this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Asklemmy
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The way people get to net zero is stupid accounting tricks. I burned a whole bunch of coal, but i paid a buddy of mine to plant trees. So now Im celebrating net zero with my buddy in his brand new tesla roadster. Who knew planting trees was so lucrative.
So we need good regulation to make sure the carbon is being sequestered. If planting trees and then burying them actually gets carbon permanently out of the atmosphere, I'm all for it. I would love planting trees to be lucrative, we could use more forests, they're great!
No one is actually burying trees. What happens is that after the contract ends they can just cut down the trees, release the carbon and start again.
I do agree with better regulation but forrestry ones should just go.
Oh I just remembered, someone who worked at an arboretum who I met a while ago mentioned that trees actually diffuse carbon dioxide directly into the soil. I think he said it was about one third of the weight of the tree? That amount would still be sequestered even if the tree wasn't buried. But I don't know how stable that is over the long term.
For offsets to work, they'd need to be based on the actual science of how much carbon they trap over what period of time. Different methods would need to have offset values published by the government. But I agree, offsets with algie or similar look much more feasible than trees.
Not that this happens in real life, but a solution could be a law declaring those lands national reserves and not allowing for extraction anymore.
It's actually worse than that they are paying people to not cut down trees. It's the same logic when my GF says she saved $200 because the dress was half price.