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Thought experiment: Can we solve global warming by sequestering trees?
2 points by jaybrendansmith on Feb 4, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments
Thought experiment: If 15,000,000,000 trees die or are cut down every year, and each tree weighs 2000 kg on average, And 30,000,000,000,000 kg of wood rots every year, and each 1 kg of rotting wood creates 1.65 kg of CO2, Then 49,500,000,000,000 kg of CO2 is released by rotting wood each year. If 10,000,000,000,000 kg of CO2 must be removed from the atmosphere every year, we need to prevent 3,030,000,000 trees from rotting each year through sequestration. Is my math correct? If so, how can this be done? And isn't this easier then trying to reduce usage, or remove it directly from the atmosphere?


I can't comment on the math or the how, but I do have a caveat:

Rotting trees are actually absolutely pivotal for biodiversity and maintaining healthy forest ecosystems. So there's a tradeoff there. No idea how much could be done without being a problem, but probably it would need to be very spread out geographically, which makes it harder in practice.


I don’t know whether your numbers are correct, but one thing it doesn’t take into account is that it will take energy to do what you propose. For now, producing that energy likely will cause CO₂ emissions, possibly lots of them


Your math is missing half the picture -- those rotting trees are most often replaced by living trees, which pull CO2 out of the air.


Do the same maths with Hemp, Bamboo, algae and include the energy to accomplish that.




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