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Forests and such are carbon neutral unless somebody goes there, cuts the trees, and crucially does something to prevent the wood from burning or decomposing for

Forests and such are carbon neutral unless somebody goes there, cuts the trees, and crucially does something to prevent the wood from burning or decomposing for hundreds or thousands of years. That is the costly part.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
That's a fairly simplified view of what a forest is. A forest is not just a bunch of trees, but an ecosystem where perhaps the most important part is the soil, which in the long term is the bigger carbon reservoir. A lot of the carbon that first goes into the trees eventually ends up in the soil, which if left undisturbed (i.e. not used for farming) is stable and does not leech significant amounts of CO2. Admittedly the downside of this is that such soil is almost absurdly fertile. This is in large why slash-and-burns are so popular where ever there's old forest. Indonesia, Brazil, etc. Like it's not even about the lumber, the farmland is amazing for a decade or so.
- david-gpu 3y ago
  > A lot of the carbon that first goes into the trees eventually ends up in the soil, which if left undisturbed (i.e. not used for farming) is stable Stable, as in the amount of carbon that is captured is offset by the amount that is released? That sounds like after a short while forests become carbon neutral, unless we cut the trees down and do something to prevent the wood from burning or decomposing. I think we are in agreement?
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    There's a lot more biomass in an older forest than a younger one, especially a planted forest. Carbon capture will slow down, granted, but a forest takes hundreds if not thousands of years to reach true equilibrium. There's an immediately obvious difference in biosphere density if you step into a forest that was cut and re-planted a fifty years ago, one that was slash-and-burned a hundred years ago, and primeval forest that's been around since the end of the ice age. There's just a lot more stuff growing in a forest the older it gets. Trees keep growing for a very long time as well, easily doubling or even quadrupling the biomass of a younger tree. All the fossil-sourced carbon we've put into the air the last 100 years or so was, at one point or another put into the ground, mostly by vegetation. Re-planting forest isn't probably in its own an adequate solution, but it shouldn't be dismissed entirely. Compared to active carbon sequestration, the energy cost of letting a forest grow is negligibly low.
    - david-gpu 3y ago
      > All the fossil-sourced carbon we've put into the air the last 100 years or so was, at one point or another put into the ground, mostly by vegetation. As I understand it, carbon comes from plant matter indeed, back from the Carboniferous period. Back then no life form had evolved that was able to break down wood lignin, so wood could not decompose. That stopped around 300 million years ago when certain fungi evolved, which is why carbon is no longer produced and thus remains a fossil fuel. Forests are essentially carbon neutral according to every source I can find. I'll be happy to learn otherwise.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Forests are carbon storage. They sorta become carbon neutral over time, but they generally won’t burn by themselves in many kinds of climates.
- imtringued 3y ago
  Unless you are talking about terra preta (where you intentionally produce charcoal and work it into the soil), the natural process of accumulating soil organic matter is too slow to make a dent to climate change.
  - badtension 3y ago
    I've heard people mentioning biochar and similar processes of capturing carbon in the soil, do you know how viable it is? How much bang for the buck we could get from it? Is it a possible strategy when done in a decentralized manner all over the planet?

marginalia_nu 3y ago

That's a fairly simplified view of what a forest is. A forest is not just a bunch of trees, but an ecosystem where perhaps the most important part is the soil, which in the long term is the bigger carbon reservoir. A lot of the carbon that first goes into the trees eventually ends up in the soil, which if left undisturbed (i.e. not used for farming) is stable and does not leech significant amounts of CO2. Admittedly the downside of this is that such soil is almost absurdly fertile. This is in large why slash-and-burns are so popular where ever there's old forest. Indonesia, Brazil, etc. Like it's not even about the lumber, the farmland is amazing for a decade or so.

david-gpu 3y ago
> A lot of the carbon that first goes into the trees eventually ends up in the soil, which if left undisturbed (i.e. not used for farming) is stable Stable, as in the amount of carbon that is captured is offset by the amount that is released? That sounds like after a short while forests become carbon neutral, unless we cut the trees down and do something to prevent the wood from burning or decomposing. I think we are in agreement?
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  There's a lot more biomass in an older forest than a younger one, especially a planted forest. Carbon capture will slow down, granted, but a forest takes hundreds if not thousands of years to reach true equilibrium. There's an immediately obvious difference in biosphere density if you step into a forest that was cut and re-planted a fifty years ago, one that was slash-and-burned a hundred years ago, and primeval forest that's been around since the end of the ice age. There's just a lot more stuff growing in a forest the older it gets. Trees keep growing for a very long time as well, easily doubling or even quadrupling the biomass of a younger tree. All the fossil-sourced carbon we've put into the air the last 100 years or so was, at one point or another put into the ground, mostly by vegetation. Re-planting forest isn't probably in its own an adequate solution, but it shouldn't be dismissed entirely. Compared to active carbon sequestration, the energy cost of letting a forest grow is negligibly low.
  - david-gpu 3y ago
    > All the fossil-sourced carbon we've put into the air the last 100 years or so was, at one point or another put into the ground, mostly by vegetation. As I understand it, carbon comes from plant matter indeed, back from the Carboniferous period. Back then no life form had evolved that was able to break down wood lignin, so wood could not decompose. That stopped around 300 million years ago when certain fungi evolved, which is why carbon is no longer produced and thus remains a fossil fuel. Forests are essentially carbon neutral according to every source I can find. I'll be happy to learn otherwise.
- kaba0 3y ago
  Forests are carbon storage. They sorta become carbon neutral over time, but they generally won’t burn by themselves in many kinds of climates.
imtringued 3y ago
Unless you are talking about terra preta (where you intentionally produce charcoal and work it into the soil), the natural process of accumulating soil organic matter is too slow to make a dent to climate change.
- badtension 3y ago
  I've heard people mentioning biochar and similar processes of capturing carbon in the soil, do you know how viable it is? How much bang for the buck we could get from it? Is it a possible strategy when done in a decentralized manner all over the planet?