3 ms·
But now that carbon lives in buildings, paper, landfills, etc and there is new carbon in the form of the smaller trees. From a carbon sequestration perspective,
by weberc2 8y ago
But now that carbon lives in buildings, paper, landfills, etc and there is new carbon in the form of the smaller trees. From a carbon sequestration perspective, it would seem that this is strictly better than waiting for trees to get old, right?
- andyidsinga 8y agothis might be the case, but we would also need to know how much of that wood is being used for heating and cooking
- armenarmen 8y agoI am certain that percentage of the biomass of an old growth trees, like the one mentioned, devoted to cooking and heating is negligible.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- btilly 8y agoSome, but not all. A lot of the wood gets burned. Either as the purpose of the wood, or as how the forest got cleared. (Fires are particularly common in the tropics on purpose, and fairly common in the temperate zones by accident. As California demonstrated this month.) In the process of turning tree into manufactured goods, there is a lot of waste that tends to wind up in the atmosphere. Manufactured goods are themselves vulnerable to fire, decay, beetles, etc, so some of them are released. Tracking how much is released, and when is very hard. That is why according to the Kyoto protocol, a tree is counted as released as soon as it is cut down. All told, deforestation is estimated at around 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions.