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> Currently, a tree growth will instantly reduce CO2 levels so players can commercially farm trees while still reducing emissions. This is not ideal. This soun

> Currently, a tree growth will instantly reduce CO2 levels so players can commercially farm trees while still reducing emissions. This is not ideal. This sounds right to me. Having trees which keep reducing carbon levels without any effort would mean that low levels of burning have no effect on CO2. It's as if a unit of wood was gathering ever more and more carbon, but only released a fraction upon burning.

rwcarlsen 8y ago
The CO2->O2 process of plants puts the carbon inside the plant. So plants can only reduce carbon in the atmosphere if they are cumulatively increasing in mass. So steady-state farming operations will not decrease carbon in the atmosphere. [Edit] The tree farm in isolation does not help with CO2 - but using wood in ways that preserve it (e.g. for furniture) does.
- flyingfences 8y ago
  Using the farmed wood instead of fossil fuels decreases the _net_ introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.
  - rwcarlsen 8y ago
    But again - that has to do with how somebody acquires energy or materials (burning wood vs oil or building wood vs plastic furniture) - not necessarily (directly) with having a tree farm. The tree farm is a small part of possible carbon sequestration avenues - and without all the pieces, it is just carbon neutral.
- strainer 8y ago
  The ecology of this issue seems more complicated than prevailing ideas about it, eg: Study finds fungi responsible for most carbon sequestration in northern forests. [1] "... they found that 47 percent of soil carbon found on large island samples came about due to fungi, as did a whopping 70 percent of carbon in small island soil samples. Thus far, the team is only able to guess why there are such differences in the soils, but theorize it's likely due to differences in decomposition rates. The amount of carbon stored in northern forests and how, is important because such trees cover approximately 11 percent of the Earth's surface and recent research has calculated that they hold approximately 16 percent of all worldwide sequestered carbon. " [1] https://phys.org/news/2013-03-fungi-responsible-carbon-sequestration-northern.html https://phys.org/news/2013-03-fungi-responsible-carbon-seque...
  - wtallis 8y ago
    I don't see how measurements of "soil carbon" could be counting the carbon that's sequestered in lumber.
    - empath75 8y ago
      Trees eventually fall over.
    - strainer 8y ago
      "carbon forestry" as it is known doesn't just sequester carbon in the lumber, soil is a significant sink dominated by fungal processes. Soils are also very valuable to biodiversity and potentially commercially valuable ecosystem services.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  Right, so the tree absorbs the carbon as it grows, and it's released when it's burned. So having giant stockpiles of wood produced by a large-scale tree farm for the purpose of carbon sequestration sounds... well, that doesn't sound ridiculous, at least in minecraft terms. (I'm sure there's some economic reason we don't do this.)
gcb0 8y ago
the founder of greenpeace (the one that left when it become a money printing machine) advise that we use more wood. even trees growing for paper. the only down side of tree farming, acording to his manifesto, is the disturbance of original wild life and flora. but that can be easily resolved locally. if left alone, a tree will produce over 80% of it's O2 in the first 3 years. even if it lives 1000 years. which is exactly how old they are when farmed. It's the best O2 for the buck you can get.
- leereeves 8y ago
  Profitable carbon sequestration by making useful products from trees (and eventually storing the carbon in landfills). Makes sense, at least at first glance. How does the energy used to transport and process, say, paper compare to the energy used working with electronic documents?
  - NeutronStar 8y ago
    Quebec gets 97$ of it's electricity from hydroelectric plants.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    Given that we're going to have internet regardless of what documents we use, due to the overwhelming advantage of instant long-distance communication, the amount of energy used by electronic documents is negligible.
- nonbel 8y ago
  Why not store the CO2 in limestone and build ultra-durable buildings with it (eg, the Egyptian/Mayan pyramids) instead?
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    Human activities released nearly 37 billion tons of CO2 in 2017. That would yield about 84 billion tons of limestone if it were captured as pure calcium carbonate. Estimated mass of Mt. Everest: 450 billion tons (I went with the answer from the person who used terrain contour data): https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-estimated-weight-of-Mount-Everest-be https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-estimated-weight-of-Mou... It admittedly would be pretty awesome, if impractical, to build two Mount Everests per decade from CO2-captured-as-limestone. Building things out of CO2 captured as minerals, building things out of CO2 captured as wood: they're fine ideas, but they are also grossly inadequate to offset current emission rates. That's why every plan for curbing AGW starts with deep emissions cuts. It's a lot easier to not emit CO2 in the first place than to capture CO2 that has already been emitted. Plans for negative emissions are still necessary but they can't deal with tens of billions of tons of CO2 per year.
ttflee 8y ago
Would plant die if the CO2 level is deprived to a very low level that plant could no longer photosynthesize?

rwcarlsen 8y ago

The CO2->O2 process of plants puts the carbon inside the plant. So plants can only reduce carbon in the atmosphere if they are cumulatively increasing in mass. So steady-state farming operations will not decrease carbon in the atmosphere. [Edit] The tree farm in isolation does not help with CO2 - but using wood in ways that preserve it (e.g. for furniture) does.

flyingfences 8y ago
Using the farmed wood instead of fossil fuels decreases the _net_ introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.
- rwcarlsen 8y ago
  But again - that has to do with how somebody acquires energy or materials (burning wood vs oil or building wood vs plastic furniture) - not necessarily (directly) with having a tree farm. The tree farm is a small part of possible carbon sequestration avenues - and without all the pieces, it is just carbon neutral.
strainer 8y ago
The ecology of this issue seems more complicated than prevailing ideas about it, eg: Study finds fungi responsible for most carbon sequestration in northern forests. [1] "... they found that 47 percent of soil carbon found on large island samples came about due to fungi, as did a whopping 70 percent of carbon in small island soil samples. Thus far, the team is only able to guess why there are such differences in the soils, but theorize it's likely due to differences in decomposition rates. The amount of carbon stored in northern forests and how, is important because such trees cover approximately 11 percent of the Earth's surface and recent research has calculated that they hold approximately 16 percent of all worldwide sequestered carbon. " [1] https://phys.org/news/2013-03-fungi-responsible-carbon-sequestration-northern.html https://phys.org/news/2013-03-fungi-responsible-carbon-seque...
- wtallis 8y ago
  I don't see how measurements of "soil carbon" could be counting the carbon that's sequestered in lumber.
  - empath75 8y ago
    Trees eventually fall over.
  - strainer 8y ago
    "carbon forestry" as it is known doesn't just sequester carbon in the lumber, soil is a significant sink dominated by fungal processes. Soils are also very valuable to biodiversity and potentially commercially valuable ecosystem services.
freeone3000 8y ago
Right, so the tree absorbs the carbon as it grows, and it's released when it's burned. So having giant stockpiles of wood produced by a large-scale tree farm for the purpose of carbon sequestration sounds... well, that doesn't sound ridiculous, at least in minecraft terms. (I'm sure there's some economic reason we don't do this.)

gcb0 8y ago

the founder of greenpeace (the one that left when it become a money printing machine) advise that we use more wood. even trees growing for paper. the only down side of tree farming, acording to his manifesto, is the disturbance of original wild life and flora. but that can be easily resolved locally. if left alone, a tree will produce over 80% of it's O2 in the first 3 years. even if it lives 1000 years. which is exactly how old they are when farmed. It's the best O2 for the buck you can get.

leereeves 8y ago
Profitable carbon sequestration by making useful products from trees (and eventually storing the carbon in landfills). Makes sense, at least at first glance. How does the energy used to transport and process, say, paper compare to the energy used working with electronic documents?
- NeutronStar 8y ago
  Quebec gets 97$ of it's electricity from hydroelectric plants.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  Given that we're going to have internet regardless of what documents we use, due to the overwhelming advantage of instant long-distance communication, the amount of energy used by electronic documents is negligible.
nonbel 8y ago
Why not store the CO2 in limestone and build ultra-durable buildings with it (eg, the Egyptian/Mayan pyramids) instead?
- philipkglass 8y ago
  Human activities released nearly 37 billion tons of CO2 in 2017. That would yield about 84 billion tons of limestone if it were captured as pure calcium carbonate. Estimated mass of Mt. Everest: 450 billion tons (I went with the answer from the person who used terrain contour data): https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-estimated-weight-of-Mount-Everest-be https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-estimated-weight-of-Mou... It admittedly would be pretty awesome, if impractical, to build two Mount Everests per decade from CO2-captured-as-limestone. Building things out of CO2 captured as minerals, building things out of CO2 captured as wood: they're fine ideas, but they are also grossly inadequate to offset current emission rates. That's why every plan for curbing AGW starts with deep emissions cuts. It's a lot easier to not emit CO2 in the first place than to capture CO2 that has already been emitted. Plans for negative emissions are still necessary but they can't deal with tens of billions of tons of CO2 per year.

ttflee 8y ago

Would plant die if the CO2 level is deprived to a very low level that plant could no longer photosynthesize?