China Reassigns 60,000 Soldiers To Plant Trees In Bid To Fight Pollution 126
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.
China has also announced who will manufacture... (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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Can't come from China if it's supposed to increased the forest-covered area from 21% to 23%
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Re:China has also announced who will manufacture.. (Score:4, Funny)
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?
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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.
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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.
Re: China has also announced who will manufacture. (Score:2)
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
Probably the sanest use of soldiers (Score:4, Insightful)
Although this will probably only make a minor difference.
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not bit by bit but with a big bang
MAGA!
Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]. Evidence that the USA has improved dramatically over the past 20 years [earth-policy.org]. I'm surprised you didn't get modded down making this factual claim.
Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:2)
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Uh, absolute values, yes. Per-capita values, it's still 2× the amount that China pollutes, from the wikipedia page that you linked.
I wish I had mod points because the guy above just got burned!
No he didn't. Absolute values is what really matters when it comes to pollution.
Your Bullshit (Score:2)
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.
Then you're right back to per capita rates (Score:2)
So close yet still so far.
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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*.
At some point in the past several decades, "pollution" became synonymous with CO2 emissions or GHG emissions.
While they may go together in most cases, they're not inextricably linked. It's very possible to have a country with high CO2 emissions that has terrific environmental stewardship - and the reverse is also true.
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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: Probably the sanest use of soldiers (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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Re: Probably the sanest use of soldiers (Score:4, Insightful)
FTFY
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FTFY
You think China cares about the best interest of the world? Russia too? Your hippie idealism is adorable. Let me know where your emerald forest is filled with fairies and unicorns, I'd like to live there too.
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I see you went with a non-response, red herring & non sequitur sandwich for lunch today.
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This cartoon [kym-cdn.com] neatly addresses that line of capitalist dumbfuckery.
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So now that you are aware of the great social injustice you are committing by your own extravagant consumption, will you give those things up?
Awwww such an arrogant, narcissistic SJW. Why don't you donate all your worldly positions and move to Africa to help the poor? Oh, won't do that? I guess you're a hypocrite then. All talk and no action like most SJW's. You just want the attention.
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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.
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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.
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What does the per-capita rate have to do with anything globally though? That is simply saying a country is allowed to damage the global environment more just because it has more people. Instead, shouldn't we be looking at the pollution a country generates relative to its land area? Because land area is finite, and is at a static ratio to our planet's atmosphere, water volume, etc. The US and China's land area is within 2% of one another (US is around 2.5% larger area). So based on that concept, China should
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By that line of "reasoning", the Vatican, population 1,000, should be able to pollute just as much as China, population 1.4 billion. Because they're both sovereign nations. Of course per capita matters, check your arrogance and sense of western exceptionalist entitlement.
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Didn't you read what I wrote? Are you saying that the land area of the Vatican is equal to the land area of China? Because based on what I said, that is what it would take for the Vatican to be able to pollute as much as China.
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Don't you get that's an equally fallacious comparison? By that line of logical fallacy, California should be held to tighter emissions standards than Alaska, because the latter is a larger state geographically.
It's per capita, period. Yes, this means China gets to pollute 5 times as much as the United States, wh
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Instead, shouldn't we be looking at the pollution a country generates relative to its land area?
No. That's a terrible idea. Island nations won't be able to have any industry and Russia and Canada will get a free pass.
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Why in proportion to land area? If China were to annex Siberia, then, it would be doing far better in CO2 emissions?
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they just don't realize the best way is to clean up your act
A statement born from ignorance of just what China is doing. I mean you don't need to look far. We've covered on Slashdot plenty of times the crackdown on corruption, shuttering of polluting factories, adoption of green energy, decommissioning of coal, restrictions on vehicles in cities.
The only real difference is that what took the USA 100 years will likely take China 50.
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The only real difference is that what took the USA 100 years will likely take China 50.
It's a little easier to do something when you aren't the first to do it. China was able to ramp up to an incredibly industrialized country in an extremely short period of time. But when it's known for a fact that it can be done and can buy, copy and steal the technology from those who did it first, it's also incredibly easier.
The US took a very long time in comparison to get to that point. It also took much longer to create realize/admit the causes and the solutions to acid rain, pollution, rivers cat
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"China has obviously learned from the mistakes of the EU and the US"
You're obviously wrong. If they had, they would never have made such a mess of their environment in the first place.
Air pollution ALONE may have taken more than a million lives. Perhaps that seems trivial in a country of well over a billion people but it's 1/2 the number of people in their standing army
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You're obviously wrong. If they had, they would never have made such a mess of their environment in the first place.
That's a non-sequitur argument. Just because they follow the same path doesn't mean they haven't learnt from the mistakes of the USA.
It's not just that they killed a "trivial" number of people, but in doing so became one of the world's greatest superpowers. What they seem to have learnt is that resting on laurels of the environment after becoming a superpower doesn't help your cause. Expect China to become even more dominant as a major power / developer of environmental technologies in the future.
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That's a non-sequitur argument. Just because they follow the same path doesn't mean they haven't learnt from the mistakes of the USA.
It's not just that they killed a "trivial" number of people, but in doing so became one of the world's greatest superpowers. What they seem to have learnt is that resting on laurels of the environment after becoming a superpower doesn't help your cause.
Following the same path is one thing but they made ALL the same mistakes - and worse - as the West in a fraction of the time.
Now they're finding out that cleaning up isn't so easy. They do have the advantage of absolute authoritarianism but so did the Soviet Union - remember them?
Expect China to become even more dominant as a major power / developer of environmental technologies in the future
I fully expect them to try but again, no easy feat especially since it's been apparent for some time that their financial system is a tightly controlled house of cards that cannot and will not hold up forever.
When the eventual cor
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Air pollution ALONE may have taken more than a million lives. Perhaps that seems trivial in a country of well over a billion people but it's 1/2 the number of people in their standing army
If we look at the population of China at 1.379 billion [google.com] people vs. the US in 1970, the year the EPA was founded, at 205.1 million [google.com]the equivalent percentage of the US population in comparison to your 1 million would be 148,730.
According to this publication [sciencedirect.com] from MIT, There are an estimated 200K deaths per year in the US that are caused by air pollution.
Even if we go with the same year to look at the population, The US is at 323.1million. The equivalent number of today population would be 234,300. Damn near
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In other words the net force is equated to the product of the mass times the acceleration.
Planting trees on the contrary reduces CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 is the most dangerous pollutant as it is impossible to reduce it in principle
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Trees don't really reduce CO2 in the long term. When they die, they rot and most of the CO2 they captured is released back into the atmosphere. Mature forests are generally carbon neutral.
Long term carbon sequestration is a very slow process mostly driven by dead algae dropping into ocean sediments. It's better to avoid releasing fossilized carbon in the first place.
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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
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The question is how effective that method is. How long does it take to remove a ton of carbon dioxide from the air, and how many places do we have to bury dessicated trees where they won't eventually rot?
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There's plenty of things that are bad about China, not making an effort to clean up and prevent further polution hasn't been one of them since 2012/2013, when they got serious about polution...
China has :
- now built more solar and wind power then the rest of the world combined (and they keep adding more at incredible rate)
- they've made masive efforts to clean up transportation by:
* build high-speed rail (about 2/3ths of the high speed rail lines in the world are now in china)
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China is also capable of making massive changes very rapidly. Like replacing all the busses in a major city with electric ones in just a couple of years.
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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.
Nonsense! 99.99% of the trees will be chopped down and used for firewood for heating and cooking, so they won't have a chance to die and decompose. Stuff tastes better when cooked on an open fire. And a an open fireplace is much more pleasant than heat from a radiator.
The soldiers are from the People's Liberation Army,
Have you ever noticed that whenever someone calls something People's it isn't? Like a People's Democratic Republic usually isn't.
Anyway, I think the pollution story is fake. The People's Liberation Army is really developing a new form of
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So ... Soylent Green isn't people?
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Nonsense! 99.99% of the trees will be chopped down and used for firewood for heating and cooking, so they won't have a chance to die and decompose. Stuff tastes better when cooked on an open fire. And a an open fireplace is much more pleasant than heat from a radiator.
It is what probably happened in Ancient Egypt. The woods were over-exploited and finally disappeared. It would be very hard to reintroduce.
By the way, it is the same in jungles. If the trees are cut completely, the land does not turn back into jungles by itself. So it make sense to plant trees and protect the forests.
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"members of online military forums" (Score:2)
...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.
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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: How's the tree "planning" going then? (Score:3, Funny)
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
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proofread
typed on my Android device.
where are the tree coming from (Score:1)
Planting trees does not solve the problem (Score:1)
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I think the idea is to maintain actual forests where new trees grow to store the CO2 released by those dying.
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Well, with a hint of luck, in 60 years the days of us fossil burners may be numbered...
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br There are even plans to make Mars livable by introducing photosynthesis.
Re:It's a great idea (Score:4, Funny)
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My god! You're right! We must cut down all trees within a mile of anyone! Otherwise they'll only get burned down!
We also need to have some kind of method of restraining domestic animals. Something that fences them in, or maybe out. Come on, if we put our heads together I'm sure we could invent something to do this.
Good job our superior western intelligence has realised these things, and we don't follow these foolish Chinese in their futile efforts.
With the green end up ! (Score:2)
Sorry, I could not resist mentioning this one.
For all the whiners (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [lifeadvancer.com].
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 (Score:5, Informative)
Another great example is Wayne National Forest [usda.gov] 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. [dispatch.com] Fortunately, Wayne has shown the ability to rebound from worse.
Febreze on taco diarrhea (Score:3)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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Trees stop wind. Hence stop soil erosion that becomes dust. Smog is not the only air pollutant.
Doom and Gloom? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Because I understand the science. If I'm the fugitive gas, CO2, and I get caught by a tree and held, it is temporary. The tree will fully mature, stop adding carbon to its body, start getting eaten by bacteria or termites and then I'm cut loose again. Thats not sequestration.
Iron fertilization of the ocean to grow phytoplankton is a far better use of their time.
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You're absolutely right. There are also other ways to ensure the air quality improves, for example World's Largest Air Purifier in Xian, China [archdaily.com] in which technology can improve life for everyone. Article mentions it's not perfect but that's what a trial run is for right?
The idea where the trees can benefit would be nature itself. By creating a forest, you also create a habitat for a slew of organisms that will take up residence in the forests. With natural habitats always being constantly taken over by huma
Sounds like the CCC... (Score:2)
4,000 deaths per day... (Score:1)
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.
Watch the Albedo... (Score:2)
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.
Cool! (Score:2)
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.
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Human waste makes extremely poor fertilizer.
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Human waste makes extremely poor fertilizer.
Good enough to grow potatoes on mars. Elon Musk should launch human feces to Mars next.
Millions of Single Men... (Score:2)
...with no prospect of marriage or even a girl friend due to their propensity to abort girls resulting in an imbalance [cnn.com] of over 33 million more men than women.
You have to find something to occupy their time.
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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.
Re: Millions of Single Men... (Score:2)
A uninformed stupid post. Bravo to what the Chinese are doing. It will work. As an example of a similar program, Israel was predominantly desert. A 50 year tree planting program recovered more than 50 percent of land from desert to agriculture and to establish towns where before, none existed.