Why are these climate action ideas actually counterproductive?
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It sounds like a great plan, but in reality, it might be a terrible idea ❌
“If we’re planting forests, we’ve already missed the mark”*
🌳 If the project focuses on planting fast-growing trees, the result might actually backfire. Fast-growing species (like poplar, willow, birch, or fir) don’t capture much carbon and are quite fragile. Plus, the biodiversity in monoculture tree plantations is usually poor and very limited.
Furthermore, these plantations have very little resistance to fires or strong winds compared to dense, diverse forests. Tree plantations are also highly vulnerable to pests and diseases. 🦟
Protecting old-growth forests is a much better idea: dense hardwoods capture carbon much more effectively and for a lot longer. The downside: they grow slowly and won't be able to act as carbon sinks in the short term.
🌲 Diverse, dense forests offer far more benefits:
✔️ Carbon storage
✔️ Lower water consumption
✔️ Soil erosion control
✔️ Rich and protected biodiversity
Does planting trees really help fight climate change? 🤔
In the short term, even with a diverse forest? No. The best way to fight climate change is, first and foremost, to stop emitting greenhouse gases.
*Philippe Falbet, Pyrenean forest specialist, interviewed by France Bleu Occitanie.
Planting trees so we can keep flying—a questionable and unconvincing solution ⬇️
France has made carbon offsetting mandatory for domestic flights—a world first, but not such a great idea after all 🫠
The offsetting targets set for airlines:
🎯 50% of emissions offset by January 2022
🎯 70% by 2023
🎯 100% in 2024
Potential offsetting solutions:
🌲 Planting trees (check out episode 1 of this series to see why that isn't always a great idea)
🌱 Developing permanent grasslands
🏗️ Using low-carbon materials in construction
The major issue with this project is that to offset the emissions from the "179 million air passengers in France, we would need to plant 1.8 billion trees every year and cover all the world's cultivated land." (Delphine Batho, President of Génération Écologie)
The best way to fight climate change is, first and foremost, to avoid emitting greenhouse gases in the first place. For example, keep air travel to an absolute minimum!
To cut down on flying, you can try Hourrail, an app that helps you find low-carbon alternatives for your travel plans. (This isn't a sponsored post; we just think it's a cool way to promote and simplify low-carbon travel.)
This practice creates 2 major problems ❌
First problem: Desalination techniques are extremely energy-intensive, which accelerates global warming.
Furthermore, most desalination plants run on fossil fuels.
According to a World Bank study, if the sector continues to operate as it does, it could emit as much CO2 by 2050 as France did in 2021.
Second problem: Toxic discharge
Desalination plants dump brine back into the ocean.
Brine is a concentrated mix of warm, hypersaline water containing chemicals. The ocean is one of our primary carbon sinks; dumping this water into it lowers oxygen levels, which reduces its ability to capture carbon and further fuels climate change.
Brine also poses a threat to marine ecosystems and coral reefs…
Fixing leaks, reusing wastewater, and cutting back on non-essential usage (like swimming pools and golf courses) seem like better ways to adapt to climate change without harming biodiversity or making the situation worse.
“Our storage capacity in the North Sea is virtually unlimited,” says Martin Anfinnsen, commercial director at Equinor (an energy and carbon storage company). “Instead of warming the climate, the CO2 will be safely stored beneath the ocean floor.”
The idea is to create a kind of lake at a depth of over 2,500 meters so that the CO2 is trapped by the pressure exerted at that depth.
Several problems arise from this technique:
❌ The trapped CO2 is only held temporarily : it gradually dissolves into the surrounding water.
❌ The CO2 that gradually escapes from these buried CO2 "lakes" acidifies the ocean and alters its chemical composition.
❌ We don't know how marine species will react to this chemical change.
❌ The Norwegian project (Northern Lights) is backed by Shell and TotalEnergies, oil companies that have every incentive to find CO2 storage solutions quickly so they can continue their carbon-emitting operations.
Storing CO2 in the deep ocean is a short-term fix: it puts marine life and ecosystems at risk due to the carbon leakage it will inevitably cause.
Reducing our CO2 emissions and protecting and expanding natural carbon sinks seems like a much better idea. It is absolutely vital to realize that the solution isn't to hide our carbon emissions under the ocean, but to stop producing them in the first place.
Cloud seeding, or artificial rain, involves releasing chemicals (aerosols, silver iodide, liquid nitrogen, etc.) into clouds to act as particles for water vapor to cling to. This forms droplets that merge, get heavier, and fall: resulting in rain.
Honestly, just hearing that is enough to know it’s a bad idea.
But for the skeptics out there, here are the major problems with this technique:
❌ Disrupting natural cycles: Altering precipitation patterns can disturb natural ecosystems, affect biodiversity, and worsen existing environmental imbalances.
❌ Issues of fairness and access to a common resource : When deployed in specific regions, it risks depriving neighboring areas of the rain that would have naturally fallen there. This can worsen inequalities in water access.
❌ Treating the problem backward : Instead of focusing on sustainable water management and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions partly responsible for the planet's water shortages, we’re trying to create rain artificially using chemicals, planes, and so on.
❌ Misallocation of technical and financial resources : Implementing such a project requires massive financial and technical resources. Investing in these projects can divert funds away from more sustainable solutions for water conservation and management.
❌ Questionable effectiveness : The success rate of cloud seeding is estimated at only 10%.
👉🏻 The use of such technologies highlights the climate emergency and the need to find sustainable solutions to fight drought and climate change, rather than implementing risky, half-baked fixes.
Long-term solutions that don't cause further damage do exist:
💦 Limit non-essential water use: golf courses, swimming pools, etc.
🌍 Reforestation and sustainable farming help improve natural water retention and restore ecosystems.
🌱 Encourage water conservation practices, both at home and in the workplace. For example: install a rain barrel in your garden or your company’s green spaces and use that water for irrigation.
Quick reminder: a mega-basin is a massive water reservoir filled in winter by drawing from groundwater or streams. They are intended to allow farmers to irrigate crops even in summer, when water is scarce.
So, why is this such a bad idea?
❌ Privatization of water: In the Deux-Sèvres region, 16 mega-basins are being built for just 6% of the department's connected farmers.
❌ Water waste: Water loss due to evaporation in mega-basins is estimated to be between 20% and 60% (Greenpeace).
❌ Biodiversity at risk: Drawing from groundwater and streams disrupts nature's natural cycle and endangers many species.
❌ Promoting intensive farming: Mega-basins are primarily designed to irrigate water-intensive cereal crops (mostly used for industrial livestock farming).
The problem is being approached backwards: instead of promoting agriculture that protects life and saves water, we are building reservoirs that destroy ecosystems for intensive farming, with all its known consequences (loss of small farms, farm consolidation, soil depletion, etc.).
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