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> And even if it were true, those trees would take years to begin to sequester the same amount of carbon that the previously existing trees did. It sounds like
by nordsieck 4y ago
> And even if it were true, those trees would take years to begin to sequester the same amount of carbon that the previously existing trees did.
It sounds like you might be making a stock vs flow error here. Or I could be misunderstanding you.
> And even then, it's not obvious that those new trees would sequester more carbon than the previous trees would have had they been allowed to continue growing.
1. Trees slow as they grow (after a certain point).
2. Commercial tree farms exist to grow trees. If they weren't growing trees for consumption, something else would be done with that land.
- shafyy 4y ago> Commercial tree farms exist to grow trees. If they weren't growing trees for consumption, something else would be done with that land Yes, for example let the natural vegetation take over, increase biodiversity, and sequester more carbon thanks to the increased biodiversity and better soil than fucking tree farms.
- quixoticelixer- 4y ago- Plantations aren't worse for the soil than native vegetation most of the time. Sometimes they can be better for it. - A lot of the time plantations are planted on less productive farmland. - Not all plantations will naturally regenerate quickly back to native vegetation. - Those trees were planted for a reason and a lot of plantations are planted on degraded farmland or scrubland.
- c22 4y agoMy understanding is that older trees have accelerated carbon uptake (because of more surface area to do photosynthesis), but younger trees can be grown more closely together, increasing the total efficiency. It does seem be to unclear which approach is ultimately "better".