Comment on Inspiring. Innovating.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week agoBut if you kick the can down the road such that the original field where the trees were grown can grow more trees, the your carbon sink can remove atmospheric carbon on net at a rate faster than it releases carbon back into the atmosphere.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Forests cannot grow faster than trees decay forever. We gotta turn the carbon back into rocks at some point, and we gotta get working on that tech sooner rather than later
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Maybe not forever as in the heat death of the universe, but I don’t see why timber can’t be a carbon sink for timelines longer than humanity.
There are structures made of wood that have been standing for over 1000 years. There are lots of structures made of wood that have been standing for over 500 years.
Hominid-harvested wood still exists in archaeological sites dating back from before homo sapiens emerged as a species
And coal is basically timber and other plant matter that has been sequestered underground and subjected to pressure, heat, and time.
Plants can provide a carbon sink that lasts long enough to remove atmospheric carbon indefinitely, especially with modern engineering (making carbon-rich soil with charcoal dust, manufacturing cross laminated timber as a building material that should last centuries, if not millennia, etc.).