Chemical process development expert. Antidote to marketing #hopium . Tireless advocate for a fossil fuel-free future.
The next time someone posts a picture of a tree and says, "Here, I've solved the carbon sequestration problem for you", please post a copy of this very brief article which tackles the myth these people are labouring under. Trees are awesome, but won't save us from climate change. We need to stop the fossil burning- as quickly and completely as we practically can. And no, that's not a vote of confidence in the necessity of direct air capture either.
Bernard Lakey
6mo
Net Zero is useless, a distraction, stopping fossil is required
Growing trees take up CO2. But this is not a permanent sink. Fallen leaves and fallen stems decompose and give it back to the atmosphere.
Jacques Eksteen
7mo
The most important carbon sink is our oceans. But our oceans have lost around half of that already due to lipophilic surface active pollutants, plastics and organic materials entering our oceans and impacting plankton and algae. The acidification is particularly dangerous as we are crossing the carbonate/bicarbonate transition zone where there is a rapid increase in calcium solubilisation which will kill crustaceans and dramatically influencing ocean ecology. I agree that we should reduce CO2 emissions, but the problem is larger than CO2 (and other GHG) emissions. It lies in the restoration capability of our oceans which is used as a sewer.
Geoff Henderson
7mo
Or put more succinctly, the way to stop burning fossil fuels is to require the TAO at 100% absorption. This will push everything in the right direction including phasing out fossil fuels and forcing that industry to become a biofuel industry. True, biofuels can’t provide all our energy needs, probably <25% or so. But direct solar, wind and hydro can do the rest. Tree-planting is like a keystone element of the strategy because it does absorb CO2 during the transition and, provided it is paid for from the price of fossil fuels, it internalizes into the human economy the unsustainability of burning fossil fuels. So it is a transient solution and part of the steady-state thereafter.
It is NOT trees - it is forests, and forests are one of the very basic and key cooling mechanisms on the planet. We need to focus on cooling, not on not getting hotter (carbon). Healthy soil is something that forest make. Monocropped forests do not. Healthy soil holds water, dirt does not. No water in the soil - no rain. Hot becomes a self-fulling prophesy. Cool and wet - everything needs to be, create and support being cool and wet!
Yup and cutting down trees for toxic solar PV isn’t going to solve it either
But do you agree that we need a strong reforesting initiative?
Chemical process development expert. Antidote to marketing #hopium . Tireless advocate for a fossil fuel-free future.
7moIn case you're (bizarrely) still wondering why we're bothering about this global warming thing... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/global-warming-risk-arises-from-three-facts-paul-martin/