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Planting trees? Layman question: is there a way to figure out how much carbon levels would drop for a given area of new trees/forest? How much would we need to
by bloopernova 2y ago
Planting trees?
Layman question: is there a way to figure out how much carbon levels would drop for a given area of new trees/forest? How much would we need to plant to reduce carbon to preindustrial levels?
(I understand that trees don't permanently sequester carbon, but they do keep carbon for at least a century. Which would give us time to figure out other solutions)
- ghayes 2y agoI've heard basically "plant trees, bury them, plant new trees." I'm not sure if planting trees itself is sufficient.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt isn't; they take decades to grow to their full size and gather / sequester CO2 (about 15-25 kilos per year? Some sources say as much anyway; I don't know how that compares to emissions), but they will release most of that again if they die and are left to rot. Burying them is an option, but it would have to be in an anaerobic and/or sealed environment so it doesn't break down. For the opposite effect, the permafrost is melting, allowing thousands of years of sequestered and frozen plant material to defrost and finally start rotting. That's adding a lot of CO2 and methane to the atmosphere, and it adds to the cascading global warming. Just that makes me think we've past the point of no return a while ago.
- DarmokJalad1701 2y ago> How much would we need to plant to reduce carbon to preindustrial levels About 2 trillion trees per year, just to break even on current rates of CO2 emissions. More to reduce it further. For reference, there's currently an estimated 3 trillion trees on Earth.