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Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

nature.com

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Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#51

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #23

When I was a kid, being an environmentalist was all about saving the rain forest. A century ago, it was all about the conservation of natural spaces. Today, it is all about carbon. To me, the carbon argument is shame-oriented while preserving (and cultivating) forests is value-oriented. This study calls into question the rhetoric of carbon -- if "restoring nature" is both necessary and more compelling for the general…

This article is about removing carbon, i.e. mitigating some of the damage that has already been done. We still have to stop actively doing more damage by continuing to burn fossil fuels.

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#53

Post by cgh »

mchannon wrote: post #19

Nature is wrong. Accelerated weathering is our first best hope of lowering CO2 in the atmosphere. Weathering is the conversion of carbonates and CO2 to form bicarbonates. Grinding and aerosolizing limestone and other similar minerals hasn’t been tried very much. Unlike with anything plant-based, once CO2 goes through this reaction, it stays. In a few billion years, it’ll cause the extinction of life on Earth, but tha…

I had never heard of this so I googled around a bit. Thanks for bringing it up. It looks like an interesting area of active research. Apparently one of the promising minerals for sequestration is olivine, which, by some galactic irony, is largely sourced in the oil-producing nation of Norway.

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#54

Post by nwallin »

yellowapple wrote: post #41

Why natural forests? Would it not be more effective to focus on the plants/trees that consume the most atmospheric carbon? There are certainly ecological arguments for natural forests v. artificial carbon-sequestration-optimized forests, but if maximum carbon sequestration is the goal, then the rational answer is to focus on those plants which sequester relatively large amounts of carbon instead of waiting for maybe…

The primary consideration is avoiding a monoculture.

If you sit down and study which types of plants sequester the most carbon, and plant a forest comprised entirely of that species, you run into a few problems:

First, parasites tend to be much worse. Whichever parasite prefers that particular type of plant will have an enormous food supply and a subsequent population explosion, with dire consequences for the entire forest. As the plants die, they will release the carbon they've stored.

Second, different plants prioritize pulling different resources out of the ground. There isn't a simple recipe of ax carbon dioxide, bx water, cx nitrogen, dx phosphorus etc = x kg carbon sequestered. Some species need more nitrogen, some need more phosphorus, some need more water etc. Different areas of the soil will have different concentrations of each resource the plants need. By having a diverse population, you will better utilize the soil's diverse resources.

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-species-rich-forests-carbon-mo... DOI: 10.1126/science.aat6405

In the study, the monocultures they studied included monocultures of bamboo and eucalyptus, which are extremely productive monocultures. These plots were still less productive than diverse forests.

You're correct about algae scrubbing carbon faster than forests, however algae to do not sequester appreciable amounts of carbon. It's released back into the environment nearly as quickly as it is removed. Trees, on the other hand, sequester lots of carbon in their trunks and root systems, so they are an important consideration with regards to anthropogenic climate change.

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#55

Post by AnthonyMouse »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #50
weepingprophet wrote: post #26

Every time an article on this topic comes up, I read the same responses in the comments, here or on Reddit. Yes, it's cheaper not to emit than it is to reclaim, but how does this comment contribute to the solution? Even if everybody stopped emitting CO2 today, we still need to remove many Gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere to save the planet. Planting trees is cheap and is PART of the solution. Similarly, every time…

Is this true? This is something I question a lot. Intuition tells me that the greenhouse effect of CO2 and other gasses determines derivative of climate change, but its often presented like it sets the absolute average temperature. That is, if we stopped producing CO2 completely back to pre-industrial levels (somehow), would we expect the globe to get warmer? Or are both statements true because excess CO2 naturally l…

Part of the problem with climate change is that some of the effects are self-sustaining. For example, snow and ice reflect light back into space. If the temperature increases then more of the ice melts, so more light is absorbed by the earth which raises the temperature.

Then even if you get rid of the carbon, the temperature stays higher because the ice is gone and is no longer reflecting light back into space. And the ice is from the last ice age, it doesn't just refreeze on its own -- especially now that the temperature is higher.

Meanwhile with higher temperatures there are more areas of drought, which means less vegetation grows there, which means those areas can absorb less carbon. And that too is sticky. If the temperature stays higher then there continue to be droughts and less vegetation.

What this means is that we need to stop emitting carbon ASAP, and then on top of that ultimately do something to reverse the effects and actively work to get the temperature back down to where it was, because it may not be able to fix itself.

We think of the Earth as a self-regulating system, but that isn't because it's stable, it's because it's adaptive. Earth's temperatures have been higher than this and still sustained life, but none of that life was humans, and the previous changes were accompanied by mass extinctions.

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#56

Post by ph0rque »

weepingprophet wrote: post #26

Every time an article on this topic comes up, I read the same responses in the comments, here or on Reddit. Yes, it's cheaper not to emit than it is to reclaim, but how does this comment contribute to the solution? Even if everybody stopped emitting CO2 today, we still need to remove many Gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere to save the planet. Planting trees is cheap and is PART of the solution. Similarly, every time…

Actually, it's possible to remove all the extra CO2 just by planting trees (not to detract from all the other things we should be doing).

Furthermore, it's affordable: $15/average US resident/year. I wrote a blog post about it recently:

https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-chang...

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#57

Post by jrace »

umvi wrote: post #44
jrace wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting down trees can cause a release of stored carbon dioxide. Structures composed of wood do not remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When old trees are cu down they should be replaced with new ones

> 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.

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#58

Post by noselasd »

ticviking wrote: post #8
sambroner wrote: post #6

Earlier 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.

My understanding is that a lot of the carbon is still released as the sap is dried out and so on.

No, that's not happening. The carbon is by and large stored in the cellulose, hemicellulose and ligning of the wood.

That carbon will go back to co2 again if the wood rots or burns - but not when it dries.

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#59

Post by yellowapple »

nwallin wrote: post #54
yellowapple wrote: post #41

Why natural forests? Would it not be more effective to focus on the plants/trees that consume the most atmospheric carbon? There are certainly ecological arguments for natural forests v. artificial carbon-sequestration-optimized forests, but if maximum carbon sequestration is the goal, then the rational answer is to focus on those plants which sequester relatively large amounts of carbon instead of waiting for maybe…

The primary consideration is avoiding a monoculture. If you sit down and study which types of plants sequester the most carbon, and plant a forest comprised entirely of that species, you run into a few problems: First, parasites tend to be much worse. Whichever parasite prefers that particular type of plant will have an enormous food supply and a subsequent population explosion, with dire consequences for the entire…

I mean, I said plants and trees, plural. By all means we should be picking multiple genera and species and cultivars thereof to provide some diversity.

Re: soil diversity, by all means pick plants/trees that are suited to that soil, as long as they are especially effective at trapping carbon.

Fair point about algae.

Re: Restoring natural forests is the best way to remove atmospheric carbon

#60

Post by _rpd »

ph0rque wrote: post #56
weepingprophet wrote: post #26

Every time an article on this topic comes up, I read the same responses in the comments, here or on Reddit. Yes, it's cheaper not to emit than it is to reclaim, but how does this comment contribute to the solution? Even if everybody stopped emitting CO2 today, we still need to remove many Gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere to save the planet. Planting trees is cheap and is PART of the solution. Similarly, every time…

Actually, it's possible to remove all the extra CO2 just by planting trees (not to detract from all the other things we should be doing). Furthermore, it's affordable: $15/average US resident/year. I wrote a blog post about it recently: https://automicrofarm.com/blog/2019/03/solving-climate-chang...

> Actually, it's possible to remove all the extra CO2 just by planting trees

The linked, peer-reviewed paper in Nature says otherwise.

Perhaps you could review it and point out their mistake?

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