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Growing trees and turning them into long-life products such as houses, rather than burning them for fuel, is also a good solution. The carbon gets locked away f
by Reason077 4y ago
Growing trees and turning them into long-life products such as houses, rather than burning them for fuel, is also a good solution. The carbon gets locked away for at least the lifetime of the building.
We could also adapt building design so that some portion of the steel and concrete used in traditional construction could instead use wood-derived materials. This would help a lot since steel and concrete are both very carbon intensive. Steel production alone accounts for 8% of ALL global carbon emissions!
- undersuit 4y agoEven shorter life products like wooden furniture should be preferable to plastic alternatives. Especially with the disposable way we treat the plastic products, at least if we're throwing away wood furniture we're not pumping up oil to make it first.
- abfan1127 4y agothrowing away wood products creates methane release from landfills. Those wood products need to be ground up and placed deep underground.
- undersuit 4y agoThrowing away the plastic products is just a longer process of decomposition, but I agree that wood products should be disposed of properly.
- Reason077 4y agoIn many parts of the world, non-recycled plastic waste is incinerated rather than landfilled. In Europe, incineration has grown steadily in recent years and more household waste is now incinerated than landfilled.
- undersuit 4y agoAnd that's not good for CO2 levels. We can't be pumping crude oil up, using some of the latent energy to convert the product into a lawn chair for a few years, and then burning it. At that point you might as well burn your wooden furniture instead.
- Symmetry 4y agoMany landfills these days will capture the methane and sell it, at least in the developed world. So it can displace new methane entering the biosphere from wells.