cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/6054530

A new study identifies 195 million hectares globally as optimal for reforestation without harming people or wildlife. Restoring these areas could remove 2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year—equivale…

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The original was posted on /r/science by /u/-Mystica- on 2025-06-12 01:41:50+00:00.

Original Title: A new study identifies 195 million hectares globally as optimal for reforestation without harming people or wildlife. Restoring these areas could remove 2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year—equivalent to the annual emissions of the European Union.

  • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    22 days ago

    I’m not saying you should honestly advocate for this, I’m saying you use it to poison the well whenever somebody want to build the next CO2 scrubber that creates more CO2 than it scrubs. Tree good machine bad for climate seems like an easy enough sell to a general populace and might serve to at least not get the greenwashed pollution machine that serves 0 value built.

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      22 days ago

      The thing is it’s not the general populace that’s building them; from a recent (and exceptionally poorly written) NY times article:

      The industry is not in complete free fall.
      Two major direct air capture developments that were greenlit by the Biden administration, including one in Louisiana involving Climeworks that is known as Project Cypress, were not among the projects canceled by the Energy Department.
      Wurzbacher said his company’s interactions with the Trump administration have been limited, but that, for now, he expects Project Cypress to move forward, albeit with some delays.
      Tax credits for carbon capture projects have so far survived Republican negotiations over their signature policy bill, unlike some other clean energy tax credits. (The ability to transfer these tax credits them may be limited, which could hurt some start-ups.)
      And in April, Occidental Petroleum, a major oil and gas company that is also investing in direct air capture technology, received government approval to sequester the carbon dioxide it sucks out of the air with a giant new facility it is building in Texas.
      Vicki Hollub, Occidental’s chief executive, said the project would “help the United States achieve energy security,” a rhetorical nod to Trump.
      She added that the project would “help organizations address their emissions,” a nod to companies that want to permanently sequester carbon dioxide underground in a bid to blunt global warming.
      At the same time, she said that direct air capture could help “produce vital resources and fuels,” a reference to the practice of using captured carbon dioxide to extract more gas from beneath the ground.
      Proponents have portrayed carbon capture as necessary to hit longer-term global climate targets, but the prospect of using captured carbon to produce more fossil fuels leads some climate activists see it as little more than a ruse designed to help perpetuate the oil and gas business.

      The crappy CO2 scrubbers keep getting subsidized because oil companies use the CO2 to extract more oil. The dems started pulling this trick in the IRA.