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Unfortunately, plants do not sequester much CO2 long term. Instead, the CO2 gets released back to the atmosphere as plants die off.
by gizmo686 10y ago
Unfortunately, plants do not sequester much CO2 long term. Instead, the CO2 gets released back to the atmosphere as plants die off.
- eru 10y agoUnless you bury the plants. That's what happened to create coal and oil. The problem of too much CO2 in the atmosphere will solve itself in a few thousand years: the ocean currents will sequester lots of carbon in the depths of the sea. Of course, people alive today and their children and grand-children don't want to wait for so long.
- danieltillett 10y agoI think the time frames for returning to pre-human levels is longer than a few thousand years [1, 2]. 1. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-long-will-global-warming-last/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-lo... 2. http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.12...
- eru 10y agoThanks. Sorry, I was going from memory here. In any case, it'll happen by itself, but it's longer than humans can afford to wait.
- danieltillett 10y agoYes that is certainly true.