[ddxxdd]

I have repeatedly heard scientists say that planting 1 trillion trees will singlehandedly set climate change back 10 years. I've done the math on that myself and found that such a plan is about 5000 times more cost-effective than driving Tesla vehicles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19714034

Anytime anybody says anything about the social cost of carbon being greater than $0.50 per ton, I just tune them out.

[flavor8]

On what timescale? I.e. trees take time to grow and accumulate carbon. As I understand it, the climate clock is ticking - there's a threshold beyond which some runaway effects kick in.

[coryrc]

Growing is the only time they collect carbon. We could plant enough trees to zero out carbon usage (for now).

[notJim]

> trees take time to grow and accumulate carbon

They also burn down or are harvested quite regularly.

[ukoki]

Harvesting can be good because it provides space for more trees to grow and store yet more carbon. As long the timber is used for long-term purposes such as housing, then the carbon in the timber kept stored. It's not 100% efficient because when felled the roots and leaves rot and return carbon back to the atmosphere, but AFAIK it's better than not harvesting.