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How does this square with the recent story about Canadian forests being carbon positive rather than negative? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/canada-for

• fao_ 8y ago
  You'd know if you had read the article you just posted. ""That's because trees don't just absorb carbon when they grow, they emit it when they die and decompose, or burn. When you add up both the absorption and emission, Canada's forests haven't been a net carbon sink since 2001. Due largely to forest fires and insect infestations, the trees have actually added to our country's greenhouse gas emissions for each of the past 15 years on record."" Also, something not mentioned in the article (but added by a botanist friend), conifers in general apparently produce much more volatile oils, so are more susceptible to flames/ignition/burning.
  • Baeocystin 8y ago
    It's conifer's terpenes that cause the haze* in the great smoky mountains. https://www.livescience.com/46958-trees-ozone-pollution-map.html https://www.livescience.com/46958-trees-ozone-pollution-map.... (*not the same as smog, you need NOx emissions as well for that to form)
• bobbyT314 8y ago
  A great deal of our forests are not "natural forests" anymore, and are mono-cultures that may be even more susceptible to issues of climate change (forest fire, pine beetle, ...). Managed (young) forests also hold less carbon than mature forests. What I've been hearing is that one of the problems with Canada's "managed" forests is the reduction (in BC, at least) of deciduous trees which apparently can act as firebreaks [1]. BC (and the pacific northwest in general) has seen a steady increase in the length and damage caused by the fire season. It is April and we are already battling large fires in the province. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/it-blows-my-mind-how-b-c-destroys-a-key-natural-wildfire-defence-every-year-1.4907358 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/it-blows-my-...