• traches
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    4 months ago

    An individual tree is neutral, but a forest is carbon negative as long as it exists.

    • Delta_V@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Untrue.
      Just letting a forest grow wild is carbon neutral. The soil reaches a point of saturation. Eventually the dead trees get eaten by detritivores, releasing the captured carbon back into the air.
      Keeping it sequestered long term requires burying it deep - the trees would need to be cut down and transported to where bacteria, fungus, and so on can’t eat them.

      • traches
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        4 months ago
        • forest does not exist. Carbon is in atmosphere
        • forest grows, carbon is bound up in whatever lives in the forest
        • forest reaches steady state, carbon emitted by decomposition is balanced out by new growth

        It’s net negative as long as it exists. What I said is true.

    • SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It reaches an equilibrium where it’s producing as much as much as its scrubbing at some point though.

      And as it dies off it will produce more than it can scrub. All its doing is delaying the issue for someone else to deal with.