[2024throwaway]

I don't think it's fair to look at carbon output in isolation here. This would greatly help with a variety of issues such as mitigating urban heat islands, providing wildlife habitat, aiding pollinators, and just generally making the world we live in less hellish.

[mikeyouse]

It's probably a pretty favorable comparison anyway. Asphalt is almost 100% recyclable. The demolition often just involves a single bobcat and a dump truck that hauls it to the recycling plant. A commonly used number is 10kg/tree/year for the first 20 years of a tree's growth so a plot with 25 trees would remove ~250kg/year. A gallon of gas releases about 10kg of CO2, so in that 20 year period, the little plot would capture about 5,000kg of CO2 or ~500 gallons equivalent.