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Trees do not affect CO2 levels, over long time. The basic reason is explained by why it is also called "carbon cycle". Plants grow, temporarily storing carbon,

Trees do not affect CO2 levels, over long time. The basic reason is explained by why it is also called "carbon cycle". Plants grow, temporarily storing carbon, then die, releasing the carbon back to atmosphere either by burning or by decaying or by being consumed and literally breathed out as CO2 back. Rather than planting a tree, you can actually help the atmosphere more by cutting a tree and building a house out of it and not letting it rot for a really long time. By cutting the tree and building the house, you are sequestering the carbon for probably longer than the tree would live (depending on what would be its future) and also making space for new trees to grow. If you are looking to actually affect the long term outcome, you need to do one of two things: 1) stop emitting CO2 2) sequester the atmospheric CO2 somewher, for a really long time.

dangles 3y ago
Where did oil come from?
- onetimeuse92304 3y ago
  The oil came from small microorganisms that fell out of carbon cycle by getting themselves in places where they could not rot or get burned. The same story is behind coal, except it is not possible to generate any more coal deposits naturally. The reason we have coal is some hundreds of millions of years ago there were huge plants that would topple but there was nothing on Eearth yet that could completely digest plant matter. So the biomass would basically stay where it fell and new plants would grow on top of dead ones. This explains the shape of coal deposits. Some time later I think fungi evolved that could digest cellulose and any plant afterwards would rot rather than get burried. This explains why ALL coal deposits in existence are older than something like 600M years.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    As I understand it, that's no longer the prevailing theory regarding coal.
    - clort 3y ago
      what is the prevailing theory currently?
      - sghiassy 3y ago
        Steve Mould (a credible science YouTuber) says coal came from trees https://youtu.be/b34al8YmQSA https://youtu.be/b34al8YmQSA
      - thfuran 3y ago
        https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-was-most-of-the-earths-coal-made-all-at-once/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-was-most-of-the-...
  - avar 3y ago
    > The same story is behind coal, except it is not possible to generate any more coal deposits naturally. New coal is being made every day somewhere on the planet. > This explains why ALL coal deposits in existence are older than something like 600M years. Of course coal is old, because it's preceded by peat and lignite. I think the point of the questions you were responding to is that cool is also renewable, just like trees are. We just don't refer to it as such, because that renewability requires a really long time.
GravityLab 3y ago
Trees are great carbon sinks. Especially the ones that live for hundreds of years. If more trees get planted, then soon they’d be giant carbon sinks for hundreds of years. That’s more than enough time for artificial co2 sequestration tech to catch up with more effective permanent solutions.
- onetimeuse92304 3y ago
  Civilisation emits more new (coming from oil and coal) carbon to the atmosphere every 10 years than is contained in the entire Earth's biomass. Even if you planted every single place on Earth that could accept a tree, you would not double Earth's biomass. If you did this and then somehow managed all those trees from dying, the only thing you would achieve is you would delay the entire proces by roughly 7 to 8 years. And if you can't prevent trees from dying or getting burned, you only get about 5 years. From my point of view, planting trees is a huge distraction. There is absolutely no way planting trees will get us out of our problems, it is much better to start thinking about something actually productive.
  - GravityLab 3y ago
    Source? I think you need to check your math. To sequester all of the co2 that gets emitted per year, you’d need about 1.6 trillion new trees. This assumes no other improvements in anything. This is because 37 billion metric tons (global co2 emissions) divided by an average of 22 kg of co2 sequestered by the average tree gets us around 1.6 trillion trees. Trees are a great co2 sink and large reforesting would result in a lot of runway, on the order of hundreds of years of runway, for technological co2 sequestration to develop further.
    - onetimeuse92304 3y ago
      The word "sequester" implies that the CO2 is being removed from the cycle. You are misusing this word, by suggesting that planted tree is a sequestered form of CO2. That's not the reality, in reality trees die or burn. Your logic is faulty. You see, you can bind all CO2 we emit per year with 1.6 trillion trees. True. But you can only do this ONCE, and it takes many years. And then you are left with the Earth's landmasses all covered with trees that need to be actually sequestered (like buried deep underwater) to create space for a new batch of trees that have to be planted all over again.
bloopernova 3y ago
Planting a tree makes a carbon sink that lasts at least a century. During that time we can try to fix the rest of the mess.
11235813213455 3y ago
wrong, they do, but on a long timescale (million years), through hydrocarbures of course obviously, people shouldn't extract and buy fossil fuel and all those derived products (plastics)
spandextwins 3y ago
Most trees are cut with gas powered chain saws. Leave them up.

dangles 3y ago

Where did oil come from?

onetimeuse92304 3y ago
The oil came from small microorganisms that fell out of carbon cycle by getting themselves in places where they could not rot or get burned. The same story is behind coal, except it is not possible to generate any more coal deposits naturally. The reason we have coal is some hundreds of millions of years ago there were huge plants that would topple but there was nothing on Eearth yet that could completely digest plant matter. So the biomass would basically stay where it fell and new plants would grow on top of dead ones. This explains the shape of coal deposits. Some time later I think fungi evolved that could digest cellulose and any plant afterwards would rot rather than get burried. This explains why ALL coal deposits in existence are older than something like 600M years.
- thfuran 3y ago
  As I understand it, that's no longer the prevailing theory regarding coal.
  - clort 3y ago
    what is the prevailing theory currently?
    - sghiassy 3y ago
      Steve Mould (a credible science YouTuber) says coal came from trees https://youtu.be/b34al8YmQSA https://youtu.be/b34al8YmQSA
    - thfuran 3y ago
      https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-was-most-of-the-earths-coal-made-all-at-once/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-was-most-of-the-...
- avar 3y ago
  > The same story is behind coal, except it is not possible to generate any more coal deposits naturally. New coal is being made every day somewhere on the planet. > This explains why ALL coal deposits in existence are older than something like 600M years. Of course coal is old, because it's preceded by peat and lignite. I think the point of the questions you were responding to is that cool is also renewable, just like trees are. We just don't refer to it as such, because that renewability requires a really long time.

GravityLab 3y ago

Trees are great carbon sinks. Especially the ones that live for hundreds of years. If more trees get planted, then soon they’d be giant carbon sinks for hundreds of years. That’s more than enough time for artificial co2 sequestration tech to catch up with more effective permanent solutions.

onetimeuse92304 3y ago
Civilisation emits more new (coming from oil and coal) carbon to the atmosphere every 10 years than is contained in the entire Earth's biomass. Even if you planted every single place on Earth that could accept a tree, you would not double Earth's biomass. If you did this and then somehow managed all those trees from dying, the only thing you would achieve is you would delay the entire proces by roughly 7 to 8 years. And if you can't prevent trees from dying or getting burned, you only get about 5 years. From my point of view, planting trees is a huge distraction. There is absolutely no way planting trees will get us out of our problems, it is much better to start thinking about something actually productive.
- GravityLab 3y ago
  Source? I think you need to check your math. To sequester all of the co2 that gets emitted per year, you’d need about 1.6 trillion new trees. This assumes no other improvements in anything. This is because 37 billion metric tons (global co2 emissions) divided by an average of 22 kg of co2 sequestered by the average tree gets us around 1.6 trillion trees. Trees are a great co2 sink and large reforesting would result in a lot of runway, on the order of hundreds of years of runway, for technological co2 sequestration to develop further.
  - onetimeuse92304 3y ago
    The word "sequester" implies that the CO2 is being removed from the cycle. You are misusing this word, by suggesting that planted tree is a sequestered form of CO2. That's not the reality, in reality trees die or burn. Your logic is faulty. You see, you can bind all CO2 we emit per year with 1.6 trillion trees. True. But you can only do this ONCE, and it takes many years. And then you are left with the Earth's landmasses all covered with trees that need to be actually sequestered (like buried deep underwater) to create space for a new batch of trees that have to be planted all over again.

bloopernova 3y ago

Planting a tree makes a carbon sink that lasts at least a century. During that time we can try to fix the rest of the mess.

11235813213455 3y ago

wrong, they do, but on a long timescale (million years), through hydrocarbures of course obviously, people shouldn't extract and buy fossil fuel and all those derived products (plastics)

spandextwins 3y ago

Most trees are cut with gas powered chain saws. Leave them up.