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Originally posted by second:
Cement is an extremely emissions-generating material, currently accounting for about eight percent of the world's global carbon emissions.

But Seratech carbon-neutral concrete wins the Obel Award 2022 because it stores CO2, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.

The raw materials needed for Seratch's technology – carbon dioxide from industry and olivine, a magnesium iron silicate – are abundant around the globe. If industry cannot supply the carbon dioxide, then Draper says that Seratech could use an affordable direct air capture technology instead, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/10/17/carbon-neutral-concrete-seratech-obe
l-award-2022/#

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Quote:

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Originally posted by second:
Cement is an extremely emissions-generating material, currently accounting for about eight percent of the world's global carbon emissions.

But Seratech carbon-neutral concrete wins the Obel Award 2022 because it stores CO2, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.

The raw materials needed for Seratch's technology – carbon dioxide from industry and olivine, a magnesium iron silicate – are abundant around the globe. If industry cannot supply the carbon dioxide, then Draper says that Seratech could use an affordable direct air capture technology instead, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/10/17/carbon-neutral-concrete-seratech-obe
l-award-2022/#

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

---

Yup.

The only problem is that any time somebody claimed they can do that it ended up being a Kickstarter scam that ran away with millions.

And none of the "news" agencies reporting on their scam products ever apologized to anyone who funded the campaigns.

Good luck.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Seratech has developed a process that consumes olivine and waste CO2 from flue gases and produces two products which both have significant value in construction.

Silica is produced which can be used as a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) in concrete meaning the amount of Portland cement in the concrete can be reduced by up to 40%. As the silica comes from a process that captures CO2 it is “carbon negative” and the concrete can become carbon neutral.

Magnesium carbonate is produced that can be used to make a range of zero carbon construction materials and consumer products, including alternatives to building blocks and plasterboard.

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Originally posted by second:
If industry cannot supply the carbon dioxide, then Draper says that Seratech could use an affordable direct air capture technology instead, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I'm not saying that it can't be done, but I simply can't imagine any scenario where the technology would ever become cheap enough to be viable. Not for corporations like Seratech, and certainly not for regular users like you and me.

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Originally posted by second:
When talk about price comes up, the argument against global climate change is lost. The price for dumping CO2 directly into the air is always $0.00 per ton. No industrial product can compete with that price. And the price of $133.80 per ton of portland cement is so low that Seratech can't compete with that, either. Why pay $200.00 per ton for a substitute for portland cement?
https://www.ibisworld.com/us/bed/price-of-cement/190/

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But there are other prices to pay, like $446.66 per metric ton of wheat in March 2022. Wheat will get very expensive if CO2 continues at always higher concentrations. Droughts and floods ruin wheat crops.

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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Merkel says no regrets over Germany’s Russia gas deals

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I guess then we just sit back and pray that the new product does what they claim it to do and we don't see buildings and bridges falling out from under people every day 10 or 20 years from now because we stopped using a tried and true product we've used forever because you're scared that the environment is going to die.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I guess then we just sit back and pray that the new product does what they claim it to do and we don't see buildings and bridges falling out from under people every day 10 or 20 years from now because we stopped using a tried and true product we've used forever because you're scared that the environment is going to die.

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The Corpus Christi New Harbor bridge construction was stopped because the Trumptards who designed it didn't calculate the concrete flexing when stressed during a hurricane. Things fail because average people lack imagination about ordinary, concrete, real things such as CO2 and hurricanes. Instead, they imagine unreal dangers and fear displeasing the supernatural and their long-dead ancestors.

It took 300,000 years to go from a genius discovering fire to the technology level in the year 2200 B.C. when another genius discovered the wheel. Wheels were too complex to even imagine before then. Nowadays, some geniuses have discovered how to prevent CO2 from destroying the climate and very average people can't imagine what it is all about since it's too complex for them, making them fearful about bridges and buildings falling down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel#History

What Really Happened at the New Harbor Bridge Project?
1,209,343 views Sep 20, 2022 -An overview of the drama unfolding over the ship channel in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm not saying that there isn't a way to capture CO2 gasses. Of course there are ways.

Nobody has ever come up with a model that makes it economically feasible though.

Until that happens, they won't be used except for in niche markets where it is necessitated.

If they had an economic model that would extract CO2 from the atmosphere and make it profitable on a grand scale, we'd already be doing it and nobody would be talking about climate change.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm not saying that there isn't a way to capture CO2 gasses. Of course there are ways.

Nobody has ever come up with a model that makes it economically feasible though.

Until that happens, they won't be used except for in niche markets where it is necessitated.

If they had an economic model that would extract CO2 from the atmosphere and make it profitable on a grand scale, we'd already be doing it and nobody would be talking about climate change.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yanno SECOND, instead of slagging SIX all the time you should be promoting his lifestyle.

If we all (including you) lived like SIX ... buying only what is necessary, conserving and upgrading what exists, upcycling and re-using as necessary - we wouldn't have as much of a CO2 problem.

I'm all for technical innovation, but there are also tried and true fixes for our various environmental disasters, and if we look in our trash cans and landfills (and Pentagon stockpiles) we can see part of the problem right there. There are no magic (technical) wands for that.

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm not saying that there isn't a way to capture CO2 gasses. Of course there are ways.

Nobody has ever come up with a model that makes it economically feasible though.

Until that happens, they won't be used except for in niche markets where it is necessitated.

If they had an economic model that would extract CO2 from the atmosphere and make it profitable on a grand scale, we'd already be doing it and nobody would be talking about climate change.

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I know I can't get you to pay attention because price and profit are the only things you care about,

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yanno SECOND, instead of slagging SIX all the time you should be promoting his lifestyle.

If we all (including you) lived like SIX ... buying only what is necessary, conserving and upgrading what exists, upcycling and re-using as necessary - we wouldn't have as much of a CO2 problem.

I'm all for technical innovation, but there are also tried and true fixes for our various environmental disasters, and if we look in our trash cans and landfills (and Pentagon stockpiles) we can see part of the problem right there. There are no magic (technical) wands for that.

SECOND: I keep wondering what the hell is wrong with you, but I never will find out why you can't understand simple things. The simple thing, which I doubt you can understand, is that the important numbers are how much CO2 and other greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere.

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SECOND Those numbers need to go downward, and very fast, but it seems like most people think those numbers will go downward if and only if they emit fewer tonnes of CO2 per year.

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SECOND: You could make your daily emissions zero and it would not lower the numbers that need lowering, which is the percent

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SECOND: of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Those are the ONLY numbers that count.

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SECOND I live a very downscale lifestyle.

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SECOND: But by selling natural gas, I'm serving people who live a very proliferate lifestyle, with hundreds of tonnes (or even thousands) per year per person of CO2 emissions.

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SECOND: Before that, I was building petrochemical plants that emit gigatonnes of CO2. I'm one of the guys who made the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increase, and the only way to make the numbers decrease is to run the industrial process that guys like me started in reverse, where the industry takes greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and puts those gases back into the ground. If industry does not take its waste gases, which are greenhouse gases, out of the atmosphere, we are going to be cooked.

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SECOND: Yes, I know some people dream of reflecting sunlight back into outer space by geoengineering and other people dream of forests and oceans "naturally" absorbing greenhouse gases. Good luck with those dreams, but you better wake up fast and make those dreams into reality pretty damn quick.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
What we COULD do is replace our dark asphalt-based rooftops with white ones and increase the albedo of our cities. Planting urban trees would also make cities more liveable by reducing temperatures and AC usage.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
What we COULD do is replace our dark asphalt-based rooftops with white ones and increase the albedo of our cities. Planting urban trees would also make cities more liveable by reducing temperatures and AC usage.

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Lets' just make sure we're not doing it with soft maple garbage trees this time, m-kay?



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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hahaha!!!

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hahaha!!!

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Did anybody today tell Signym and 6ix they are worthless? For two valueless assholes, they certainly have as high an opinion about themselves as Trump and Putin have about themselves.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hahaha!!!

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Did anybody today tell Signym and 6ix they are worthless? For two valueless assholes, they certainly have as high an opinion about themselves as Trump and Putin have about themselves.

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Awwwwwwwww...

Somebody sounds salty that they've lost.



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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I don't see what SECOND's so mad about.

I even agreed with him that we should be looking at ways to capture CO2 from the air ... or at least, from flue gases. My only caveat is that since that takes energy, the only way that makes sense is uing SOLAR energy or possibly nuclear energy, since solar (and nuclear) energy are the only potentially carbon -free sources of energy for this capture process.

And since plants already use solar energy to capture CO2 from the air.... well, it just seems like one place to start. But certainly not the only one.

But jeez... SECOND can't take "yes" for an answer?

I'm beginning to think you're right, SIX. I think SECOND is REAVREBOT.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Quote:

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hahaha!!!

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Did anybody today tell Signym and 6ix they are worthless? For two valueless assholes, they certainly have as high an opinion about themselves as Trump and Putin have about themselves.

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Awwwwwwwww...

Somebody sounds salty that they've lost.



--------------------------------------------------

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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I don't see what SECOND's so mad about.

I even agreed with him that we should be looking at ways to capture CO2 from the air ... or at least, from flue gases. My only caveat is that since that takes energy, the only way that makes sense is uing SOLAR energy or possibly nuclear energy, since solar (and nuclear) energy are the only potentially carbon -free sources of energy for this capture process.

And since plants already use solar energy to capture CO2 from the air.... well, it just seems like one place to start. But certainly not the only one.

But jeez... SECOND can't take "yes" for an answer?

I'm beginning to think you're right, SIX. I think SECOND is REAVREBOT.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Yup.

He's peddling scams and thinking he's saving the world.

Meanwhile, Reaverfan's got himself an electric pickup truck that can't haul anything.

Good news for him is that once he realizes this and admits it to himself, there should be no shortage of overpaid soy-boy college graduates that won't actually use that bed to haul anything that he should be able to con into buying it from him without losing too much money. He might have to sell it out of state though. I can't imagine many men in Texas want to drive around a glorified Power Wheels toy.

I'll bet Reaverfan looks real cute in it while wearing his cowboy hat and matching boots in his Lightning. He should find himself some tumbleweed to throw in the bed so it doesn't look so sad and useless. Just one or two of them though. If he puts 3 in the back he's pushing almost 50lbs and he'll be recharging that truck up every 750 feet.

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Yup.

He's peddling scams and thinking he's saving the world.

Meanwhile, Reaverfan's got himself an electric pickup truck that can't haul anything.

Good news for him is that once he realizes this and admits it to himself, there should be no shortage of overpaid soy-boy college graduates that won't actually use that bed to haul anything that he should be able to con into buying it from him without losing too much money. He might have to sell it out of state though. I can't imagine many men in Texas want to drive around a glorified Power Wheels toy.

I'll bet Reaverfan looks real cute in it while wearing his cowboy hat and matching boots in his Lightning. He should find himself some tumbleweed to throw in the bed so it doesn't look so sad and useless. Just one or two of them though. If he puts 3 in the back he's pushing almost 50lbs and he'll be recharging that truck up every 750 feet.

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I am going out to lunch with my frienemy from the industry. He asked if I was gonna drive us there in "The Corporation Jet", meaning my pickup. He is exactly right which is why I go to lunch with him. I love my Lightning as a status symbol. It actually has a trailer hitch and Ford claims it can tow 7,000 pounds but I never tried.
https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by second:
Big boom in carbon capture projects . . . according to a new report from think tank Global CCS Institute, which advocates for carbon capture and storage (CCS).
https://status22.globalccsinstitute.com/

That includes projects to scrub CO2 out of smokestack emissions from a veritable pantheon of the most notorious pollution sources: power plants, natural gas processing plants, oil refineries, hydrogen producers, cement and steel factories, and petrochemical and synthetic fertilizer manufacturers.

Right now, there are only 30 CCS facilities operating and 11 under construction. But 153 more carbon capture and storage projects are in development, according to the Global CCS Institute. Of the 196 projects in the pipeline globally, 61 new projects got started in 2022 alone.

Looking at the report’s list of CCS facilities either operating or in the works in 2022, The Verge found that a majority of projects are tangled up with oil and gas. Roughly 60 percent of the projects are either backed by fossil fuel companies and / or aim to capture emissions from fossil fuel power plants, petrochemical facilities, and fossil fuel-adjacent industries like industrial fertilizer and hydrogen production that are major gas consumers. And 30 of the facilities already use or plan to use the captured carbon for a process called enhanced oil recovery, in which fossil fuel companies shoot the CO2 into the ground to push up hard-to-reach oil.

With those numbers, it’s no wonder that some environmental groups are skeptical of carbon capture as a climate fix. Many are worried that the technology will only deepen economies’ reliance on fossil fuels rather than help to usher in an age of cleaner energy sources. In the US, that includes Food & Water Watch, The Indigenous Environmental Network, and Friends of the Earth.

There are several reasons why groups like these say carbon capture tech isn’t a cure-all for fossil fuels. For starters, it doesn’t typically capture 100 percent of the CO2 a pollution source like an industrial plant generates. For instance, a plan to build a carbon capture facility at Louisiana’s biggest source of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, an ammonia plant, is supposed to capture 2 million metric tons of CO2 annually when complete — even though the plant produced 10 million metric tons of the greenhouse gas in a single year.

More at https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/18/23410755/global-boom-carbon-captur
e-storage-ccs-pipeline-oil-gas-industry

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

One of the reasons why I promote carbon dioxide capture .. by plants.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, I already addressed the issues of forest fire and permafrost. Try to keep up.

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, I already addressed the issues of forest fire and permafrost. Try to keep up.

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Yours was Don't burn forests. Don't melt the permafrost. That is NOT a solution. It is wishful thinking. A solution shows how to recapture the carbon when the forests burn and the permafrost melts because those unfortunate events will keep happening. Planting more trees is NOT a solution, especially when the rich will decide the forest would be of more use if it was sold as lumber, plywood, and fuel instead of used only as a place to store carbon. Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil, won't be President forever, but somebody just like him will have the same stupid plans for the Amazon Rain forest that Bolsonaro has -- sell all the trees and burn what is leftover. In Russia, somebody like Putin will decide Siberia would be better if it was hotter, therefore all the permafrost should be melted in order to release the methane to increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over Siberia. Tough luck if you want Siberia to remain frozen.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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California Wildfires Cancel-Out Two Decades Of Emissions Reductions

In 2020, greenhouse gas emission reductions by California were negated by the CO2 from wildfires.

That’s according to a new study by researchers from UCLA and the University of Chicago, “Up in smoke: California’s greenhouse gas reductions could be wiped out by 2020 wildfires.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749122011022#bi
b1

*“Wildfire emissions in 2020 essentially negate 18 years of reductions in GHG emissions from other sectors,” the study’s authors concluded.*

Yet, comprehensive sensible policies could mitigate the wildfires. These policies include, especially, undergrounding power lines, which often spark onto dry wood, starting conflagrations.

According to the study, “We estimate that California’s wildfire carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions from 2020 are approximately two times higher than California’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions since 2003. Without considering future vegetation regrowth, CO2e emissions from the 2020 wildfires could be the second most important source in the state above either industry or electrical power generation.”

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Their solution: “Our analysis suggests that significant societal benefits could accrue from larger investments in improved forest management and stricter controls on new development in fire-prone areas at the wildland-urban interface.” Those things would help.

But the state has lagged in dealing with its aging electricity infrastructure—a problem made worse, ironically, as more electric vehicles hit the road and need more juice from already overloaded power lines.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm willing to bet that they've already figured out how to "grow" oil like they figured out how to "grow" diamonds.

False scarcity.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm willing to bet that they've already figured out how to "grow" oil like they figured out how to "grow" diamonds.

False scarcity.

--------------------------------------------------

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Not that I've seen. There were some university projects trying to grow algae under accelerated conditions (in seawater sandwiched between transparent plates and fed with CO2) harvested abd turned into oil but the capital costs far outweigh the product.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm willing to bet that they've already figured out how to "grow" oil like they figured out how to "grow" diamonds.

False scarcity.


SIGNY: Not that I've seen. There were some university projects trying to grow algae under accelerated conditions (in seawater sandwiched between transparent plates and fed with CO2) harvested abd turned into oil but the capital costs far outweigh the product.

SIX: Oh... You wouldn't see it. If you did, they'd have to kill you.

The NDAs the employees who did know have to sign include the lines "you are an employee for life", "if you tell anyone we will kill you, your family, everyone you've ever met and all of their families.", and "now that you've been given this offer and seen this NDA your two choices are to sign it or die immediately."

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Originally posted by second:
Consumption of fossil fuels is growing faster than ever.

Last year, according to data from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, in both the US, and the world as a whole, the growth in hydrocarbons — oil, natural gas, and coal — far exceeded the growth of wind and solar by huge margins.

Let’s start with a look at what is happening in the US. According to updated figures from BP’s Statistical Review, in 2021, US oil use grew by 2.8 exajoules (EJ).

(An exajoule, EJ, is roughly equal to one quadrillion Btu, or the energy contained in 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.)

For comparison, solar energy use grew by 0.3 EJ, and wind energy increased by 0.4 EJ, for a total increase of 0.7 EJ. Thus, last year, US oil use grew four times faster times than the growth seen in wind and solar combined. Meanwhile, coal use jumped by 1.4 exajoules, or twice the growth in wind and solar. Even with a slight decline in natural gas use, the BP numbers show that US hydrocarbon use increased by 4 EJ last year, that’s more than five times the growth seen in wind and solar.

An almost identical trend can be seen in the global data. Last year, the use of oil, gas, and coal grew by 10.5, 7.7, and 8.7 EJ respectively, resulting in a total one-year increase in hydrocarbon consumption of 26.9 EJ. Meanwhile, in 2021, wind and solar grew by 3.4 and 2.1 EJ, respectively, for a total of 5.5 EJ. Thus, in 2021, global hydrocarbon use grew nearly five times faster than the growth in wind and solar combined.

Here’s another way to think about those numbers: Last year, just the increase in global hydrocarbon use — which as I mentioned above totaled 26.9 EJ — was roughly equal to the output of all of the wind and solar projects on Earth. Last year, global wind output was 17.5 EJ and solar contributed 9.7 EJ — for a total of 27.2 EJ. If you think last year was an anomaly, think again. The same trends can be seen in data going back to the mid-1980s. Between 1985 and 2021, global hydrocarbon use jumped by 224 EJ, that’s more than eight times the increase seen in wind and solar, which as I mentioned above, now provide about 27.2 EJ to the global energy mix.

The undeniable takeaway from the BP numbers is that wind and solar energy are not displacing hydrocarbons. Instead, they are being added to our existing energy mix. Why aren’t they making more headway? The reasons are readily apparent: wind and solar simply cannot provide the staggering scale of energy the world needs at prices consumers can afford. Furthermore, large-scale wind and solar projects are being rejected all around the world. As I have documented in the Renewable Rejection Database, since 2015, more than 370 communities across the US have rejected or restricted wind projects. And more than 90 have rejected solar projects. Over the last year alone, about 40 townships in Ohio have banned the construction of wind and solar projects.

More at https://quillette.com/2022/10/18/hyping-the-energy-transition/

BP Statistical Review of World Energy
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-re
view-of-world-energy.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Here’s another way to think about those numbers: Last year, just the increase in global hydrocarbon use — which as I mentioned above totaled 26.9 EJ — was roughly equal to the output of all of the wind and solar projects on Earth. Last year, global wind output was 17.5 EJ and solar contributed 9.7 EJ — for a total of 27.2 EJ. If you think last year was an anomaly, think again. The same trends can be seen in data going back to the mid-1980s. Between 1985 and 2021, global hydrocarbon use jumped by 224 EJ, that’s more than eight times the increase seen in wind and solar, which as I mentioned above, now provide about 27.2 EJ to the global energy mix.

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Phantom Forests: Why Ambitious Tree Planting Projects Are Failing

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High-profile initiatives to plant millions of trees are being touted by governments around the world as major contributions to fighting climate change. But scientists say many of these projects are ill-conceived and poorly managed and often fail to grow any forests at all.

By Fred Pearce October 6, 2022

It was perhaps the most spectacular failed tree planting project ever. Certainly the fastest. On March 8, 2012, teams of village volunteers in Camarines Sur province on the Filipino island of Luzon sunk over a million mangrove seedlings into coastal mud in just an hour of frenzied activity. The governor declared it a resounding success for his continuing efforts to green the province. At a hasty ceremony on dry land, an official adjudicator from Guinness World Records declared that nobody had ever planted so many trees in such a short time and handed the governor a certificate proclaiming the world record. Plenty of headlines followed.

But look today at the coastline where most of the trees were planted. There is no sign of the mangroves that, after a decade of growth, should be close to maturity. An on-the-ground study published in 2020 by British mangrove restoration researcher Dominic Wodehouse, then of Bangor University in Wales, found that fewer than 2 percent of them had survived. The other 98 percent had died or were washed away.

“I walked, boated, and swam through this entire site. The survivors only managed to cling on because they were sheltered behind a sandbank at the mouth of a river. Everything else disappeared,” one mangrove rehabilitation expert wrote in a letter to the Guinness inspectors this year, which he shared with Yale Environment 360 on the condition of anonymity. The outcome was “entirely predictable,” he wrote. The muddy planting sites were washed by storms and waves and were otherwise “ecologically unsuited to mangrove establishment, because they are too waterlogged and there is no oxygen for them to breathe.”

“It was a complete disaster,” agrees Jim Enright, former Asia coordinator of the U.S.-based nonprofit Mangrove Action Project. “But no one that we know of from Guinness or the record-planting proponents have carried out follow-up monitoring.” Guinness has not responded to requests for comment.

Such debacles are not unusual. Forest scientists say they are surprisingly frequent, and they warn that failed afforestation projects around the world threaten to undermine efforts to make planting a credible means of countering climate change by reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or generating carbon credits for sale to companies to offset their emissions.

In another high-profile case, in November 2019, the Turkish government claimed to have planted more trees on dry land than anyone else in a single hour — 300,000, in the central province of Çorum. It beat a record, also confirmed by Guinness inspectors, set four years before in the Himalayan state of Bhutan. The Çorum planting was part of a National Afforestation Day, when volunteers planted 11 million trees at 2,000 sites across Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among those wielding a spade.

But two months later, the head of the country’s union of forestry workers reported that a survey by its members had found that as many as 90 percent of the national plantings had died. The government denies this, but experts said its counter-claim that 95 percent of the trees had survived and continued to grow was improbably high. No independent audit has yet been carried out.

In an investigation published last year into extensive government-organized tree planting over several decades in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Eric Coleman of Florida State University and colleagues found little evidence that it had resulted in more tree cover, carbon uptake, or community benefits. Typically, tree species growing on common land that were useful to local people for animal fodder and firewood had been replaced by plantations of fast-growing but less useful trees, often fenced off from local communities.

Another study, published last year by the nonprofit World Resources Institute (WRI) in Mexico, called into question the benefits from a billion-dollar government-funded environmental recovery program. Sembrando Vida pays farmers to plant trees across the country to help Mexico meet its climate targets under the Paris Agreement. But WRI found the program has no effective audit of outcomes, and that rates of forest loss were currently greater in states implementing the plan than in others. It concluded that the program “could have had a negative impact on forest cover and compliance with the country’s carbon mitigation goals.”

Tree planting in the Philippines under its National Greening Program has also been a widespread failure, according to a 2019 study by the government’s own Commission on Audit. Ministers imposed unachievable planting targets, it said, resulting in planting “without … survey, mapping and planning.” The actual increase in forest cover achieved was little more than a tenth of that planned.

The causes of failure vary but include planting single species of trees that become vulnerable to disease; competing demands for the land; changing climate; planting in areas not previously forested; and a lack of aftercare such as watering saplings.

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The Middle East and US global power: Fossil Fuel- Lifeblood of the American Empire

by Phillyguy for The Saker Blog

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6. Military– The Pentagon is the largest single consumer of fossil fuel and polluter in the world. To give this some perspective, on average, the US military consumes 12,600,000 gallons (48,000,000 L) of fuel per day. One F-16 fighter jet consumes over 20K gallons of Kerosene per hour (333 gal/min) [32].

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