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by joe_the_user 2102 days ago
Yes, burning wood is carbon neutral in the long run but clearly emits carbon now (and the earth gets hotter now).

It would be nice to think about maybe collecting undergrowth and turning it to charcoal in something like a kiln and then burying it - reverse coal mining. Of course, we'd want to stop regular coal mining first.

2 comments

Plants leave roots in the ground and carbon in soil. No till farming practices of grains and corns sequester massive amounts of carbon into the soil. We dont need to do anything special just quit doing things wrong.
I think you underestimate the amount of carbon we dug out of the soil if you believe that no-till farming will sequester even a fraction of that back in reasonable time frames.
The logistics required to do this will eventuate in much more CO2 being emitted than just burning the undergrowth.