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by ajnin 1708 days ago
Yes, that's why planting trees to offset carbon emissions is not really as good an idea as it seems, trees can live a long time but they're not immortal, and when they die they release their carbon back into the environment.
2 comments

If you turn what now is barren land or grasslands into a forest, it absorbs CO2 as it grows, and that CO2 stays captured for as long as that land is a forest, it doesn't matter if individual trees die and decompose.
If you leave them alone to make baby trees, they can be an amortized constant capture or better.

Meanwhile they liberate oxygen, which I enjoy daily.