Well yes but also no, the main thing I’d like to highlight is that forests are not all that effective at sequestering CO2 from our atmosphere. A mature forest is pretty much carbon neutral.
We need large scale removal and sequestration of carbon to combat climate change on a meaningful scale
Where your source on a mature forest being carbon neutral? The mass of the trees is literally carbon thats come from the atmosphere, and they grow in mass more as theyre bigger. And when branches and leaves fall to the ground, the carbon is buried. Thats pretty much the goal.
And by the way, when its buried, it turns to healthy topsoil more vegetation can grow from. Its a positive feedback loop moving carbon from the air to the ground and cycling water around locally instead of going away.
The key word I used was “mature” forests but to be fair I am mostly speaking in terms of the forests local to my area which are carbon neutral.
An important thing to keep in mind that not many consider is that decay releases carbon back into the carbon cycle. For this soil you speak of the become productive, it has to first break down the plant matter which both makes those nutrients available for use again while also releasing carbon back into the atmosphere. A tree can’t simply grow on a pile of sticks, after all. Forests are not constantly building up on top of themselves. Some certainly can given the right conditions, but far from all do.
You’re not sequestering carbon long term and removing it from the carbon cycle by adding it to plants. More plants are definitely a good thing because they are locking up carbon that would otherwise be in the atmosphere, but only temporarily.
Luckily newer innovative forest management techniques are working on ways to turn this into a more long term solution, though that’s beyond the scope of my work. Definitely worth looking into if you’re interested though
Interesting. So the mass of the trees themselves represents the cabon they store. Once theyre mature they dont continue sequestering much. Although, surely some stays in the ground. Thats how we end up with coal and oil.
I must be thinking about the nitrogen cycle, because when it comes to recovering degraded environments, the topsoil needs that compost. With that, and more trees. The groundwater and rainfall come back.
Well yes but also no, the main thing I’d like to highlight is that forests are not all that effective at sequestering CO2 from our atmosphere. A mature forest is pretty much carbon neutral.
We need large scale removal and sequestration of carbon to combat climate change on a meaningful scale
Where your source on a mature forest being carbon neutral? The mass of the trees is literally carbon thats come from the atmosphere, and they grow in mass more as theyre bigger. And when branches and leaves fall to the ground, the carbon is buried. Thats pretty much the goal.
And by the way, when its buried, it turns to healthy topsoil more vegetation can grow from. Its a positive feedback loop moving carbon from the air to the ground and cycling water around locally instead of going away.
The key word I used was “mature” forests but to be fair I am mostly speaking in terms of the forests local to my area which are carbon neutral.
An important thing to keep in mind that not many consider is that decay releases carbon back into the carbon cycle. For this soil you speak of the become productive, it has to first break down the plant matter which both makes those nutrients available for use again while also releasing carbon back into the atmosphere. A tree can’t simply grow on a pile of sticks, after all. Forests are not constantly building up on top of themselves. Some certainly can given the right conditions, but far from all do.
You’re not sequestering carbon long term and removing it from the carbon cycle by adding it to plants. More plants are definitely a good thing because they are locking up carbon that would otherwise be in the atmosphere, but only temporarily.
Luckily newer innovative forest management techniques are working on ways to turn this into a more long term solution, though that’s beyond the scope of my work. Definitely worth looking into if you’re interested though
Interesting. So the mass of the trees themselves represents the cabon they store. Once theyre mature they dont continue sequestering much. Although, surely some stays in the ground. Thats how we end up with coal and oil.
I must be thinking about the nitrogen cycle, because when it comes to recovering degraded environments, the topsoil needs that compost. With that, and more trees. The groundwater and rainfall come back.