4 ms·
As ihattendorf pointed out already, the point is not the production or consumption of wood - that’s circular and thus will net 0 even if you burned the wood. Th
by Jolter 5y ago
As ihattendorf pointed out already, the point is not the production or consumption of wood - that’s circular and thus will net 0 even if you burned the wood. The point is that the growing trees will always bind some amount of carbon.
Of course, this kind of action only scales in case we have excess land which is suitable for planting, and I suspect that this is the biggest flaw of the scheme.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoI get that, but I think what you and 'ihattendorf are forgetting that we're not dealing with a fixed amount of carbon dioxide surplus - we're continuously emitting it (and the rate is ever growing). Imagine you have a bathtub with a closed drain and an open faucet. It starts to fill with water. This proposal is an equivalent of putting a bucket in that bathtub, filling it with water, and then putting that bucket on the floor. Yes, it took some water out. No, it doesn't matter, because the faucet is still open and more water keeps flowing. The solutions that matter are ones that involve reducing emissions - at the very least, making them grow linearly instead of exponentially - and those that continuously remove carbon from the air. With forests, that means continuously growing them, cutting them down, and burying the wood where it can't decompose.
- Jolter 5y agoOh, I get that. I wrote as much — this scheme needs to expand the planted land indefinitely which is infeasible. And you’re right that it would be more effective to multiply that effect by using the wood in long-life applications like house construction. All in all, it’s a crappy idea that only serves to greenwash businesses rather than make actual reductions of emissions.