[notmypenguin]

Considering that this pollutes the air we breathe and releases sequestered carbon, might I suggest interring trimmed brush deep enough to not burn but shallow enough to feed roots as it decomposes into the soil rather than air.

Obviously this entails some effort spent, but it seems correct, versus the old burning practices.

Might I suggest that at human current scale we can’t pursue the same ways as when we were few and low footprint per capita?

[chrismorgan]

If you think that’s in any way equivalent or a functional alternative, you’ve never seen a forest a few weeks or months after it burned, or considered the various trees that require fire to propagate.

(I speak from a south-east Australian perspective where it’s really clear, but believe it largely works this way in other low-humidity forest environments too.)

[zdragnar]

That carbon isn't really sequestered. Much of it becomes CO2 and methane as it decomposes.

I am also struggling to imagine how you would interr the mulch without damaging the forest itself. Most trees have root systems as wide as their leaf canopy- depending on the species, you'd end up killing or stressing most of the trees you dig around if you toss it deep enough to not burn during a drought.

Now, with all the dead or stressed trees, you've got another out of control wildfire waiting to happen.

[pvaldes]

Or maybe much of it became included in some form of life first

[pixl97]

>Obviously this entails some effort spent

Do you even begin to understand how big these forest areas are?

[kbelder]

Seems like as long as the burned forest repopulates, it'll pull the same amount of carbon out of the air as the fire put in.

[rsync]

"... might I suggest interring trimmed brush deep enough to not burn but shallow enough ..."

Your comment is ill-received so far in this discussion but I actually think this is a reasonable line of thought.

It is incredibly energy intensive and time-consuming to trim tens of acres of brush and then, on top of that, it is even more energy intensive to dig holes and bury it.

And so that is why your idea is typically implemented with goats.

I don't think it is nearly as effective as a wildfire but it approaches the outcome you're describing and is much, much better than nothing.

I will also point out that the carbon calculus that we are all obliged to consider is very complicated and very often produces results counter to what we thought was "the right thing to do".

Specifically: raising 200 goats, trucking them around from place to place, the human logistics (and their vehicles and food and supplies) and the cradle-to-grave carbon expenses of every piece of this activity ... it's not obvious that that is smaller than the released carbon of 10 acres of spindly brush.

[danans]

> Specifically: raising 200 goats, trucking them around from place to place, the human logistics (and their vehicles and food and supplies) and the cradle-to-grave carbon expenses of every piece of this activity ... it's not obvious that that is smaller than the released carbon of 10 acres of spindly brush.

I think the advantage is that goats are easier to control than fire, especially in very dry conditions, which is why they are used in high fire risk urban areas.