Three trillion trees: Study finds there are 7.5 times more trees than previously believed

http://phys.org ^ | September 2, 2015 | Provided by: Yale University

[Red Badger]

Me too...............

[tumblindice]

http://www.livescience.com/7725-lost-forests-america.html

“Around the arrival of Columbus, “it’s said that squirrels could travel from tree to tree from the Northeast to the Mississippi without ever having to touch the ground,” said Chris Roddick, chief arborist at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York. “In the old growth forests in the Northeast, you had hemlock that were six or seven feet in diameter, chestnut trees 200 feet tall.”

Of course if your name was Rocket J. Squirrel, you didn’t need any stinking trees.

[Tenacious 1]

We need to stop using wood. It is apparently a limited resource now.

If only we could get trees to grow on the moon. We might have a place to send these lunatics.

[ETL]

"Three trillion trees: Study finds there are 7.5 times more trees than previously believed"

Funny. Using Google World, or whatever it's called, I counted only 2,999,999,874,299.

[needmorePaine]

Three trillion trees: Study finds there are 7.5 times more trees than previously believed

So that's why I can't see the forest.

[Red Badger]

My bad, I just cut one down last week................

[Proud2BeRight]

They were 750% off on their earlier estimates yet they know that there are 46% less than before humans lived.

[Osage Orange]

One Red Maple....

The others...fruit trees.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger.

A new Yale-led study estimates that there are more than 3 trillion trees on Earth, about seven and a half times more than some previous estimates. But the total number of trees has plummeted by roughly 46 percent since the start of human civilization, the study estimates.

Ivy covered brain ping -- the Romans cleared out the forests, beginning with the areas adjacent to their roads, and over centuries nearly denuded Britain, Gaul, etc. During the Middle Ages, basically by a century or so after Roman occupation ended, the forests were back.

During the Renaissance the forests were again consumed; as iron metallurgy started to roll again -- a consequence of the switch from bronze in cannon and other firearms, and as re-rod in masonry -- coal started to be used, and took over as the primary energy source in many places (peat in Ireland and a few other places being exceptions).

We're seeing that transition out here in The Boonies; where farming is still taking place the fields and pastures (not many of those left) are clear, but as land comes out of cultivation new growth has turned formerly open areas into woods. And that's just in the past 50 years.

[Boogieman]

Well, if we can just find some aliens that will pay us $6/tree for the logging rights, we could pay off the national debt :)

[Tenacious 1]

Think of all the CO2 they are pumping into the air. It is going to kill us all!!

It is the fault of that Save-the-Trees movement from several decades ago.

Trees converted to lumber no longer produce CO2.

Living trees absorb CO2. Rotting trees produce CO2 (decay). But you knew that.

[Red Badger]

There’s a tree here we call a ‘Popcorn Tree’. It grows like crazy in even the poorest soils. It is an invasive species, and will displace native trees. Its seeds are poisonous to animals. These trees are truly evil..................

[Boogieman]

Only certain trees produce CO2 and only in limited circumstances. The majority of the time, they are a CO2 sink, absorbing it from the atmosphere to photosynthesize into sugars.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

They compared it to satellite photos from 1000bce.

[Vanders9]

Actually trees take in both O2 and CO2, and release both O2 and C02. Large trees produce far more C02 than they take in.

Even so, its all pretty academic. The old green mantra of "the amazon rain forest is the lungs of the planet" is nonsense. The amount of CO2 absorbed by trees is a fraction of what is taken in by phytoplankton in the oceans.

[Vanders9]

LOL...good point!

[Nep Nep]

watch this number fail to be reflected in any “climate change” model

[Vanders9]

heh heh heh...very good!

[subterfuge]

Lies. The world is far more forested than say 5000 years ago. This propaganda.

[ETL]

Q—Do trees give off Carbon Dioxide?

A—At night they do. During the day, they give off oxygen.

All normal plants, in the process of photosynthesis, take up carbon dioxide by day and release oxygen. This switches over in the dark, and they then produce carbon dioxide through respiration in the same way as animals. While they are growing, they take up more carbon dioxide overall than they give out, which gets turned into plant tissues (especially cellulose and, in the case of trees, lignin).

http://www.answers.com/Q/Do_trees_give_off_Carbon_Dioxide