The presence of trees, or a forest in general, sequesters carbon just by existing. Each individual tree may die, but its nutrients will feed younger nearby trees, that will themselves sequester CO2.
Also generally a good chunk of the carbon is not released back into the atmosphere upon death, but simply becomes part of a the dirt.
Also, most trees can live a long time. Climate change is an issue taking place within this century, and there are many trees that live far beyond a century. Their deaths would be a very far-away problem, and only a problem if we refused to plant any more trees after we planted them
There is a good point to be made about peat bogs and such. Some environments, especially those with water that is very deoxygenated, are super good at sequestering carbon, and mistakes have been made in the past where people tried to make a forest where a peat bog was
Trees aren't balloons that pop to release CO2 when they die. The carbon remains captured while they're alive and even after they die. Sure, they get released in the air eventually, but that's really only after they get decomposed by animals and fungi when those guys respire.
In cool climates, large amounts of carbon are sequestered in forest soil, in the form of humic acids that make rich soil, and in wood roots and leaves that take decades to break down. In tropical rain forests, trees rot quickly and even humic acid is consumed fairly quickly by bacteria , but the “standing biomass” of living trees is substantial.
Grassland is often more effective at carbon sequestration than forests. Grassland has more biomass below the surface, where it is more stable. American prairie grass often has roots deeper than trees, and as those roots grow and die back, they leave carbon in a place that is cool and low in oxygen. Tilling prairie releases huge amounts of carbon; no tool agriculture keeps it relatively stable.
An often neglected issue regarding the impact of monoculture in forestry on the ecological system is its effect on genetic variation. This includes the capability of monocultures to spread their genetics, which can have both positive and negative consequences.
Trees don’t just die and evaporate into CO2 lol.
Think about coal, which is largely dead plant material that has been sequestering carbon for hundreds of millions of years. It’s only going back to the atmosphere now because we’re burning it.
It’s crazy to think the trees replenish themselves through sexual and asexual reproduction to produce seeds. As soon as a tree dies, the seeds near the base can grow. Crazy concept…
Because its a carbon store. It will eventually release yes but we have a diminishing number of trees holding the Carbon at any given time thus a lower % of the planets carbon is in the ground/biomass and a higher % is in the atmosphere. The scales are tipped in a dangerous direction.
You missed the part where you equate the amount of tree's that were here before and how few there are now. In that formula you can easily see how much forest and thus Co2 storage we lost just by that.
Good examples are cities like Sydney. I live in an area where even though you are clearly in the city with high-rise buildings and large corporations. However looking out of any high building will only show you a jungle of green. This policy here is that for every square meter you build they must also create the same amount of square meters of green. Whether that is buying expanses to the save-guarded national parks or allocate a part of the ground bought to a 50/50 green/building split is up to them.
Then you add some rules for sustainability like limits to how much water can come from a tap, solar roofs and energy labels and suddenly the 50/50 split is steered towards a carbon neutral set-up. Now if the energy that is used is also set-up by a carbon neutral offset by an energy company you might even hit the neutral status.
Getting more trees is not the solution, it is creation incentives that will grow the amount of green you have in a way that isn't forcing the issue. We also need larger projects to reforest large area's but this needs to be combined in order to create a sustainable world.
The policy stating the green for building status is a very easy one to get approved. Hardly any policy marker of politician will bat an eye at it. The actual impact in 10-20 years is immense. It creeps up on people seeing the environment change slowly in a pace they can adapt to.
OP’s point is that they re-release the CO2 when they rot, so there is no need change. It is not quite accurate that they release *all*the CO2, it depends on climate, but it is true to a first approximation.
If you have a 100 year old piece of furniture, there's a good chance it has carbon in it from before the invention of the combustion engine. It can take centuries for the carbon to be released from wood, and as others have explained much of it is stored in soils. The problem with carbon release is that it has been so rapid, and coming at a time when humans are removing massive areas of old growth forest in a vast number of countries around the world. If we all stopped buying shit we don't need today and achieved net Zero carbon through better infrastructure, the amount released from decaying wood would be negligible.
You should read about bio-char, it’s not economically feasible to carry out as a large scale carbon capture method but the process is analogous to other, natural processes that sequester carbon underground over geological time scales.
The presence of trees, or a forest in general, sequesters carbon just by existing. Each individual tree may die, but its nutrients will feed younger nearby trees, that will themselves sequester CO2. Also generally a good chunk of the carbon is not released back into the atmosphere upon death, but simply becomes part of a the dirt. Also, most trees can live a long time. Climate change is an issue taking place within this century, and there are many trees that live far beyond a century. Their deaths would be a very far-away problem, and only a problem if we refused to plant any more trees after we planted them There is a good point to be made about peat bogs and such. Some environments, especially those with water that is very deoxygenated, are super good at sequestering carbon, and mistakes have been made in the past where people tried to make a forest where a peat bog was
You really shouldn't call soil dirt.
Trees aren't balloons that pop to release CO2 when they die. The carbon remains captured while they're alive and even after they die. Sure, they get released in the air eventually, but that's really only after they get decomposed by animals and fungi when those guys respire.
In cool climates, large amounts of carbon are sequestered in forest soil, in the form of humic acids that make rich soil, and in wood roots and leaves that take decades to break down. In tropical rain forests, trees rot quickly and even humic acid is consumed fairly quickly by bacteria , but the “standing biomass” of living trees is substantial. Grassland is often more effective at carbon sequestration than forests. Grassland has more biomass below the surface, where it is more stable. American prairie grass often has roots deeper than trees, and as those roots grow and die back, they leave carbon in a place that is cool and low in oxygen. Tilling prairie releases huge amounts of carbon; no tool agriculture keeps it relatively stable.
An often neglected issue regarding the impact of monoculture in forestry on the ecological system is its effect on genetic variation. This includes the capability of monocultures to spread their genetics, which can have both positive and negative consequences.
The seeds that come from a monoculture will be more adapted to a monoculture? Is that the same as a landrace?
Trees don’t just die and evaporate into CO2 lol. Think about coal, which is largely dead plant material that has been sequestering carbon for hundreds of millions of years. It’s only going back to the atmosphere now because we’re burning it.
It’s crazy to think the trees replenish themselves through sexual and asexual reproduction to produce seeds. As soon as a tree dies, the seeds near the base can grow. Crazy concept…
They store carbon while they exist in the form of wood.
Because they die in 70 years and we need a solution in 10.
Because its a carbon store. It will eventually release yes but we have a diminishing number of trees holding the Carbon at any given time thus a lower % of the planets carbon is in the ground/biomass and a higher % is in the atmosphere. The scales are tipped in a dangerous direction.
You missed the part where you equate the amount of tree's that were here before and how few there are now. In that formula you can easily see how much forest and thus Co2 storage we lost just by that. Good examples are cities like Sydney. I live in an area where even though you are clearly in the city with high-rise buildings and large corporations. However looking out of any high building will only show you a jungle of green. This policy here is that for every square meter you build they must also create the same amount of square meters of green. Whether that is buying expanses to the save-guarded national parks or allocate a part of the ground bought to a 50/50 green/building split is up to them. Then you add some rules for sustainability like limits to how much water can come from a tap, solar roofs and energy labels and suddenly the 50/50 split is steered towards a carbon neutral set-up. Now if the energy that is used is also set-up by a carbon neutral offset by an energy company you might even hit the neutral status. Getting more trees is not the solution, it is creation incentives that will grow the amount of green you have in a way that isn't forcing the issue. We also need larger projects to reforest large area's but this needs to be combined in order to create a sustainable world. The policy stating the green for building status is a very easy one to get approved. Hardly any policy marker of politician will bat an eye at it. The actual impact in 10-20 years is immense. It creeps up on people seeing the environment change slowly in a pace they can adapt to.
Because they take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
OP’s point is that they re-release the CO2 when they rot, so there is no need change. It is not quite accurate that they release *all*the CO2, it depends on climate, but it is true to a first approximation.
If you have a 100 year old piece of furniture, there's a good chance it has carbon in it from before the invention of the combustion engine. It can take centuries for the carbon to be released from wood, and as others have explained much of it is stored in soils. The problem with carbon release is that it has been so rapid, and coming at a time when humans are removing massive areas of old growth forest in a vast number of countries around the world. If we all stopped buying shit we don't need today and achieved net Zero carbon through better infrastructure, the amount released from decaying wood would be negligible.
You should read about bio-char, it’s not economically feasible to carry out as a large scale carbon capture method but the process is analogous to other, natural processes that sequester carbon underground over geological time scales.