Earth Home To 3 Trillion Trees, Half As Many As When Human Civilization Arose

sciencehabit writes: Earth today supports more than 3 trillion trees—eight times as many as we thought a decade ago. But that number is rapidly shrinking, according to a global tree survey released today (abstract). We are losing 15 billion trees a year to toilet paper, timber, farmland expansion, and other human needs. So even though the total count is large, the decline is "a cause for concern," says Tom Spies, a forest ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Corvallis, Oregon, who was not involved with the work.

Comments

Carnegie Airborne Observatory

[pr0t0]

I met a grad student attending Stanford who was part of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (https://cao.carnegiescience.edu/). She said they flew it over the Central and South America, and her job was counting trees and studying their migrations (if that's the right word). She thought it was a boring subject that few people found interesting, but I was fascinated.

It didn't hurt that she happened to be beautiful.

Regeneration

[tomhath]

FTFA:

They think that about 5 billion new trees are planted or sprout annually, yielding a net loss of 10 billion

They don't say where that number came from, most likely pulled from someplace where the Sun doesn't shine. When a section of forest is cleared either by cutting or burning the ground is soon covered in tree sprouts. Take a look at regeneration in Yellowstone National Park after the fires burned about 1/3 of it in the late 80's.

Help the poor- Plant a tree

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

For about a decade, I've envisioned the way to help the poor in countries that get deforested is to replant some of their forests with fruit trees. Even if farmers don't farm, or the country sees unrest, the fruit trees remain. A steady source of food is good in third world countries. Thankfully 'Food For The Poor' saw this too and there is a program for planting fruit trees that I try and endorse to people. If we have a good job, and are on our feet, we should be helping our fellow man, and this is a good way to do that.

Re:Toilet paper and timber?

[thule]

It wouldn't make any sense to take a nice large, straight tree and turn it into paper of any sort. If you need a roof or wall, you have to start with a large straight tree. With paper, the tree is crushed. Why would you need a large straight tree for that? Economics re-enforces this. You're not going to pay extra for a large tree just to crush it

It amazes me that people think they are saving a tree when they don't use paper. I highly doubt they have even seen what kind of trees paper is made from. When I explain this, people usually tell me, "That makes sense." Of course it does!

This reminds me of the Mike Rowe's TED talk about how a lot of people talk about things they think they know. Until a person actually tries sheep farming, they really don't know a thing. I ask my dad (grew up on a farm) about the subject Mike Rowe covered in his talk, and sure enough, he knew about it.

Also of note, the abstract mentions that the number of trees has been too low in previous estimates. I wonder how this new estimate will change climate/CO2 modeling:

"This map reveals that the global number of trees is approximately 3.04 trillion, an order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate."

This is why we need industrial hemp for victory

[HongPong]

See the original 1942 propaganda film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

There is no reason to focus on wood for the paper supply - except the economics of state-imposed rules driving customers to buy solvents. It would be far better and less impactful to use hemp instead of trees for paper, TP and the rest of it. The consequences are huge!