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A single tree is likely to release its carbon at the end of its life. A forest however can permanently endure and keep retain carbon in aggregate, at least comp

A single tree is likely to release its carbon at the end of its life. A forest however can permanently endure and keep retain carbon in aggregate, at least compared to the alternative barren ground. To your point though, I would be surprised if this effect is big enough relative to removing fossil fuels from the energy mix.

Misdicorl 4y ago
I believe you can safely assume "it is not enough". We are recirculating literally millions of years worth of trees into the air. No amount of living carbon will be able to offset it, even if the entire earth were covered in trees (citation needed).
- datadata 4y ago
  Citations seem to indicate this is actually enough! This surprised me also: https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/global-carbon https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/global-carbon. Indicates 400GT are in from forests, vs 800GT in the atmosphere. Some various sources seem to indicate that around 50% of forests have been destroyed by humans already (by area, not necessarily by carbon?). So if we could instantly recover all forests, and nothing else changed, that alone would reduce the atmosphere CO2 to preindustrial levels (it has almost doubled). I think the misleading part about "millions of years worth of trees" is that a very small percentage of tree biomass probably becomes useful fossil fuel, and the majority is recycled many times.
  - Misdicorl 4y ago
    Wow, that really is surprising to me. This is the best non-personal news I've heard in probably a decade, so thanks for sharing!
joe_the_user 4y ago
A forest however can permanently endure... Here in California we had two million acre burn last year, including, I believe, some "carbon sequestering" forests. A lot of forest in the US actually have an excessive amount of growth due to suppression policies. You can't expect to "plant" a forest in some random location and expect it to simply endure. Ecosystems have a more or less natural level of vegetation and getting more to grow is asking for it to burn away later (accelerating global warming, later). And that's not talking about the greater propensity for fire due to global warming itself.
- datadata 4y ago
  That's why I said "can". Obviously there is a lot of diversity of forests in the world. Cutting down half of them to make room for human stuff might have reduced the average amount of carbon stuck in wood on average?
- phire 4y ago
  There is no fundamental problem with a forest burning. It might release all it's carbon into the atmosphere while burning, but when it regrows it will re-absorb all that carbon. Bit of an accounting nightmare. You have to make sure it is allowed to regrow. You can't count that regrowth as new carbon sequestration, it's sequestrating it's original carbon again. And it's also going to take decades before it fully regrows.
  - joe_the_user 4y ago
    My point above is that because of fire suppression, California's forests have grown denser than the long-term, sustainable average. California's forests were much less dense in the 1880s because fires were quite common - it is a "fire shaped landscape", the ecology evolved with fire. If someone is attempting to make things even more dense, they simply will stoke fuel for more fire.
    - phire 4y ago
      Yeah. The accounting can become even more of an absolute nightmare if you actually have to start planning that far ahead and taking into account the long-term sustainable average of converting land to forest, instead of the short-term best case.

Misdicorl 4y ago

I believe you can safely assume "it is not enough". We are recirculating literally millions of years worth of trees into the air. No amount of living carbon will be able to offset it, even if the entire earth were covered in trees (citation needed).

datadata 4y ago
Citations seem to indicate this is actually enough! This surprised me also: https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/global-carbon https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/global-carbon. Indicates 400GT are in from forests, vs 800GT in the atmosphere. Some various sources seem to indicate that around 50% of forests have been destroyed by humans already (by area, not necessarily by carbon?). So if we could instantly recover all forests, and nothing else changed, that alone would reduce the atmosphere CO2 to preindustrial levels (it has almost doubled). I think the misleading part about "millions of years worth of trees" is that a very small percentage of tree biomass probably becomes useful fossil fuel, and the majority is recycled many times.
- Misdicorl 4y ago
  Wow, that really is surprising to me. This is the best non-personal news I've heard in probably a decade, so thanks for sharing!

joe_the_user 4y ago

A forest however can permanently endure... Here in California we had two million acre burn last year, including, I believe, some "carbon sequestering" forests. A lot of forest in the US actually have an excessive amount of growth due to suppression policies. You can't expect to "plant" a forest in some random location and expect it to simply endure. Ecosystems have a more or less natural level of vegetation and getting more to grow is asking for it to burn away later (accelerating global warming, later). And that's not talking about the greater propensity for fire due to global warming itself.

datadata 4y ago
That's why I said "can". Obviously there is a lot of diversity of forests in the world. Cutting down half of them to make room for human stuff might have reduced the average amount of carbon stuck in wood on average?
phire 4y ago
There is no fundamental problem with a forest burning. It might release all it's carbon into the atmosphere while burning, but when it regrows it will re-absorb all that carbon. Bit of an accounting nightmare. You have to make sure it is allowed to regrow. You can't count that regrowth as new carbon sequestration, it's sequestrating it's original carbon again. And it's also going to take decades before it fully regrows.
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  My point above is that because of fire suppression, California's forests have grown denser than the long-term, sustainable average. California's forests were much less dense in the 1880s because fires were quite common - it is a "fire shaped landscape", the ecology evolved with fire. If someone is attempting to make things even more dense, they simply will stoke fuel for more fire.
  - phire 4y ago
    Yeah. The accounting can become even more of an absolute nightmare if you actually have to start planning that far ahead and taking into account the long-term sustainable average of converting land to forest, instead of the short-term best case.