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.

Comments

China has also announced who will manufacture...

[arglebargle_xiv]

... the trees: Zhongshan Tandem Plastic Products Co., Ltd, Yuhuan Xushi Plastic Industry Co., Ltd, and Ruian Jinda Plastic Machinery Co., Ltd.

Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[Anonymous Coward]

Although this will probably only make a minor difference.

Re:Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[ravenshrike]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

More than you might think, but China's problem is so bad that it's still like trying to empty a sandbox on a beach one grain at a time.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[peragrin]

The USA used to be that bad. Then we made the EPA, and spent the next 40 years cleaning Stopping at pollution at the various sources, gave us a chance to clean up.

China knows this, they just don't realize the best way is to clean up your act, not patch symptons.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[The Evil Atheist]

And the US is willing to forget that lesson bit by bit.

Re:Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[Barsteward]

a lot of "minor differences" makes a "bigger difference" - silver bullets are rarely the answer or available

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[zifn4b]

The USA used to be that bad. Then we made the EPA, and spent the next 40 years cleaning

I'm glad someone on Slashdot finally admitted that the USA has improved in this regard instead of everyone trying to make it out like the United States is the worst of the pollution offenders. It's China, hands down. Evidence that the USA has improved dramatically over the past 20 years. I'm surprised you didn't get modded down making this factual claim.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, absolute values, yes. Per-capita values, it's still 2× the amount that China pollutes, from the wikipedia page that you linked.

Even more, if you sort by per-capita, USA is 7th place, the first real large polluter (~14%) behind small countries (up to 1.5%). So yes, USA still has a long way to go *per-capita*.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[AmiMoJo]

You seem to be confusing two different statistics. Overall China is worse, but then China has many more people than the US. If you look at per-capita rates then China is quite far down the list, way below the US, Australia, Japan and multiple European countries.

The claim that the US is one of the worst per-capita is true. In fact apart from some under-developed and middle eastern oil producing countries the only one that is worse is Australia.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[Jodka]

If you look at per-capita rates then China is quite far down the list, way below the US, Australia, Japan and multiple European countries.

The claim that the US is one of the worst per-capita is true.

Per-capita pollution is the wrong way to measure environmental impact because it makes poverty a virtue; We do not want to eliminate production, we want cleaner production.

A better way to measure environmental impact is not pollution per-capita, but pollution per unit of production.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[Uberbah]

Per-capita pollution is the wrong way to measure environmental impact, because my arrogant western exceptionalist ass wants to go on consuming dozens the times the amount of resources as people in other countries

FTFY

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[thegarbz]

Per-capita pollution is the wrong way to measure environmental impact because it makes poverty a virtue

The environment doesn't care how rich you are.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[AmiMoJo]

Per capita emissions is an important metric because China is industrialising, and it's vital that they don't reach western levels.

Your claim that it makes poverty a virtue is unfounded. Lots of countries have comparable or better quality of life than the US, but much lower emissions.

Total emissions are meaningless because clearly Belgium wouldn't get near the US total no matter how bad it was, and the US will not get close to China that has 4x the population.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[david_thornley]

Net force is mass times acceleration plus drag. My car will spend about 3 gallons to go 100 miles at constant speed on a freeway, and it won't spend much at all accelerating to freeway speed. Drag dominates.

Of course, cars don't have to run on fossil fuel. Biofuels are carbon-neutral, since the CO2 comes from the air, into the plants, into the fuel, and then back into the air. Electric cars can run on any electricity source.

Trees temporarily sequester carbon, but if you want it to be permanent you have to do something with the tree to prevent it from rotting.

Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers

[zifn4b]

Uh, absolute values, yes. Per-capita values, it's still 2× the amount that China pollutes, from the wikipedia page that you linked.

The Earth doesn't give two shits about per capita, it cares about total pollution. Try again if you really care about the planet.

Re: How's the tree "planning" going then?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that proofread is one word right? https://www.google.com/search?q=proofread&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1

For all the whiners

[quonset]

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.

Re:For all the whiners

[RazorSharp]

Another great example is Wayne National Forest in Ohio. Southeastern Ohio was completely destroyed by coal mining in the early twentieth century, and when the coal ran out the economy was left just as devastated as the land. FDR made the land a national forest as one of his New Deal plans, and bought the land off any residents who would sell, and hired those who stayed to plant trees. Today, only eighty some years later, the place looks like it been a forest for hundreds of years (and it's been this way for several decades).

It doesn't take long for mother nature to thrive, given a chance. If the Chinese remain committed to turning their environmental situation around, they certainly could. The commitment is the problem. Unfortunately, Wayne has been leased out by the federal government for fracking. Fortunately, Wayne has shown the ability to rebound from worse.

Re:Planting trees does not solve the problem

[rkordmaa]

Ireland load of trees does however filter out a bunch of smog, which is kind of the main point. Also more than 1 part in 10000 of carbon in plantmass gets captured in soil. Does it solve the CO2 problem, no, not really. But it does improve air quality, enrich soil and is altogether better use of land than leaving it as wasteland. Go plant a tree, it doesn't fix the world, but it does do quite a bit of good, effort to payoff ratio is pretty damn good.

Re:It's a great idea

[Barsteward]

i'm positive this scenario completely escaped them, you'd better get on the phone and warn them and sharpish

Febreze on taco diarrhea

[XSportSeeker]

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.

Re:Febreze on taco diarrhea

[v1]

Of course they need to STOP making pollution, but reforesting their land will also help. There's no reason to berate them for not doing everything at once. Managing a country is all about tradeoffs. They traded their air manpower and quality for product exports and economic standing in the world. Now they're investing some more of that manpower in their environment. Granted, they should have been thinking a bit ahead on this, since it takes time to come to fruition, but at least they're trying.

I personally think this is an outstanding way for them to flex their manpower muscle. One of China's biggest strengths is their sheer numbers combined with their communist government, which is the most efficient way to weild manpower. It has its drawbacks of course, as does any other system, but communism really can get things done fast and at large scale like nothing else. I'd like to see this project quadruple in size in the next year or two. They have the ability to build up momentum fast, and by 2020 they may be at five times the headcount in this project, and only accelerating their efforts. You get that kind of momentum, and even in a project this large with a long return-time, you start to make a serious dent even in a problem that at first appeared "impractically large to tackle".

I think it's still going to be awhile before they start working on the other end of the problem. (the production of pollution) They're still a bit high on the economic returns it's gotten them so far, and I'm sure they're thinking "just a little more, a little more, then we'll start cutting back..." But I think their time is limited, as their population is seeing through their propaganda that's been hard at work downplaying the issue. When everyone in your city is forced to wear masks and set up elaborate air filters in their house, you just can't shovel that much dirt under the rug anymore. And this initial push to tackle part of the problem should be a fairly effective PR stunt at home, chipping away at the idea that the government isn't doing anything about the problem. (which is basically how everyone in any city in China feels right now) Although some will view this as the only reason they're doing it, I think it's a combination of being their original reason and also something more than a token-effort to tackle the problem. But I expect them to get real tangible benefits from their reforestation efforts.

Hopefully they throw a lot more weight behind this project, they could easily become a world-leader in reforestation. (look around the world... who else is even trying at this level right now? nobody)

Re:60000 times 1 lb of poop = ?

[rkordmaa]

Fertilizer for the forest

Re:Planting trees does not solve the problem

[Opportunist]

Well, with a hint of luck, in 60 years the days of us fossil burners may be numbered...

Doom and Gloom?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:China has also announced who will manufacture..

[magarity]

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?

Re:"members of online military forums"

[gmack]

Indeed. When I was much younger, I lived on an army base with my parents. The base was essentially given to the military during Word War One the because it was an unusable dust bowl. By the time I was there, the place was mostly forest (replanted, most of the trees were in perfectly straight rows), but every year the Army and schools had a tree planting event where everyone spent a couple of days planting trees in some of the still sandy areas.

The Army's job is to do whatever needs doing.

Re:China has also announced who will manufacture..

[fisted]

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.

Re: Millions of Single Men...

[Oswald McWeany]

The one child policy has been abolished... do you live in a cave?

That would only help in the short-term if women were able to give birth to 18-year old girls to copulate with the 18-year old boys who were born during the one child policy.