Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/08/ancient-redwoods-cloned-and-re.html
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is this how it all ends? giant tree clones planted all over the world suddenly go bad? good thing i will be dead before they reach maturity.
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Saving the world with a gimmick!
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I, for one, welcome our new redwood clone overlords.
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In 1,000 years they will be covered by suburbs.
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My grandpa was quite adept at cloning pecan trees as well as grafting. He had a tree with 5 varieties on it.
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I think until we clone some direwolves and smilodons and then arm them with lasers and ablative armor I don’t think the new forest will be safe.
Given the location, we could also slowly reduce traffic and the housing crunch and sustainable feed the cloned direwolves and smilodons if ridesharing services and company specific busses randomly select passengers for consumption, further reducing the carbon footprint of the whole operation. Public transportation would be exempt, except to and from large sporting events by private sports clubs. Private cars could be selected based on the number of passenger vacancies, number of points on one’s licence, etc… It all sounds like a great misanthropic experiment.
This is my modest proposal.
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Yes, they have potential, but “extraordinary” potential? The word implies that the redwood somehow purifies in a manner that is superior, even far superior, to other vegetative growth.
Citation duly requested.
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Article also has a stat that Redwoods clean more than other trees?
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Aw damn. Ya don’t expect me to read stuff, do ya? 
I will reserve the right to my cynicism, while reading.
Could be fiction.
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Furthermore, should we be concerned about a “Day of the Triffids” scenario?
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Hey, these few hundred planted trees should offset the extraordinary losses in the Amazon that the word is facing now due to Bolsonaro, right? Giant trees are great, I love them, but it’s one tiny step forward in the face of really alarming losses elsewhere.
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By “clone” do they mean something more than “taking a cutting?”
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I like the romance of this, but could we not accomplish the same thing with seeds/saplings from younger redwoods? Isn’t the problem that we cut so many down, not that these old ones we genetically superior?
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Should I be scared?
Always.
FACT: You are never more than ten feet away from a redwood.
FACT: Redwood trees feel no fear.
FACT: That reddish coloring? Yeah, that’s blood.
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The big issue is that you need to replace the forests, not just the trees. The habitats that can support redwoods have dwindled, and just replanting the trees won’t be enough. Even if you want to restore previously harvested areas, there are co-evolved relationships with various symbiotic fungi and bacteria that are necessary for these trees’ survival - if the fungi and bacteria they rely on aren’t there, then they will not move water and nutrients as efficiently, and will not be as resistant to drought and other climate extremes that are increasingly likely. This is to say nothing about having the right mother trees - saplings usually spend decades in the shade of their parent trees, awaiting a gap in the canopy. They grow slowly during this time, but if they survive they are also more hardy and better placed to grow dominant when the canopy eventually opens up.
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