[TeMPOraL]

> There's also general health benefits of the added greenery consuming excess CO2.

Added greenery only consumes excess carbon dioxide if you harvest it and bury it in a very, very deep hole, where neither sun nor oxygen can reach it. Otherwise, it only briefly buffers some amount of carbon.

[jwatte]

If it increases total biomass, then it does on average sequester that additional biomass. And even if you burn it, well, the next crop will sequester it again. The main problem with burning fossil fuels is that we dug them up out of the ground, rather than take them from replenishing sources that draw CO2 out of the atmosphere.

[TeMPOraL]

It perhaps increases the amount of biomass in circulation - but then again, probably not, as it displaces other food (it's not like the western world is facing food shortages at the moment). It doesn't meaningfully affect anything, given that the problem we have is exponential emissions increase.

The best argument for extra consumable plants would be if they displaced carbon-positive farming. Then, all that carbon added to the circulation would subtract from emissions growth.