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Antarctica / Re: Ice Apocalypse - MULTIPLE METERS SEA LEVEL RISE
« on: September 10, 2020, 02:13:53 AM »
I agree over the long haul that forests have little affect on long term carbon. In my forestry classes in University 30 years ago, as they explained the carbon cycle, professional foresters. were dubunking the concept of forests as a carbon storage solution. If you were to put a dome over a forest, over the life cycle of that forest, the net carbon input vs output is 0. Yes, trees store carbon as they grow, in the form of wood, and leaves, and roots, and animal biomass. As that biomass ages and dies, and decays, the leaves and trees and bark and wood, and animal carbon, is all consumed by insects, fungus, micro-organisms and fire, that carbon they consume is then released again, back into the atmosphere. You can generate some medium term storage of the carbon by harvesting the forest, and storing the products as lumber and paper and stacking things up in libraries, but that too, eventually, will break down and be released as carbon again. The only long term land storage of carbon in a forest is in the peat bogs, which can also burn and decay on occasion. But farming peat and long term conversion of peat to coals and other fossil fuels for long term storage is a separate discussion from forestry.
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