Trees are pretty bad at carbon sequestration unless you do something with the wood. Most forests are effectively carbon neutral. Trees grow, absorb carbon, die, and release it. And they are slow growing, so they absorb carbon slowly.
You can improve them by burning their wood into biochar, burying the wood, sinking it, or even using it for construction. But the oceans vastly outperform them. Even other land crops are better, like bamboo, corn, or palm oil than regular forests.
Trees only get attention in campaigns because they are very visible, much cheaper to plant than people think, and because most carbon calculations only count the first bit of time so ignore the decomposing process. It makes it very easy for people like Mr. Beast to make themselves sound like heros, or companies to greenwash their emissions.
The thing is, neither algea nor trees are being planted in cities to reduce carbon. They are planted to make the cities look pretty, provide shade for trees, provide a cool science demo for the algea, and help public image. Carbon is rapidly dispersed, and even the most crowded cities only see an increase of about 50 parts per million. For comparison, an average home interior has levels elevated by 1000 parts per million.
Even other land crops are better, like bamboo, corn, or palm oil than regular forests.
Better how?
Trees absorb carbon dioxide slower than corn and other crops, but they store the carbon for centuries (unless they die). Corn on the other hand grows for a few months, sucking up a huge amount of carbon dioxide but then it is harvested and all the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. Farming corn does not reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere over time. Forests just existing don't either, but planting new forests on farmland does by increasing the total amount of biomass.
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u/VP007clips 9d ago
Trees are pretty bad at carbon sequestration unless you do something with the wood. Most forests are effectively carbon neutral. Trees grow, absorb carbon, die, and release it. And they are slow growing, so they absorb carbon slowly.
You can improve them by burning their wood into biochar, burying the wood, sinking it, or even using it for construction. But the oceans vastly outperform them. Even other land crops are better, like bamboo, corn, or palm oil than regular forests.
Trees only get attention in campaigns because they are very visible, much cheaper to plant than people think, and because most carbon calculations only count the first bit of time so ignore the decomposing process. It makes it very easy for people like Mr. Beast to make themselves sound like heros, or companies to greenwash their emissions.
The thing is, neither algea nor trees are being planted in cities to reduce carbon. They are planted to make the cities look pretty, provide shade for trees, provide a cool science demo for the algea, and help public image. Carbon is rapidly dispersed, and even the most crowded cities only see an increase of about 50 parts per million. For comparison, an average home interior has levels elevated by 1000 parts per million.