Also, what portion of the decayed tree becomes soil. Sure some CO2 is released back out, but the net increase in soil over the tree’s life is where the savings are.
Anaerobic vs aerobic decay is largely about the difference in short-term impacts. Anaerobic decay releases methane which is much more potent than CO2 in the short term, but naturally breaks down into CO2 over a hundred or so years, which is a long time for the generations of humans dealing with climate change, but a blip on the timescales of forests.
That soil is feed for other organisms that make CO2, some plants are better than others, but they almost all wind up being carbon neutral in the end. The only way to get rid of it, would be to cut it down and send it into space. If you could do that without producing more CO2…
The leaves get eaten by bugs that produce CO2, so even if it was somehow carbon positive, bugs and other things would make it a very moot point.m very fast.
Bottom line people have already thought of these things and debunked them, it doesn’t matter, they aren’t carbon positive.
Also, what portion of the decayed tree becomes soil. Sure some CO2 is released back out, but the net increase in soil over the tree’s life is where the savings are.
Anaerobic vs aerobic decay is largely about the difference in short-term impacts. Anaerobic decay releases methane which is much more potent than CO2 in the short term, but naturally breaks down into CO2 over a hundred or so years, which is a long time for the generations of humans dealing with climate change, but a blip on the timescales of forests.
That soil is feed for other organisms that make CO2, some plants are better than others, but they almost all wind up being carbon neutral in the end. The only way to get rid of it, would be to cut it down and send it into space. If you could do that without producing more CO2…
The leaves get eaten by bugs that produce CO2, so even if it was somehow carbon positive, bugs and other things would make it a very moot point.m very fast.
Bottom line people have already thought of these things and debunked them, it doesn’t matter, they aren’t carbon positive.