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Loss of moist broadleaf forest in Africa has turned a carbon sink into source
- dr_dshiv 11mo agoHappened in Finland too— forests becoming net carbon producers. https://www.icos-cp.eu/news-and-events/news/finlands-forests-have-become-source-carbon https://www.icos-cp.eu/news-and-events/news/finlands-forests...
- jabl 11mo agoNotably, politically the notion of forests as carbon sinks have been a very convenient fig leaf for politicians not wanting to reduce emissions in other parts of society.
- timr 11mo agoThe link you are replying to is explicit that forests are carbon sinks (which is just a scientific fact), and that the change here is due to logging. Planting more trees than you cut down is an effective way of offsetting CO2 emissions.
- lmc 11mo agoAnd Austria https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000268965/vom-retter-zum-risiko-oesterreichs-wald-wird-fuers-klima-zum-problem https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000268965/vom-retter-zu...
- mc32 11mo agoIsn't there an age-of-tree related curve? Up until XX years they are net producers -afterwards they become sinks.
- PaulHoule 11mo agoThat’s what people thought 20 years ago, careful accounting seems to show climax ecosystems of all kinds still capture carbon if undisturbed, I met someone who helped prove it by measuring trees with calipers year after year.
- Herring 11mo agoHumanity being the first species to go extinct because it was more profitable than continued existence.
- PaulHoule 11mo agoSee https://screenrant.com/far-side-gary-larson-dinosaur-extinction-smoking-kills/ https://screenrant.com/far-side-gary-larson-dinosaur-extinct...
- wwweston 11mo agoNot so much profit as a particular failure of accounting. Focus on privatization of profit with socialization of costs allows making staggering and possibly fatal costs someone else’s problem.
- echelon_musk 11mo agoAKA externalities.
- Loughla 11mo agoWe've turned the tragedy of the commons into an economic practice.
- MrSkelter 11mo agoThis is a common misconception. Commons are well maintained in healthy societies. Over extraction being punished by the group. Moreover private owners optimize for wealth under capitalism, not preservation. Look at why oil companies want to do to the sea and arctic. Or the replacement of Amazonian forest with pasture for beef grazing. African countries suffer under the poverty created by colonial extraction of both resources and people, followed by being charged for the privilege of having their resources taken, and saddled with unpayable loans. Those loans also placing them in a position where they are forced to allow western countries to continue to extract, and are prevented from protecting their national interests. If Africa was allowed to own its wealth and develop without negative interference (assassinations, extraction, the world bank, foreign militaries) it would be the richest region on the planet.
- BadBadJellyBean 11mo agoI don't even want to read these anymore. The whole climate crisis made me feel so powerless. I try to vote, I try to educate, I try to be vocal but it's all for nothing because ... I'm not even sure. I think it's stupid and greedy people.
- BLKNSLVR 11mo agoIt feels as if the more I go in one direction, the more the rest of the world goes in the other. My in-laws are a lost cause. I can make immediate ground in most discussions, but give it a day and they're back to their same FUD arguments that I'd just taken down the day before. The pitiable thing about their position is, I think, that they want the lifestyle they lived for their kids and grandkids, and think that this "green scam" will impoverish and threaten the viability of their extending family. Unfortunately the future could be much worse than that, but for basically the opposite reason. It's surreal watching human denial working in real-time.
- tbrownaw 11mo agoThey measure/model aboveground biomass, and present the change in that measurement as being a source/sink in the carbon cycle, ie as coming from / going to the atmosphere. But I also see multiple places they mention the changes as being at least partly due to logging or wood harvesting. Which seems like biomass being removed and yet not going into the atmosphere.
- padjo 11mo agoAt a certain zoom level we appear very similar to bacteria that undergoes a population explosion, destroys its host and ultimately dies out.
- roldie 11mo agoThis is really sad to read. Unfortunate that it will likely keep happening as forests disappear, seas acidify, and climate keeps warming. Very scary.
- timr 11mo agoThe change here is due to logging, not some inevitable climate feedback loop. Cut down fewer trees than you grow, and the situation reverses. In fact, the natural feedback cycle of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is for greenery to increase, not decrease.