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> Except forest fires do not produce CO2. They release carbon that has been temporarily stored in trees and is part of the carbon cycle. By that reasoning burn
by User23 4y ago
> Except forest fires do not produce CO2. They release carbon that has been temporarily stored in trees and is part of the carbon cycle.
By that reasoning burning coal doesn’t produce CO2 either. It’s just a matter of the size of the time constant. Coal burning is just a forest fire with greater hysteresis.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- robomartin 4y agoExactly right. How many trees go into making one barrel of petroleum that we burn millions of years later?
- userbinator 4y agoCoal burning is just a forest fire with greater hysteresis. With the added benefit of providing useful power, unlike a forest fire.
- 1270018080 4y agoYes. And there is quite a bit of difference between 50 years and 10 million.
- twawaaay 4y agoActually, it is more like 300 million. The coal formed because plants produced lignin but there was no organism that was able to break it up, until fungi evolved. Now it is pretty much impossible for new coal to form in significant amount (except maybe for peat bogs) because every tree that falls will rot.
- kube-system 4y agoForest fires happen as a part of natural occurrences. Petroleum/coal is only burned due to human activities.