Committee on Climate Change Report The Future For Farming And Land Use

Muddyroads · Jan 23, 2020

farmerm said:
I am not arguing against using N fertiliser, I can't farm profitably without it in todays markets! I am arguing that at present, farming and forestry doesn't even have the capacity to off-set the carbon being released every day globally, through deforestation and soil degradation, let along to think we can somehow soak up the carbon being released from pre-historic carbon sinks!!

if our unfertilised crop captures 1 unit of carbon and after a year or 2 it has all been released again the next effect on atmospheric CO2 is, in reality, zero
if our fertilised crop captures twice as much carbon again after a year or 2 it has all been released the next effect on atmospheric CO2 is again zero
ever if our fertilised crop sequesters 1000 times more carbon if after a year or 2 it has all been released the next effect on atmospheric CO2 is still zero. Crop biomass is simply not a true carbon sink when ultimately every crop or tree we grow is consumed and its nutrients released and recycled, be that in a week, a year or 100 years.

it is worse than that though because there is also the carbon cost for creating and applying N to the fertilised crop

if producing our fertiliser releases 1 unit of carbon from fossil fuel and our fertilised growing crop captures, but ultimately releases again, 100 units of carbon, the net effect on atmospheric carbon is not a reduction but an addition of 1 unit... and another next year and another the year after....

Biomass, fertilised or otherwise is not a carbon solution if it only results in transient carbon fixation.

Yes absolutely agree there is utterly no point in us planting a few trees, even a few billion trees, whilst global deforestation runs riot. If the UK started tree planting today at a rate to match deforestation we would have planted every acre of farmland in this country as early as March next year! Now take that and ponder this for a moment, the CO2 released from fossil fuels each year is said to be at least 10 times greater than what is released though global deforestation....

Trees take time to grow and sequester carbon so lets assume we decide to plant a carbon soak up forest over the next 5 years...
- a forest that can soak up all the CO2 we expect to release from fossil fuels for the next 50 years
- lets assume fossil fuel usage over the next 50 years remains the same or at least averages no more than todays figure releasing 35bn tonnes of CO2/year
- lets assume we can grown a mature forests to a 250t/ha of biomass during those 50 years...
- lets assume CO2 is by mass 33% carbon and forest biomass is 50% carbon

How many trees do we need to plant to soak up the next 50 years of fossil fuel carbon?

35,000,000,000t CO2 x 50 years = 1,750,000,000,000t of CO2 to sequester in biomass.

x0.33 = 577,500,000,000t of carbon to sequester in biomass

x2 = 1,155,000,000,000t of biomass

/250t per ha = 4,620 million Ha of forest!!

So even ignoring further deforestation, in order to offset the carbon we might reasonably expect to be released from fossil fuels over the next 50 years it would require the immediate planting of a forest that is more than 240 times larger than the total farmed area of the UK!!

There is a mistake in there somewhere, I hope!

That’s an awful lot of 000’s!

Muddyroads · Jan 23, 2020

MX7 said:
off Topic. If Uk agriculture was not subsidised would the environmentalists still be trying to destroy Uk agriculture.
I ask again why does industry and airlines not get a kicking like agriculture does in connection with polluting the atmosphere????

As I’ve said on other threads, it’s because big business can make huge profits from selling meat and dairy substitutes to the gullible.
I was in a branch of Costa in Bristol today and the woman in front of me ordered a vegan ham and cheese toasty.
Once I got over my initial reaction of “WTF is that about?”, it left me wondering what she’d actually eaten. One thing is for sure, if I’d asked her, she wouldn’t have known either!

farmerm · Jan 23, 2020

Muddyroads said:
That’s an awful lot of 000’s!

Indeed! One needs to understand just how massive 35bn tonnes of CO2 released from fossil fuel each year is before once can understand how global warming could be real when the planet seems so big!

Rod Dumbreck · Jan 24, 2020

Just doing a bit of blue sky thinkin, if we need to sequester all this carbon, instead of planting all these trees, with not enough saplings etc, if we just put an appropriate amount of easily grown wheat in a shed and shut the door, would that not be as effective?
(If this turns out to be the way to save the planet, just remember you saw it first on TFF)

Scribus · Jan 24, 2020

Swarfmonkey said:
The NT have cottoned on to the fact that they'll be able to make a whole lot more cash from planting trees than they would make from tenant farmers on the same land. It's all about the money...

Mind you, given what i've been told by someone who rents a property from the NT, would you really want them as your landlord anyway? Complete sh!ts to deal with.

That is exactly what it is all about.

Scribus · Jan 24, 2020

No amount of faffing about with trees or grass is going to make one jot of difference. If the carbon is out there then we need to reuse it as an energy management tool, it can be done and is being done, nature does does and has thrived on the 'inefficiency' for over 3 billion years, why should we suddenly know better?

Muddyroads · Jan 24, 2020

Scribus said:
No amount of faffing about with trees or grass is going to make one jot of difference. If the carbon is out there then we need to reuse it as an energy management tool, it can be done and is being done, nature does does and has thrived on the 'inefficiency' for over 3 billion years, why should we suddenly know better?

Because a lot of people think they can make a lot of money out of it, and a paranoid school girl has given the media something to get excited about.

egbert · Jan 24, 2020

farmerm said:
I am not arguing against using N fertiliser, I can't farm profitably without it in todays markets! I am arguing that at present, farming and forestry doesn't even have the capacity to off-set the carbon being released every day globally, through deforestation and soil degradation, let along to think we can somehow soak up the carbon being released from pre-historic carbon sinks!!

if our unfertilised crop captures 1 unit of carbon and after a year or 2 it has all been released again the next effect on atmospheric CO2 is, in reality, zero
if our fertilised crop captures twice as much carbon again after a year or 2 it has all been released the next effect on atmospheric CO2 is again zero
ever if our fertilised crop sequesters 1000 times more carbon if after a year or 2 it has all been released the next effect on atmospheric CO2 is still zero. Crop biomass is simply not a true carbon sink when ultimately every crop or tree we grow is consumed and its nutrients released and recycled, be that in a week, a year or 100 years.

it is worse than that though because there is also the carbon cost for creating and applying N to the fertilised crop

if producing our fertiliser releases 1 unit of carbon from fossil fuel and our fertilised growing crop captures, but ultimately releases again, 100 units of carbon, the net effect on atmospheric carbon is not a reduction but an addition of 1 unit... and another next year and another the year after....

Biomass, fertilised or otherwise is not a carbon solution if it only results in transient carbon fixation.

Yes absolutely agree there is utterly no point in us planting a few trees, even a few billion trees, whilst global deforestation runs riot. If the UK started tree planting today at a rate to match deforestation we would have planted every acre of farmland in this country as early as March next year! Now take that and ponder this for a moment, the CO2 released from fossil fuels each year is said to be at least 10 times greater than what is released though global deforestation....

Trees take time to grow and sequester carbon so lets assume we decide to plant a carbon soak up forest over the next 5 years...
- a forest that can soak up all the CO2 we expect to release from fossil fuels for the next 50 years
- lets assume fossil fuel usage over the next 50 years remains the same or at least averages no more than todays figure releasing 35bn tonnes of CO2/year
- lets assume we can grown a mature forests to a 250t/ha of biomass during those 50 years...
- lets assume CO2 is by mass 33% carbon and forest biomass is 50% carbon

How many trees do we need to plant to soak up the next 50 years of fossil fuel carbon?

35,000,000,000t CO2 x 50 years = 1,750,000,000,000t of CO2 to sequester in biomass.

x0.33 = 577,500,000,000t of carbon to sequester in biomass

x2 = 1,155,000,000,000t of biomass

/250t per ha = 4,620 million Ha of forest!!

So even ignoring further deforestation, in order to offset the carbon we might reasonably expect to be released from fossil fuels over the next 50 years it would require the immediate planting of a forest that is more than 240 times larger than the total farmed area of the UK!!

There is a mistake in there somewhere, I hope!

I got lost in your noughts, but you were deffo sailing in the right direction.....
My calcs put the UKs own current CO2 release as requiring 150% of our land surface planted with new forest (assuming a 'grab' of 10T/hect/annually)
And that's only a sticking plaster...it gives our sins to our grandchildren to deal with.

farmerm · Jan 24, 2020

Rod Dumbreck said:
Just doing a bit of blue sky thinkin, if we need to sequester all this carbon, instead of planting all these trees, with not enough saplings etc, if we just put an appropriate amount of easily grown wheat in a shed and shut the door, would that not be as effective?
(If this turns out to be the way to save the planet, just remember you saw it first on TFF)

We could but.... to soak up the 35bn tonnes of CO2 released from fossil fuels each year requires in the region of 23bn tonnes of carbon to be sequestered in biomas each year… the entire global wheat annual production is only about 650million tonnes… So I believe we would need to produce and store, indefinitely, every grain from 35years of global wheat production to offset just a single years fossil fuel use...

farmerm · Jan 24, 2020

Muddyroads said:
Because a lot of people think they can make a lot of money out of it, and a paranoid school girl has given the media something to get excited about.

When you sit back and consider what 35bn tonnes of CO2 released into the atmosphere from fossil fuels every year really means you realise it really is something we need to get excited about.... Have you ever been close to an aircraft carrier? Try imagine the largest aircraft carrier in the world, now imagine a flotilla of 400,000 of them, now imagine all that mass being vaporised into the atmosphere this year, and for the last 50 years and the next 50 years... Anyone who doesn't believe we are changing our atmosphere is as deluded as a flat earth believer. Ultimately if we change our atmosphere we change our environment.

Rod Dumbreck · Jan 24, 2020

farmerm said:
We could but.... to soak up the 35bn tonnes of CO2 released from fossil fuels each year requires in the region of 23bn tonnes of carbon to be sequestered in biomas each year… the entire global wheat annual production is only about 650million tonnes… So I believe we would need to produce and store, indefinitely, every grain from 35years of global wheat production to offset just a single years fossil fuel use...

Oh well, not the instant solution we were hoping for, but, if it all went horribly wrong we could eat it instead.

Goweresque · Jan 24, 2020

farmerm said:
Indeed! One needs to understand just how massive 35bn tonnes of CO2 released from fossil fuel each year is before once can understand how global warming could be real when the planet seems so big!

Not really, when the weight of the entire atmosphere is 5.7 quadrillion tonnes (a quadrillion is 1 followed by 15 noughts). Also that natural emissions of CO2 from respiration and outgassing from the oceans dwarf human emissions by a fact of over 20 - the natural carbon cycle comprises 750bn tonnes

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-much-does-earths-atmosphere-weigh/

https://www.arcadia.com/energy-101/...greenhouse-gas-emissions-natural-vs-man-made/

CO2 forms about 0.04% of the atmosphere, ie about 4 ten thousandths of it.

primmiemoo · Jan 24, 2020

egbert said:
you know i keep on saying...we'll have to point em like stakes, and drive em back into the seabed.....
now where did all this pesky CO2 come from?

Would creating an equivalent to bog oak be a workable answer to locking away carbon from trees, then?

After an optimum period of growth - to the point when it begins to lose stored carbon - a tree is harvested and buried in rewetted bog or in saltmarsh?

primmiemoo · Jan 24, 2020

Poorbuthappy said:
Time to start gathering beech nuts?

To make flour, yes. Our bread basket land will be under water, or salt tainted by the time a beech tree is half grown.

betweenthelines · Jan 24, 2020

Does NT think people will still flock to visit all their stately homes when they are set in the middle of boring woodland rather than the traditional fields of varying crops and livestock?

Poorbuthappy · Jan 24, 2020

primmiemoo said:
To make flour, yes. Our bread basket land will be under water, or salt tainted by the time a beech tree is half grown.

"Let them eat meat!"

However, I was more suggesting a diversification opportunity.
But then, so is yours!

egbert · Jan 24, 2020

primmiemoo said:
Would creating an equivalent to bog oak be a workable answer to locking away carbon from trees, then?

After an optimum period of growth - to the point when it begins to lose stored carbon - a tree is harvested and buried in rewetted bog or in saltmarsh?

as daft as it sounds, after looking long and carefully, it's the best solution I have - using the nuts and bolts of life you and I recognise- to grab carbon and safely lock it away til tectonic plate action or somesuch dislodges it.
suitable inshore seabed?

I then realised the irony...as in it is where the blessed stuff was before we grubbed it up.

renewablejohn · Jan 24, 2020

fgc325j said:
And China has plans to build 220+ coal-fired power stations, which will generate enough electricity to
power all the countries in the EU ( UK included ).
Ps- India is also going ahead with building 60+ coal-fired power plants.
And we are being chastised over farting cattle - FFS!!!!

And where has this spurious information come from. And how many obsolete old plants have been closed down.

Hilly · Jan 24, 2020

If we cut livestock by 10% won’t that just be 10% more imports thus burning more fuel ....... etc etc ??

farmerm · Jan 24, 2020

Goweresque said:
Not really, when the weight of the entire atmosphere is 5.7 quadrillion tonnes (a quadrillion is 1 followed by 15 noughts). Also that natural emissions of CO2 from respiration and outgassing from the oceans dwarf human emissions by a fact of over 20 - the natural carbon cycle comprises 750bn tonnes

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-much-does-earths-atmosphere-weigh/

https://www.arcadia.com/energy-101/...greenhouse-gas-emissions-natural-vs-man-made/

CO2 forms about 0.04% of the atmosphere, ie about 4 ten thousandths of it.

The weight of the entire atmosphere is largely irrelevant almost all that 5.7quadrillion doesn't play any part in the global heat balance, without the co2 and other greenhouse gasses the rest of the atmosphere is a greenhouse without any glass! It only takes the a layer of glass a few microns thick for a greenhouse to function as a greenhouse, thicken the glass by another micron and another and another and it heats up faster and faster.

So the natural carbon cycle is 750bn tonnes, that is 750bn tonnes that sits roughly in balance between emission and sequestration... meanwhile over 20 years burning fossil fuels releases an additional 750bn tonnes, another 20 years adds another 750bn tonnes…..

primmiemoo said:
Would creating an equivalent to bog oak be a workable answer to locking away carbon from trees, then?

After an optimum period of growth - to the point when it begins to lose stored carbon - a tree is harvested and buried in rewetted bog or in saltmarsh?

Perfect solution, of course we would need to grow, harvest and bury about 23bn tonnes of bog oak every year to match CO2 released from fossil fuels.....

Committee on Climate Change Report The Future For Farming And Land Use

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Up to 25%

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50-75%

75-100%

100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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