Noteworthy News

[The Architect Of Fate]

Storing carbon in trees is a bit like storing water by drinking beer.... It' s nice and enjoyable but it is a short term solution that needs constant upkeep....

Many species of trees have a shorter lifetime than humans. Then - when the tree dies you have two choices - let it rot - producing methane or burn it - releasing CO2.

It gets you nowhere in the long term.

Plus - you have to maintain trees - which takes energy...

If you simply plant trees like crazy - and don' t maintain the undergrowth you get huge piles of accumulated kindling.... It' s a big reason why the Western US has had so many uncontrolled fires.  So what are you going to do with all that dead undergrowth? Burn it or let it rot? Either way the carbon eventually finds it' s way back into circulation....

The idea is not to eliminated atmospheric carbon altogether (which would be disastrous), but to reduce or - ideally - to reverse the rate at which CO2 is added to the atmosphere. The goal is to balance the carbon cycle between releasing and sequestering carbon.

And I really do think that maintaining forests would be a helluva lot cheaper, both in economic and environmental terms, that the absolutely nutty idea of burying trees for tens of millions of years and hope they turn into oil.

Boru

Or the nutty idea having fewer people will reduce greenhouse gases