Where does a tree get its mass?

Trees do dissolve. Forest fires are the most elegant way -- the reaction liberates much of the carbon and all of the oxygen into gasses including CO2, and the cycle is complete.

Bacteria that break down the rotting remains of a dead tree also consume the energy stored in the cellulose and release gasses like carbon dioxide and methane. At some point the remains don't contain bonds with easily freed energy and you have regular old dirt. If they had a way to break down the dirt further they would, but the cost is too high.

An interesting thing here is that this article assumes that the way science is taught is wrong. I do not intend to make any conclusions about this, but I just graduated from high school and I just realized why people don't learn science as opposed to a bunch of meaningless phrases.

Although a lot of it is a broken system, but the truth is that they aren't expected to. What is expected of them is to get good grades, and since that is possible through rote almost all of my peers take that route. If you ask them in a moment of honesty they say; "why should I do it? I'll just get the grades get into a good college a good job... Why should I waste my time learning this?".

I used to gripe about the system whenever I heard that reply and why they just didn't get it, but now I realize that they are simply reflecting society in general. Most parents quite frankly don't care that they know science or anything as long as they get good grades. Most teachers hardly give a damn about teaching and they aren't even remotely interested in science. Most employers upon employment cannot check and do not look at how much the individual understands anything. They just ask for a degree from a reputable institute.

I admit that it is harder to change the mindset of a population, but this is something that has to be done. Changing the school system and bringing out new books will have limiting impact unless the foundations of this problem (societies attitude toward learning) aren't addressed.

Are you aware that cellulose is just interlinked glucose molecules? A tree is basically a giant hunk of hydrated sugar byproducts with some minor mineral and other components.

And what does a tree do with this energy? It's not a light bulb.

It uses the energy to split the oxygen off of the CO2, splits the oxygen of off water, and makes hydrocarbons from the C in CO2 and the H in water. The oxygen is released as waste (a small amount is used).

So all the energy used in a tree is devoted to making its mass.

I stopped reading at "Whatever you just said, it's wrong" as it was evident from there that it was the usual HN hyperbole article. Not to say HN is dominated by such articles, but their number has been steadily growing and one is already too much.