Great talk. But Myth #4 leaves out a couple of important points. First, there are many, many papers and groups screaming very loudly that permafrost thawing is a major issue for climate stabilization (e.g., www.whrc.org). Second, it should be much easier from a policy standpoint to reduce deforestation than to reduce the rate of permafrost thawing. Third, with less CO2 in the atmosphere from deforestation and other sources, the likelihood of a "fully" permafrost thawing happening decreases by a lot. Thus, in many ways, one solution to avoid permafrost thawing is to reduce deforestation. Fourth, tropical deforestation is highly susceptible to year-to-year variation in "market moods", while permafrost thawing relates to a longer moving average. Finally, planting trees every where at a really, while we are still losing ~10,000km2 of forests in the Brazilian Amazon alone is to be blind to the huge elephant in the room.
I really do not understand the claim that forests are net 0 emitters. a google search says that wood in 45 to 50 carbon. That would mean that (photosynthesis minus perspiration, and what is left is structural carbon, i.e. wood) falls down, and microbes and mushrooms are then 100% efficient in extracting it, perspirating some of it as CO2, and when they die, microbes perspirate the rest, and you have ~100% efficiency in turning structural C into CO2, which is impossible. there is carbon in the soil that is inactive for centuries and more. there cant be perspiration of C into CO2 at near 100% levels. nothing is that efficient. yes, ok, if we talk about milions of years, the % of sequestration would be small, but today, if we turn bare land into forest, that would be ~50% ish of all wood pure C turned from C02, no?
Great talk. But Myth #4 leaves out a couple of important points. First, there are many, many papers and groups screaming very loudly that permafrost thawing is a major issue for climate stabilization (e.g., www.whrc.org). Second, it should be much easier from a policy standpoint to reduce deforestation than to reduce the rate of permafrost thawing. Third, with less CO2 in the atmosphere from deforestation and other sources, the likelihood of a "fully" permafrost thawing happening decreases by a lot. Thus, in many ways, one solution to avoid permafrost thawing is to reduce deforestation. Fourth, tropical deforestation is highly susceptible to year-to-year variation in "market moods", while permafrost thawing relates to a longer moving average. Finally, planting trees every where at a really, while we are still losing ~10,000km2 of forests in the Brazilian Amazon alone is to be blind to the huge elephant in the room.
I think planting more trees and stop deforestation is the solution on this point
This is interesting topic!
also, who says we need forests to breathe, i thought that we are talking about CO2 sequestration...
I really do not understand the claim that forests are net 0 emitters. a google search says that wood in 45 to 50 carbon. That would mean that (photosynthesis minus perspiration, and what is left is structural carbon, i.e. wood) falls down, and microbes and mushrooms are then 100% efficient in extracting it, perspirating some of it as CO2, and when they die, microbes perspirate the rest, and you have ~100% efficiency in turning structural C into CO2, which is impossible. there is carbon in the soil that is inactive for centuries and more. there cant be perspiration of C into CO2 at near 100% levels. nothing is that efficient. yes, ok, if we talk about milions of years, the % of sequestration would be small, but today, if we turn bare land into forest, that would be ~50% ish of all wood pure C turned from C02, no?