[reustle]

On the topic of CO2, I recently learned some surprising numbers in a reddit thread [0] about a nonprofit hitting the 250 million planted trees mark.

One top comment said "Over the next 40 years, (those 250 million tress) will absorb about as much carbon as the United States emits in a week."

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/c6lj7u/nonprofit_pl...

[ForHackernews]

So what? Trees don't live forever. As soon as they die and rot, that CO2 is right back in the atmosphere. This is not a real plan, it's some feelgood video clickbait.

[phatfish]

I read it as it takes 250 millions trees 40 years to remove the carbon emitted by the US in a week. That being they have very little effect overall.

[SllX]

It isn’t just the trees that matter. It’s the rest of the forest ecosystem around the trees. Reforestation is still a great idea as part of a larger plan to restore the atmosphere to and global temperatures to what they were, but it isn’t a silver bullet. There is not one place in the world where you can plant a bunch of trees and declare mission accomplished, but you’ll want those forests there flourishing and absorbing carbon dioxide when we do neutralize emissions.

[javagram]

We can chop down the trees and landfill them to prevent the carbon from being released back into the atmosphere. Of course, with that we are talking about re-doing millions of years of prehistorical carbon capture by the earth.

[NikkiA]

And how much carbon does the forestry and digging equipment to do all that generate? That's one of the problems. Yes, growing trees and 'discarding' the wood is a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but we have to do it in an efficient way, and we're not there yet.

[zaroth]

Why not turn them into houses before putting them in a landfill?

[hendryau]

The trees won't all die at once.