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> _Note: A tree is useful and carbon negative only if it is growing a tree in forest that has stopped growing is mostly useless for offsetting carbon,_ Don't t

• StillBored 6y ago
  I think the point is that after it dies frequently it will release all the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. In the case of turning the tree into furniture its really what happens at the end of the furniture's life. If it ends up buried in a landfill then the carbon is probably sequestered for a few hundred years, but if it ends up going through an incinerator for electricity/etc generation then its not actually offsetting long term.
  • alacombe 6y ago
    > I think the point is that after it dies frequently it will release all the stored carbon back into the atmosphere Only if it burns, dead tree are generally eaten away over decades by insects, fungus and birds.
    • StillBored 6y ago
      Rotting, as its known, is just the tree being metabolized by other living organisms. That process is the same as burning except in that the energy is used by the organism. The net result being the carbon being turned into C02 same as burning. AKA, whether you burn it, or leave it in the environment to rot/compost/etc the carbon eventually turns back into C02. In order for trees to be a carbon sink they have to be sequestered in an O2 free environment forever. AKA, they need to be feedstock for the oil the cockroaches are going to use to build their civilization in a 100M years.