In the Carboniferous period[2], plants evolved lignin which made their cell walls stronger so they could grow taller. Fungi that could eat lignin had not evolv

In the Carboniferous period[2], plants evolved lignin which made their cell walls stronger so they could grow taller. Fungi that could eat lignin had not evolved yet and so the the dead trees just built up layer after layer. This build up eventually turned into the coal we mine today. Turning trees into charcoal[1] is one way to slow down the processes of the wood turning back into CO2, but it would be difficult to do it on a large enough scale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous