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by varjag 2488 days ago
That would be true only if you always burn 100% of biomass, which doesn't happen. Carbon gets sequestered into soil, and partly consumed by insects and animals up the food chain.

All carbon in your body was once sequestered by plants.

1 comments

The point is that in a stable rainforest the amount of biomass isn't growing, so you obviously do burn/decompose 100% of the newly created biomass - otherwise the amount of biomass would have grown. Carbon gets sequestered into the soil in cases where soil is being enriched and is "growing in size" (for example, when a previously barren place gets forested) but in a stable, centuries-old rainforest the soil amount really isn't increasing - so as much as gets sequestered, gets released by decomposition.

As the total biomass of insects isn't growing, the carbon they consume is balanced by the carbon released by decomposition of (otherwise) unconsumed insects; the same applies for animals up the food chain - if at the end of 2019 the total weight of insects and animals in the Amazon is not larger than at the end of 1919, then zero carbon has been sequestered in these insects and animals over a hundred years.