Anybody here buying forest just to leave it to grow? It's not so expensive to buy a few dozen hectares, something I've been wanting to do for a while
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_easement are relevant.
Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
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Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#72Anybody here buying forest just to leave it to grow? It's not so expensive to buy a few dozen hectares, something I've been wanting to do for a while
We've been considering it, but taking a more active role in rehabbing it by planting trees me helping them grow. There's loooots of land around that was previously used for farming or forestry that's pretty cheap.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly! Not to mention that reversing desertification and deforestation need to be done anyway. The Amazon rainforest is producing 20% of the world’s oxygen. Why not focus on that, Bolsonaro? But how can we get the world to change its focus? This is the biggest contributor to CO2 pollution: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warmin...
Hm, I'd heard the Amazon consumes at least as much O2 as it produces; it's basically in equilibrium. Unfortunately I don't remember the source but it was something like Planet Earth. I found a lot of sources quoting your 20% number, but it seems like that's not net produced O2 but rather gross. I'd be interested if anyone can find a source that says either way about the net O2/CO2 of the Amazon.
I believe the show "One Strange Rock" on Netflix mentioned this.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, what if you cut it down, use it as a long term building material, and then regrow it? Seems a lot like that would turn atmospheric carbon into a building material.
A lot of it is used to make paper which degrades relatively fast. That being said it's still renewable, fairly recycable, and provides packaging that actually degrades instead of clogging the ocean, so we don't really want to mess around with that side of the equation if we can help it
A lot of paper in the US ends up in landfills. Paper in a landfill is sequestered carbon, since it basically does not decompose once it’s buried.
So, if you subscribe to a dead-tree newspaper, it might be better for the atmosphere to throw away the paper instead of recycling it.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, to offset his carbon emissions, American must plant 150 trees a year, ensure that they grow for at least 10 years, and then ensure that the CO2 captured by them doesn’t get rereleased. This means that we need space for at least 3 trillion trees, which is three times the space available, based on the figure in your link. Ensuring that the CO2 doesn’t get rereleased means that all that lumber needs to be buried or…
Actually, if the trees are burned or otherwise re-release their carbon, the subsequent re-planting will take care of re-re-capturing that carbon. If any of the trees die or are cut down, a new one can be planted in its place. If it still living and thriving, it should be naturally left alone. Also, for ten years, 327 million Americans each planting 1.5k trees comes out to half a trillion trees. The link in my blog sa…
When the trees die, won't the carbon be re-introduced to the atmosphere over time via microbial decomposition of the wood? That is, once the microbes that eat the trees die, they'll be eaten by something that is eventually eaten by something on the surface, thus releasing the carbon sequestered by the tree.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, if the trees are burned or otherwise re-release their carbon, the subsequent re-planting will take care of re-re-capturing that carbon. If any of the trees die or are cut down, a new one can be planted in its place. If it still living and thriving, it should be naturally left alone. Also, for ten years, 327 million Americans each planting 1.5k trees comes out to half a trillion trees. The link in my blog sa…
When the trees die, won't the carbon be re-introduced to the atmosphere over time via microbial decomposition of the wood? That is, once the microbes that eat the trees die, they'll be eaten by something that is eventually eaten by something on the surface, thus releasing the carbon sequestered by the tree.
Yes, that could happen. Replacing the dead tree with a seedling will re-capture that carbon and return to a net-zero atmospheric carbon balance.
Also, there are many situations where a net-negative amount of carbon could be released into the atmosphere: the tree could be used as lumber to build something, thus not decomposing. Or it could be partially or fully buried, sequestering some or most of the carbon in the soil.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#77The momentum and concern over climate change in the last decade has caused many humans to lose sight of the fact that preservation of remaining natural habitat is the immediate and absolutely critical concern. Too many people nowadays equate conservation with more abstract schemes to control climate over longer time-scales and impersonal spatial scales. If we lose good quality remaining natural habitat we will have lost all of what is most important to conserve.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, if the trees are burned or otherwise re-release their carbon, the subsequent re-planting will take care of re-re-capturing that carbon. If any of the trees die or are cut down, a new one can be planted in its place. If it still living and thriving, it should be naturally left alone. Also, for ten years, 327 million Americans each planting 1.5k trees comes out to half a trillion trees. The link in my blog sa…
When the trees die, won't the carbon be re-introduced to the atmosphere over time via microbial decomposition of the wood? That is, once the microbes that eat the trees die, they'll be eaten by something that is eventually eaten by something on the surface, thus releasing the carbon sequestered by the tree.
How about we turn them into houses or furniture. Timber used in construction can last for a very long time, all the while keeping it's carbon locked up.
Even when it finally decomposes through rot or consumption a lot of the carbon is kept out of the atmosphere, ending up in the food chain fed by the organisms that consume it.
Plant a tree now, in 200 years it may be part of your great great great grandchildren.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Structures composed of wood do not remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Why not? Just some napkin math here but: Say you have three 10K kg trees. Wood is ~50% carbon, so that means they collectively contain around 15K kg of carbon. Cut them down and turn them into framing lumber and build a house. You now have a house frame with roughly 15K kg of carbon. Now plant 3 trees where the old ones were. Once grown y…
> > Structures composed of wood do not remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Why not? > Why not? On average, does wood in structures release carbon through decay, fire, etc., faster or slower than if the wood was left in a living tree? Intuitively, I don't see any reason to expect effective sequestration. Your analysis seems to suppose that if wood was not used to make a structure, the trees would instantly rele…
This has been studied pretty extensively, for example: https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/38598
Some key points are:
1. Forests reach their maximum level of carbon sequestration after around 70 years. After this point, they are no longer a net carbon sink.
2. If you periodically cut down the trees, turn the wood into long-lived products (like buildings), and then replant, you can sequester more carbon.
3. Exactly how much more depends on assumptions about the length of the useful life of a building and what is done with the wood after the building reaches the end of its useful life.
4. If you're looking at net carbon emissions, you also need to consider substitution -- by using wood in a building, you're decreasing the need for other building materials like concrete and steel, which emit a lot of CO2 in their production. They model various scenarios on the paper.
Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Structures composed of wood do not remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Why not? Just some napkin math here but: Say you have three 10K kg trees. Wood is ~50% carbon, so that means they collectively contain around 15K kg of carbon. Cut them down and turn them into framing lumber and build a house. You now have a house frame with roughly 15K kg of carbon. Now plant 3 trees where the old ones were. Once grown y…
A building comprised of wood does not continue to remove carbon - but if that tree continues to live it continues to remove carbon.
Yeah, but you can plant a new tree, which will sequester carbon at a much faster rate than the mature tree it replaced.