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I like converting it to soil and wood. Forests and grasslands store hundreds of gigatons of carbon. It can't just be planting trees, it has to be cultivating ri

I like converting it to soil and wood. Forests and grasslands store hundreds of gigatons of carbon. It can't just be planting trees, it has to be cultivating rich ecosystems: the more living things the better. I've been converted by Charles Eisenstein's book "Climate: a new story" - he makes a strong case that we're only obsessed with carbon because we don't have good ways of measuring anything else, and that while of course the greenhouse effect is real, the negative effects of climate change including unpredictable weather and stronger storms can be mitigated by restoring forests, coral reefs, marshes, barrier islands, anything that lives will act as a buffer to fast changes in weather. There's some good stuff in there too explaining the feedback loops between life and the weather, such as forests releasing aerosols that act as cloud seeds that bring moisture toward the forest.

cottager2 5y ago
Wood is carbon neutral, not carbon negative. Trees take carbon out of the air and produce wood. When they die and decompose or burn, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. Oil in the ground was produced during a time that wood was so abundant it almost suffocated the surface of the earth because nothing could decompose it. Somehow, brining all that oil back to the surface and turning it back into wood doesn’t seem like a good idea.
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  If the wood is converted to syngas and biochar through gasification, the biochar is chemically inactive in the soil for thousands of years. The syngas can be used as an energy source. Bogs are actually great sinks of carbon, all of the biomass created in the bog will sink below the waters surface and remain inert.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  if you build with the wood then it doesn’t burn or decompose (yes, eventually, it will burn or decompose, but the more buildings on earth made of wood at any one time is carbon that isnt in the air.)
- ericd 5y ago
  Eh if you keep it dry, it can hold it for a few hundred years. Permanent sequestration is ideal, but we’re really trying to minimize the area under the excess carbon curve in the near future to buy some time, so even shorter term stuff can be helpful. Reduction of excess carbon-ton-years is the way to think of it, IMO.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  > during a time that wood was so abundant it almost suffocated the surface of the earth because nothing could decompose it I believe this is no longer the consensus for the large coal deposits of the Carboniferous: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2442 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2442

cottager2 5y ago

Wood is carbon neutral, not carbon negative. Trees take carbon out of the air and produce wood. When they die and decompose or burn, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. Oil in the ground was produced during a time that wood was so abundant it almost suffocated the surface of the earth because nothing could decompose it. Somehow, brining all that oil back to the surface and turning it back into wood doesn’t seem like a good idea.

nanomonkey 5y ago
If the wood is converted to syngas and biochar through gasification, the biochar is chemically inactive in the soil for thousands of years. The syngas can be used as an energy source. Bogs are actually great sinks of carbon, all of the biomass created in the bog will sink below the waters surface and remain inert.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
if you build with the wood then it doesn’t burn or decompose (yes, eventually, it will burn or decompose, but the more buildings on earth made of wood at any one time is carbon that isnt in the air.)
ericd 5y ago
Eh if you keep it dry, it can hold it for a few hundred years. Permanent sequestration is ideal, but we’re really trying to minimize the area under the excess carbon curve in the near future to buy some time, so even shorter term stuff can be helpful. Reduction of excess carbon-ton-years is the way to think of it, IMO.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
> during a time that wood was so abundant it almost suffocated the surface of the earth because nothing could decompose it I believe this is no longer the consensus for the large coal deposits of the Carboniferous: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2442 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2442