| > Old growth plateaus from a ton/acre of carbon perspective pretty quickly, and old growth forests aren’t meaningfully sequestering much new carbon in their soil. It reaches a steady state, with excess rotting. Almost no forests do, or they’d be sitting on hundreds of feet of charcoal like matter.
> New growth pulls carbon out of the atmosphere fast - and cutting it down and using it, gives room for more, fast. Once it reaches this steady state, how much carbon has it already stored? How long will the average undisturbed old growth forest remain at steady state? 200 years, 1000 years? 10000 years? Surely longer than the average lifespan of all the products a destroyed old growth forest might produce. This is especially true when considering that old growth wood is particularly valuable for use as biofuel due to its high carbon density. This means that that carbon will be released far sooner than it otherwise would have, likely magnitudes sooner. And it says nothing of the carbon that doesn't even make it into a product. The simple act of killing the forest and turning over the soil will immediately release carbon. But, you might say, we'll plant new growth and that'll absorb carbon at a faster rate than ever. Is that rate fast enough to account for the early release of the old growth carbon? How many cycles will it take to recapture that carbon? > Even the best of them it’s less than 6 feet of carbon containing soil. So? Is that an average for old growth forest soil? How does it compare to new growth soil average? A single measurement is meaningless here. More importantly, what is the comparitive density of the carbon in the soil? Depth of carbon-containing soil without a density doesn't tell me much about the total carbon stored. > the math is clear and easy to verify. If you say so, but unfortunately you didn't provide any math whatsoever. You seem confident though so if you have any sources, then please do share. I did a quick search for various numbers and comparisons and the numbers don't look good for your argument unless you are only comparing the rates at a given moment and ignoring the total sequestered carbon over a suitable time range (there's probably a better description for this...something like average years of sequestration for any given carbon atom during the average lifespan of an undisturbed old growth forest vs the same tract of land cyclically harvested and replanted at a profit-maximing rate over the same time period) |
Most of these products do actually end up sequestering carbon nearly indefinitely, as unless the house or structure burns down, the product ends up in the landfill or remains on site. Unlike forest products on the forest floor, they don't naturally decompose - we protect them to stop that, as a side effect of how we use them.
Because it is usually pretty well protected, and doesn't meaningfully decompose. Even in most (sufficiently old) landfills, you can dig up newspapers from the late 1800's and still read them. When people print things out, the vast majority of them end up shredded (and tossed in the trash), or just tossed in the trash - which ends up landfilling them, etc.
Once landfilled, what decomposition does happen can be mitigated by processing/burning/storing what methane and the like does come off them.
You're confusing carbon storage (as in total retained) with carbon flux (as in net amounts in/out). Something that old growth folks intentionally also do (first link), near as I can tell, to specifically confuse the issue. If you read carefully you can see them stepping around the issue in the first link I pointed you too.
TOTAL carbon starts to plateau relatively quickly, even as noted by old growth proponents - with total carbon flux dropping and eventually being roughly at equilibrium - usually well before we even consider a forest 'old growth'. If you look at the charts in the second link, you can see the actual curve.
Peak flux (as in total negative carbon) is usually at around 15-20 years.
I'm not proposing we cut down all old growth forests. That would be ugly and counterproductive.
Rather that making a forest that has already been cut down be untouched until it becomes old growth is not the most efficient way to reduce carbon, if we're trying to use forests as carbon sinks.
Be aware however, I've done the math before and even if we turn ALL potentially forestable AND farmable land into forests, it is impossible to sink all the carbon we're currently emitting into forests. Not even close, unfortunately.
But if land has already been harvested (which most has), the more efficient way to reduce carbon is a decent amount of turnover where the products end up going into either durable goods, or landfilled products.
I love trees, and spend a lot of time in nature. I've also done the research, and looked at the reality in front of me, and it's hard to ignore.