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Peatlands cover 3 percent of the earth and hold 30 percent of stored carbon. As a quick and dirty guesstimate, if you multiply that by a 6.66 to replace the los
by DoreenMichele 3y ago
Peatlands cover 3 percent of the earth and hold 30 percent of stored carbon. As a quick and dirty guesstimate, if you multiply that by a 6.66 to replace the lost 85 percent, you get 20 percent of the surface and 200 percent of current carbon stores.
It seems likely that a notable percentage of global warming is due to wetlands loss, not just industrialization.
So far, I haven't managed to do a deeper analysis with hard numbers. Feel free to do a write up if you think you know enough about the topic. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be interested.
- oliwarner 3y agoI'm just trying to point out a couple of issues in your logic. You cannot multiply wetland. It takes a thousand years to get a 10m deep peat bog and every second of its wet, rotting existence creates CH4. Wetlands offer lots of benefits —nature, water management, etc— but greenhouse gasses really aren't one. More importantly you're only comparing standing volumes of carbon. We extract billions of m³ of lumber out of forests each year. Even the process of growing it, is far better. Methane is being consumed, not created. The overall picture is complex but if we're thinking about things in the short term, farming lumber (and using less concrete, brick) would do far more good than creating wetland.