Hemp?

How do you interpret this?

I wouldn’t “interpret” it and then make a snarky comment based on my interpretation. I would ASK THE PERSON FOR CLARIFICATION. If they say that’s not what they meant, I would take them at their word. If, consistently, they made contradictory and incoherent remarks, then I’d change my approach, but Write4U is not known for that.

It’s the difference between looking for things to trip up someone and attempting to have a dialog. I have no problem following Write4U and quite a bit of trouble figuring out what you are on about.

We all interpret all the time. The inference I made is perfectly rational. I didn’t need clarification to make it.

That’s your problem. You have decided that you are perfectly rational. Then, worse, the thing that brings you into conflict with the rules of civility here, you feel justified in making a comment that does nothing to forward the conversation, enlightens no one, and is designed to advertise that what you believe is correct with no real reasoning for why you think that.

Let me clarify.

First I recommended immediate action and used 500,000 acres, not as a solution to the problem, but as an effective first step, that could be implemented in a few months and have an immediate beneficial effect on the atmosphere. I added the multiplier to indicate that many of such plots could be planted, especially in areas with poor soil.

But even as we speak of just 500,000 acres, you still underestimated the implication of 500,000 acres of Hemp.
What you are missing is the fact that 1 acre of hemp scrubs as much CO2 as 20 acres of trees, i.e. 500,000 ac (hemp) x 20 = 10,000,000 ac (trees).

Which is about four times the size of the Amazon rainforest.

Now do the numbers make more sense?

My apologies. I cannot see any rules, might I ask for directions?

I’m not missing anything.

10 mn acres is 140 miles across.
The Amazon rainforest is 1,600 miles across, rounded in every sense.
1.3 bn acres.
Which makes the the Amazon rainforest about 130 x bigger

10,000,000 ac / 640 = 15,625 sq mi
/ pi = 4974 sq mi
^1/2 = 71 mi = r
x 2 = 142 mi = dia

Amazon rainforest
2,100,000 sq mi
x 640 = 1,344,000,000 ac

2,100,000 sq mi
/ pi = 668,451 sq mi
^1/2 = 818 mi = r
x 2 = 1,636 mi = dia

And a tropical rainforest plantation can fix 1.25 x as much carbon per unit area as hemp. We should be renting the Amazon for that purpose.

But yeah intensely managed hemp can fix 20 x more than natural forest.

Link was provided in the warning.

No it can’t . Hemp grows much faster than trees and takes up much more CO2 in that process. Hemp grows to maturity in 4 months, trees grow to maturity in 20 - 80 years

Per acre Hemp yields 4 times the fiber than trees.

Did the Industrial Value of Hemp Spark Cannabis Prohibition?

For centuries, hemp has been an extremely valuable crop. The fiber from the outer layers of its stalk was used for all kinds of textiles, papers, ropes, and other versatile products. It was such an important resource in colonial America that farmers were required to grow it and faced a fine if they did not. In many ways, America was built on hemp.

In the early 20th century, hemp became recognized as a valuable source for far more than just its fiber content. It was discovered that many other parts of the plant — especially the cellulose — could be used for fuel, building materials, medicines, etc.

Industrial applications of the plant proved so useful and numerous, Popular Mechanics published an article about hemp titled “[The New Billion Dollar Crop]

Even Henry Ford was an early champion of hemp’s industrial value, going so far as to build a car that incorporated hemp materials.

And therein lies the difference! When the forest is cut down it does not scrub CO2 for many years. Let those forest stand and host a great variety of animals and plants.

Let the Hemp do the heavily lifting (with the help of man)… :man_farmer:

From

'a newly planted tree in the tropics can remove up to 50 kilograms of CO2 from the atmosphere each year during its growth period of 20–50 years

studies backed up by Science Daily, state that natural African tropical forests absorb approximately 600 kg (1,323 lbs) of carbon per hectare per year. If you take 600 kg by 25 times more wood per hectare in a plantation setting, the result is 15,000 kg (33,000 lbs) per hectare per year divided by 600 plantation trees per hectare, which results in an average of 25 kg (55 lbs) of carbon sequestered per tree per year.

Another study carried out by Myers and Goreau 4, showed that tropical tree plantations of pine and eucalyptus can sequester an average of 10 tons of carbon per hectare per year. Therefore, the plantation can sequester an average of 20,000 lbs * 3.6663 = 73,326 lbs CO2/ha/year, or, taking an average of 1,000 trees per hectare, 33.33 KG or 73.326 lbs CO2/tree/year.

evidence demonstrates that in a tropical climate a tree will sequester a minimum of around 25kg of CO2 per year for a useful life span of 40 years (ie 1000 KG per tree planted in its 40 year useful lifetime)’

How does that compare?

I believe that answers your question?

The entire idea of growing hemp is intense management which yields not only increased scrubbing , but yields 2 to 3 cash crops of industrial hemp per year that can be used for some 1500 different industrial and commercial uses.

And hemp does not replace trees but rather augment trees, because hemp can grow in otherwise arid soil where trees do not thrive.

Hemp harvesting does not require the intensive use of heavy equipment and road building for large logging trucks, but can basically be achieved with normal clear cutting crop harvesting equipment. Hemp does not require large lumber mills to process and storage facilities for rough cut wood aging.

How long does it take for wood to age?

The process of seasoning allows moisture to evaporate from wood, yielding firewood that burns safely and efficiently. Seasoning only requires time, typically from six months to one year , but certain practices speed the process.
Storing and Seasoning Firewood | Bioadvanced

When adding all these beneficial results, it is clear that hemp far outstrips timber harvesting in efficiency with only minor sacrifice of utility in a few areas.

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No, as an intensely managed forest can fix much more than a natural one.

One hectare of industrial hemp can absorb 22 tonnes of CO2 per hectare.
It is possible to grow to 2 crops per year so absorption is doubled to 44.
The proportion of carbon in CO2 is 12/44 giving 12 t / C / ha
Natural African tropical forests absorb approximately 600 kg (1,323 lbs) of carbon per hectare per year.
If you take 600 kg by 25 times more wood per hectare in a plantation setting, the result is 15,000 kg (33,000 lbs) per hectare per year - 15 t / C / ha

That’s 1.25 x more C fixed by a managed rain forest than industrial hemp.

So yes it can.

There is no such thing as intensely managed forests when it takes 20 years for a tree to mature.
I believe you may not appreciate the difference between 2 and 3 cash crops per year over 20 years vs. 1 crop every 20 years.

image
note the density of foliage growth in 3 -4 months

Hemp’s incredible growth rate demands a much greater amount of CO2 than the much slower growth rate of trees.

Statistically, 1 acre of hemp scrubs as much CO2 as 20 acres of trees per year.

The science behind hemp as a carbon sink

One hectare of industrial hemp can absorb 22 tonnes of CO2 per hectare. It is possible to grow to 2 crops per year so absorption is doubled. Hemp’s rapid growth (grows to 4 metres in 100 days) makes it one of the fastest CO2-to-biomass conversion tools available, more efficient than agro-forestry.

Biomass is produced by the photosynthetic conversion of atmospheric carbon. The carbon uptake of hemp can be accurately validated annually by calculations derived from dry weight yield. This yield is checked at the weighbridge for commercial reasons prior to processing.
Highly accurate figures for total biomass yield and carbon uptake can then be made, giving a level of certainty not available through any other natural carbon absorption process.

The following carbon uptake estimates are calculated by the examining the carbon content of the molecules that make up the fibres of the hemp stem. Industrial hemp stem consists primarily of Cellulose, Hemicellulose and Lignin, whose chemical structure, carbon content, (and therefore absorbed CO2).

Industrial hemp is a self offsetting crop

According to Defra, UK Farming emits a total CO2 equivalent of 57 millions tonnes in GHG’s. UK agricultural land use is 18.5 million hectares. This amounts to an average of around 3.1 tonnes of CO2 per hectare total embodied emissions. As a low fertiliser and zero pesticide/herbicide crop, with little management input, the carbon emissions of hemp cultivation is well below the average. Therefore we can assume the matter remaining in soils roughly offsets the cultivation and management emissions.
Sustainability – Hemp Copenhagen Co.

My link takes all that in to account. Hemp competes for food crops.

There needs to be a common formula for this stuff, like some sort of Drake equation for crops, factoring all of the these elements, so no one can add a “yeah but” after their article is done.

No it doesn’t. Hemp will grow in arid soil where other crops fail.

Hemp Legalization Poised to Transform Agriculture in Arid West

Therein lies the potentially huge benefit for the West. Hemp can be grown to harvest on about half as much water as corn can, for example. Hemp also tolerates a wide variety of soils and temperatures, requires no pesticides and grows extremely fast, soaring to as much as 20ft in 100 days.

Thus, if hemp eventually replaces other crops across large acreages, it could free up precious water supplies in the arid West for other uses. This could become especially important with climate change expected to shrink Western mountain snowpacks.

“It uses more water at the very beginning of its growth,” said Geoff Whaling, chairman of the National Hemp Association. “But once it kind of passes its early development stage – about three weeks – it becomes one of the most drought-tolerant crops on the planet.”

Hemp, originally from China, may be one of the oldest cultivated crops in the world. It was grown commercially in the United States until the 1930s, with the fibers processed to make rope, sails and other fabrics. The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 effectively killed the industry because, at the time, it was not possible to distinguish between marijuana and hemp.

It was not until the 1970s that THC was identified as the defining characteristic of marijuana. By then, the entire genus of plants had been federally banned under the Controlled Substances Act in 1970.
Hemp Legalization Poised to Transform Agriculture in Arid West — Water Deeply

Dig a little deeper. Most of your objections have been debunked.

p.s. Most objections are posed by the paper, cotton, oil and plastics industries that are afraid their products will be replaced by hemp based products.

None of this is disinterested. I’m all for industrial hemp in a free market, but this a rabbit hole of claims.

Yes, I agree that hemp has a greater variety of commercial potentials than wood. There is a vibrant world wide hemp market in place by all modern countries except the US.

But IMO, due to its extraordinary ability to scrub and sequester CO2 and the fact that it can be implemented immediately over thousands of acres without the need for any sophisticated farm machinery, makes it an ideal candidate for a start in the long term effort to control any further CO2 pollution of the ecosphere.

It gets boots on the ground in the war against climate change.

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And put me down for opposing any legal restriction which is impurely motivated by anti-capitalist protectionism.

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