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China Reassigns 60,000 Soldiers To Plant Trees In Bid To Fight Pollution
According to The Independent, citing the Asia Times, China has reassigned over 60,000 soldiers to plan trees in a bid to combat pollution by increasing the country's forest coverage. The soldiers are from the People's Liberation Army, along with some of the nation's armed police force. From the report: The majority will be dispatched to Hebei province, which encircles Beijing. The area is known to be a major culprit for producing the notorious smog which blankets the capital city. The idea is believed to be popular among members of online military forums as long as they can keep their ranks and entitlements. It comes as part of China's plan to plant at least 84,000 square kilometers (32,400 square miles) of trees by the end of the year, which is roughly equivalent to the size of Ireland. The aim is to increase the country's forest coverage from 21 per cent of its total landmass to 23 per cent by 2020, the China Daily newspaper reported.
... the trees: Zhongshan Tandem Plastic Products Co., Ltd, Yuhuan Xushi Plastic Industry Co., Ltd, and Ruian Jinda Plastic Machinery Co., Ltd.
Although this will probably only make a minor difference.
Would it kill the editors to proof read?
(Triple checks for mistakes)
It takes a few years to grow even a 1 metre tree, so where are they moving them from?
Burning fossil fuels can not be reversed by planting trees. Almost 99.99% of those trees will die in 60 years and decompose while releasing their co2 content back to the atmosphere, a small percentage will be covered by soil, water and decompose slowly for future oil and coal. Resistance by trees is futile, only solution is to reduce burning of fossil fuels.
Two problems.
First is people, people with matches. Sorry but near high population density areas there's always some asshole sets them alight.
Second is domestic animals, sheep , goats , cattle, pigs . Unless you pay people to shoot the bastard things (AND preferably the owners) in the reforested areas they'll eat the seedling trees and destroy the understory and the whole exercise will be pointless.
Sorry, I could not resist mentioning this one.
I'm my first hand experience, planting trees in China does indeed mean moving full grown trees, they don't like waiting for stuff... who knows where they come from.
For those who whine what a waste this will be, how it's doomed to failure, WHERE WILL THEY GET THE TREES???, one only need look at what one man can do.
Yes, he's been doing it for 37 years, but to accomplish this little bit of restoration, singlehandedly, leaves little doubt what a literal army of people can do, if this is done correctly.
The past tense of shit is "shat"
I guess it's something for soldiers to do, and planting trees is certainly better than nothing, but if anyone thinks this will have any major effect to combat smog, they'll be sorely disappointed...
What Beijing needs are the harsh but necessary measures. Industry regulation. Vehicle inspection. Changing policies to incentivize usage of public transportation and alternative transportation usages. Infrastructure investments towards that goal.
Trees are great and all, but they don't do magic. Specially in the case of Beijing smog... more likely that it'll kill or stunt growth of trees rather than trees having any significant effect.
Fertilizer for the forest
Most of the comments here are negatively charged and full of political crap.
Why am I under the impression that everyone here wishes to express their opinions on how to change the world from the comfort of their smartphone or computer rather than actually going out and doing something similar?
The effort is incredible and should they accomplish this, this will be a step in the right direction for mankind. More people should applaud this effort and consider doing the same. If this sets the example, more people should be encouraged to do the same.
If everyone planted a tree for every post they did, you would then be able to be at the level of commitment that the PLA and armed police force. Only then you would have the right to comment, and hopefully the mindset of the posts would be more positive as well.
Can't come from China if it's supposed to increased the forest-covered area from 21% to 23%
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
...with no prospect of marriage or even a girl friend due to their propensity to abort girls resulting in an imbalance of over 33 million more men than women.
You have to find something to occupy their time.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
In other news, 60,000 PLA soldiers have just crossed the Vietnam border...
Where I grew up, there are several areas where the CCC planted trees. You can tell they were planted and not naturally occurring, because they are all lined up in perfect rows and columns. Unfortunately, they planted white pine trees by the millions. Hopefully China will learn from this example and plant less volatile specimens.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Growing actually depends on the condition.
If there is good sunlight and good dirt it will grow realized fast.
So they will probably contract companies to grow the trees to a decent size, really really fast. Then they will plant them
This is I call concrete steps against global warming and elimination of green house gases from atmosphere. There are a number of ways to archive the same goal.
I am personally more concerned that cut grass and chemicals used to kills weeds and bugs brings a lot of chemicals into environment. So I consider that if land is not used to produce food, it should be prohibited to cut grass, so land should come back to natural environment cycle. At the same time we may be allowed to reproduce deliberately some natural environment ecosystems for the sake of beautification on our land under supervision of municipality.
Air pollution in China is killing 4,000 people every day, a study found in 2015.
60,000 soldiers means two weeks of deaths.
A wise move, even if quite late, you'd say.
The size of the country does not matter.
You aren't suddenly cleaner just because you move to a less densely populated area!
Let alone an area surrounded by imaginary lines in the sand!
...cited in the article apparently never did a day of public service, let alone military service.
If they did, they'd understand the concepts of serving the public good as well as of using military staff and resources in response to natural disasters and in providing humanitarian aid.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Human waste makes extremely poor fertilizer.
Can't come from China if it's supposed to increased the forest-covered area from 21% to 23%
Don't have much experience with official Chinese government issued statistics, do you?
For a NASA related reference as to how trees affect CO2 seasonally this might be of interest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SgmFa0r04
According to my sources, 90% of those statistics are, in fact, correct, while the other 25% are explained through human error and inaccurate base data.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
While having many more carbon sinks is good and all, it can be bad if high albedo areas become forest, as that will contribute to warming.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Then the Vatican, pop 1,000, should be able to pollute just as much as China, 1.4 billion. Now, DO explain why you should be able to pollute as much as FIVE people in China.
Human waste makes extremely poor fertilizer.
Good enough to grow potatoes on mars. Elon Musk should launch human feces to Mars next.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Can't come from China if it's supposed to increased the forest-covered area from 21% to 23%
I'm sure they will be grown from saplings... but technically it could come from current Chinese forests if they thinned out the existing forests. If they moved one in five trees from an existing forest and replanted it in a new forest- technically the forest-covered area would increase even though it were the same number of trees.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Cool, literally, since trees help to cool the region by respirating and shading the soil which retails water, soil and nutrients. More over, if they plant good choices of species they can harvest these trees in 20 to 50 years creating a sustainable forestry project that will give them tons, literally, of wood. Harvesting the wood will boost the CO2 sequestering since older trees grow more slowly soaking up less CO2 per hectacre.
More power to them.
No one but you said they should be able to. If the goal is to reduce pollution then the opposite is the better way to go- have one Chinese person pollute as much as one Vatican. If that threshold is still too high then have both parties reduce to the desired level.
Hmm, around my area it wasn't Obama importing slav^H^H^H^H^immigrant labor. It was Tyson, Koch Farms, Purdue, and other megafarmers. We got a whole slew of Guatemalans, Somalis, Sudanese, and Armenians around here now and it's no stankier or shittier than it was before. In fact, I get cheaper chicken and pork because of it. Your racist ass can go fuck off.
So close yet still so far.
This kinda reminds me of a saying we had back in the late 60's or early 70's.... Love your mother? Plant a tree.