy forest.
The loss of biodiversity? Once a forest dies, a new forest somewhere else doesn't bring back the lost biodiversity.
In theory, Carbon sequestration is the closest to "a tree is a tree", you can plant large amounts of fast growing trees can capture more carbon over time, but that's specifying the later tree, which then matters.
Why did you mention ecosystems and biodiversity? Is the idea that those store more carbon, too, or was it just gratuitous?
Edit after downvote: but why though? It looks like conflation of climate change with the entirety of environmentalism. That is a misleading thing to do.
Not on a per tree basis. Young forests sequester more carbon per year because you aren’t losing old trees, however sustainable harvesting changes the dynamics here. IE a 50k year old natural forest is very close to carbon neutral, but you can harvest wood from an old forest and change the equation as you don’t need to let dead limbs or trees rot.
Unfortunately when you cut down an old forest and convert it into a young one the old forests root mass rots thus releasing a great deal of stored carbon.
If you cut a bunch of crappy pines and borderline brush (beyond whatever trivial square foot exemption they give you) the environmental authorities will be on your case same as if you cut down a 120yo hardwood forest.
Can't have your cake and eat it too. Either they're all the same or they're not.
IIRC, there is no actual 'tree' biologically - there is no taxonomic group of 'trees'. It's a colloquial word for 'tall woody plant' or something like that.
>Tbh headlines like these do more damage to the climate change and ecological preservation conversation because they can be used to intentionally mislead what’s happening in the world.
The graphs show this pretty clearly.
But despite your misgivings the number of new trees growing 3 times faster than trees lost seems pretty good?
Like tropical countries have local issues for sure.
Honestly I prefer these bad headlines compared to "Lung of world gone we are dead in 15 minutes" sensationalism we usually get, and the data is good too.
I think most people reading a headline about tree count would care primarily about deforestation and loss of habitat of indigenous species.
This article isn't about that, and explicitely states it doesn't touch deforestation per se, just sheer tree count, including production targeted tree farms.
TFA:
> While the classification may seem simplistic, powerful conclusions can be drawn from the data, including assessing agricultural expansion, climate-driven expansion and contraction of ecosystems, and forest clearing and recovery.
There are certainly more trees where I lived than there were a hundred years ago, but there are also more trees than there would have been a thousand years ago. I live in an area that should be natural prairie and humans have planted a lot more trees than the ecosystem would support in a natural situation.
I don't know if this is good or bad from an environment situation, but it is a part of a reason I am suspicious of claims that more trees are good.
With efforts some desert areas get reclaimed with trees. Sure, ic nature took its course the deserts would grow, but there are efforts to push them back and some have had success. I think that’s positive despite going against the natural course of things.
Tell that to the desert-dwelling species that rely on that habitat for survival. Deserts aren't empty wastelands that are valueless without human development.
Maybe I saw too many Disney movies as a kid, but it took me a very long time to consider, “There’s nothing inherently good or right about what would have happened in the absence of people.” There’s nothing kind, nurturing, decent, or fair about natures course. It’s a thing without direction, not a “one true course of events” that we interrupted.
It makes those kinds of situations much harder to evaluate than the simple worldview, but I think it’s more honest.
And yeah, the hazard is in thinking the opposite is true. Lord knows we’ve done some objectively dumb shit, too.
Being such a wildly powerful species is a burden.
It’s not taking back historical desserts but rather reclaiming more recent desertification or simply stopping the advance of desertification.
> It’s not taking back historical desserts but rather reclaiming more recent desertification or simply stopping the advance of desertification.
Any successes in that specific regard are probably an overall good thing really. Fingers crossed for the folks doin' such things...
"Deforestation and degradation rates remained stubbornly high in 2024, pushing the world even further off track from the shared goal of halting and reversing forest loss by 2030." https://forestdeclaration.org/resources/forest-declaration-a...
Trees alone aren't enough. For example, ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest are highly balanced ecosystems that are in a perpetual recursive loop. You can't tear them down and then rebuild them by just planting trees. The rainfall the Amazon gets is itself generated by the canopied rainforest. And you can't bring back all the diversity of life that gets lost.
And this goes for any other ecosystem.
And the staggering statistic is that only 30% of the Earth is covered by forest now, a drop from 60% prior to humans going nuts.
Here's also an article that provides some counter arguments to the original paper: https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/plan....
Exactly. I have seen some estimates that if you tear down a forest and then let it re-grow it is estimated to be upwards of 300 years until it starts to resemble the kind of diversity that was originally present.
Tree counts or green coverage is an awfully reductionist statistic. It can use a truthful statistic to imply something that isn't as clean cut as presented.
that's just about the turnover period for fast-growing pine clearcuts
We also use far less farmland than we did in the past, mostly due to the "green revolution" in the 1970s.
We use less farmland to produce the same thing mostly because we artificially juice land with fossil fuel derived fertilizer. Declining farmland utilization could be a good thing, but I think in most actual cases it isn't because it represents higher fossil fuel usage and more aggressive usage of the top soil, which leads to its depletion.
This could change though, with better top soil management and more green energy production to produce fertilizer without fossil fuels it could turn into a good thing in practice.
That's isn't true globally. For example, see here: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2024/september/global-c...
> Agricultural land area expanded 7.6 percent between 1961 and 2020 and currently occupies 32 percent of the world’s land area. Irrigated area more than doubled.
The process started in the first decade of the 20th century. It was largely finished by the 1980s. As for increases in irrigation, that's a few different things, but the largest part is substance farmers finally getting some infrastructure. I'm sorry to tell you, but the world isn't ending. Guess you will have to find another way to scare the plebs.
No one thinks the world is going to end. What we know is that it's going to be a harder to much harder world to live in if we are not able to coordinate globally. It's not just the climate, it's how much food we can grow, scarcity, poverty the politics of scarcity (authoritarianism), massive migration waves and how long we are going to be able to enjoy life outside during the year.
Trees are awesome. Wood is probably the rarest material in the known universe :)
Agree trees are awesome!
Wood the rarest material? Pfft! I know you're joking, but I'm glad you raised that things that are common on Earth can actually be rare in the universe, and vice-versa. I forget that unless reminded. There must be zillions of times more gold than bronze in the universe.
I tried to think of the rarest thing in the universe, but decided it's probably whatever short-lived element was created recently that hasn't decayed yet. How many people in the world know whether there's any Mendelevium in existence today? There are plenty of gold and silver price-tracking websites. Is there one for Mendelevium? Commodities futures?
Thinking instead of the rarest naturally occurring material would just depend on how specific you wanted to get. Do Oak Apples just count as wood? How about Saint Helena Olive seeds?
Looked up Saint Helena Olive... "extinct" :(
Also do you know that Earth is the only place in the known universe where fire has been known to occur?
Wait this post was made about 10 years ago why is it being posted now?
Awesome. And remember CO2 is food for plants.
Too simple: https://skepticalscience.com/co2-is-plant-food-too-simple.ht...
True, but the limiting factor for plant growth is sun, not CO2. And when they have full sun the limit is how fast they can absorb it.
So far as I know plants are not limited by co2 absorption, so adding more doesn't really help them.
Not without steady water. Photosynthesis has 3 inputs. Sunlight energy, CO2, and water. Easy to forget the water but that is the most variable and volatile.
Blog post 2018, data ending 2016
https://globalnaturewatch.org/blog/data-and-tools/new-gfw-tr... (2024) looks like the regional pattern is correct but the sign is wrong with higher-granularity data. 2024 is pretty bad for Amazon fires but last couple years have been better.
Didn’t read, but let me guess. We’re gaining more trees in countries like China where large scale project to prevent desertification exist or in places like Russia or Canada where warming climate is opening more space where trees can grow. All the while tropical countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia are losing tropical forest covers in ecological hotspots because of soybean or palm oil cultivation.
Tbh headlines like these do more damage to the climate change and ecological preservation conversation because they can be used to intentionally mislead what’s happening in the world.
> Didn’t read, but let me guess
Why should we let you guess?
What do any of us gain by reading the opinion of someone who admits to being ignorant and who isn't willing to change that by reading TFA?
I read the article after commenting. What opinion do I need to change? Seems like I was correct?
Commenters who don't read the article do more harm than good.
The planet is actually greening due to warmer temperatures and more co2.
> The planet is actually greening due to warmer temperatures and more co2.
For now... No guarantees that's "the new normal" (and it very likely isn't going to be).
Do a bit of research into recent discoveries regarding that "greening" and how it's likely to play out in the longer term if we continue on this reckless path. It's definitely not looking very good for humanity's future overall when you zoom out a bit and start looking at "big picture" of it all... Worst of it is that we probably had multiple chances along the way to steer this mess in a more positive direction, but we're most likely well past the point of handling things in a "mostly painless" way now.
Trees are trees.
That is not true in any but the most literal sense.
Is it true in the sense relevant to climate change?
Climate change is a lot of different things. For the statement that the count matters and a "tree is a tree",
Carbon sequestration? A giant redwood stores more carbon than a fir.
Healthy ecosystems? Different trees fit into different roles in a healthy forest.
The loss of biodiversity? Once a forest dies, a new forest somewhere else doesn't bring back the lost biodiversity.
In theory, Carbon sequestration is the closest to "a tree is a tree", you can plant large amounts of fast growing trees can capture more carbon over time, but that's specifying the later tree, which then matters.
Why did you mention ecosystems and biodiversity? Is the idea that those store more carbon, too, or was it just gratuitous?
Edit after downvote: but why though? It looks like conflation of climate change with the entirety of environmentalism. That is a misleading thing to do.
No, a 3 foot tall sapling and a 300+ foot tall monster are both one tree but have very different impacts on the climate.
Fast growth commercial forests have high density because the individual trees are relatively small with a vastly smaller amount of root mass.
Also, a five year old pine or teak isn't anywhere near a fifty year old mahogany
If I remember correctly, the youngest trees convert the most co2 (makes sense, they grow the fastest).
Not on a per tree basis. Young forests sequester more carbon per year because you aren’t losing old trees, however sustainable harvesting changes the dynamics here. IE a 50k year old natural forest is very close to carbon neutral, but you can harvest wood from an old forest and change the equation as you don’t need to let dead limbs or trees rot.
Unfortunately when you cut down an old forest and convert it into a young one the old forests root mass rots thus releasing a great deal of stored carbon.
Good points about the roots. TIL.
If you cut a bunch of crappy pines and borderline brush (beyond whatever trivial square foot exemption they give you) the environmental authorities will be on your case same as if you cut down a 120yo hardwood forest.
Can't have your cake and eat it too. Either they're all the same or they're not.
IIRC, there is no actual 'tree' biologically - there is no taxonomic group of 'trees'. It's a colloquial word for 'tall woody plant' or something like that.
>Tbh headlines like these do more damage to the climate change and ecological preservation conversation because they can be used to intentionally mislead what’s happening in the world.
The graphs show this pretty clearly.
But despite your misgivings the number of new trees growing 3 times faster than trees lost seems pretty good?
Like tropical countries have local issues for sure.
Honestly I prefer these bad headlines compared to "Lung of world gone we are dead in 15 minutes" sensationalism we usually get, and the data is good too.