[polytronic]

Plant trees

[Symmetry]

Trees eventually decay and rot. The problem is fundamentally that we're taking carbon from outside the biosphere and putting it into the biosphere. The Earth has self-regulatory mechanisms to keep that balanced with increased rock weathering going against constant levels of volcanic CO2 emissions but that solves the issue on the order of 10,000 years and trees don't last nearly that long. Plus, growing forests only absorb enough carbon per square meter to offset about watt of coal power production.

Increasing the world's forest cover is worth doing for its own sake, on biodiversity grounds, but its at best a small part of the solution to global warming.

[userbinator]

Trees eventually decay and rot.

Not if they keep growing, which if there's plenty of CO2 to feed them, they will.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27876366

[ALittleLight]

Can we plant a ton of trees and every twenty years (or whatever) cut them all down and throw them in a pit, lake, or ocean?

[jjtheblunt]

Do decay and rot, as processes, capture carbon? (I mean that I do not know)

[calt]

If we can increase forest cover, yes. But also, bury trees and plant new ones in their place.

[shakezula]

Diversity in tactics will be necessary, and trees will not be fast enough. We need this carbon gone by 2050, that is drastically short timelines.

[stooliepidgin]

Regardless of Ethiopia or #TeamTrees, trees are not fast or permanent enough to sequester anything substantial.

Not all tactics will be equally effective. It's worth investing in the approach(es) that are most effective in proof-of-concepts trial runs guided by a first principles perspective. That's how to maximize change. GMO kelp and phythoplankton for oceanic BECCS seem like the leading candidates.

[aguasfrias]

Is there any reason we don't genetically modify trees so that they grow huge? GMOs are some of our most advanced technologies, yet it seems no one has thought to modify trees to grow more.

[anonporridge]

Wildfires

[heavyset_go]

In the long run this is carbon neutral because more trees will grow.

[stooliepidgin]

TeamTrees vs REALITY!!

https://youtu.be/gqht2bIQXIY

Doing "something" is futile if it's ineffective, not permanent, and not scalable.