I don't know where they're going to put a trillion trees. But if we view CO₂ removal as a time machine, a trillion trees is a time machine that will take us back 225 days in a year, once we wait a couple of decades for the trees to mature (and assuming that they don't burn down; they won’t, right?).
@davidho As you implied, trees aren't just waiting for our permission to grow. Places without trees are almost certainly that way because they aren't hospitable to trees: deserts, polar regions, highways, that sort of thing.
@davidho there was a time when sounded really radical and progressive, like Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal, 2019 page 17: "we will invest $171 bn in reauthorizing CCC to provide good-paying jobs building green infrastructure, planting billion trees and other native species..."
You should rejoice, but of course time changes, and science must follow political agendas, right?
@davidho
The fundamental problem with carbon offset is the trees are never where the pollution is. Like we're going to keep spewing filth into historically black neighborhoods, but it's okay because we're plamting trees somewhere they'll never be able to visit
@davidho I guess that's something between a trillion bonsai and a trillion giant redwoods. Would be nice if, starting grom scientists, we could weight trees instead if counting.
@davidho I mean, it's better long term than not planting 1M trees. We can do this, and we can also cut greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. In fact, we must do both, we're already long past the safe zone.
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