[karolinepauls]

The world is more complicated than a 17th century lab experiment in combustion.

Forests sequester carbon through forest fires producing charcoal. Humans could actually cut down old trees, dry them, and convert them to charcoal later used for soil enrichment.

Wetlands capture carbon by incorporating wood from dead trees in anoxic conditions.

> When plant productivity exceeds decomposition, net soil carbon accumulation occurs. This process eventually leads to the formation of deep peat deposits, which can accumulate for thousands of years.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44246-024-00135-y (first search result for wetland carbon sink)

[lazytitanic]

> Forests sequester carbon through forest fires producing charcoal

Forgive me if I misunderstand, but the carbon in the charcoal resulting from forest fires isn't sequestered any more than the same carbon in the forest when in its un-burned state. The only difference is that, once you have a forest fire, a lot of the carbon is also just released into the atmosphere as CO2 in smoke.

[lithocarpus]

His point is charcoal doesn't decompose. It's very long term sequestered once it gets into the soil.

[RivieraKid]

Dead trees and other plants in a mature forest are decomposed and in that process, carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

[lithocarpus]

His point is charcoal doesn't decompose which is why we find soil with 5000 year old charcoal in it. It's basically permanently sequestered.

[RivieraKid]

Is it something that commonly happens in forests? I think mature forests today are approximately carbon neutral.

[lithocarpus]

It does sometimes in forests that burn. And generally, forests keep building up soil, it's disturbances and things like erosion (sometimes worsened by fires) that counter this buildup. But mature forests tend to do a lot better at resisting erosion and catastrophic (erosion-causing) fires.

[RivieraKid]

Forests do not infinitely accumulate soil. When we dig into the ground in a mature forest, the layer with organic remnants is not particularly thick. Dead organic decomposes and returns back above the ground.

[lazide]

Bwahaha, this is so ridiculous.

Show me the megatons/year of charcoal being produced by the worlds forests eh?

We could process them yes, but we can also just make them into timber - or burn them for energy. Or just bury them somewhere under a bunch of clay. Oh, and now we’re back to this thread.

[karolinepauls]

It's as ridiculous as the comparison of the most recent 12k years of the holocene to the age of plant life on the Earth.

As for using lumber for timber, when eventually disposed it would have to be turned into charcoal rather than burned for energy or let decompose in conditions that don't sequester carbon.

You also missed the point about using charcoal for soil enrichment.

[lazide]

There is zero chance this makes a difference at the scales required. That is my point. Or are you proposing somehow making billions of tons of lumber into charcoal a year, and stopping it from further decay?

There isn’t enough room. Let alone equipment.

and it sure isn’t what happens naturally.

[karolinepauls]

The parent comment I'm responding to is literally:

> A forest or wetland is a carbon sink only in the growth phase. In a long-term equilibrium, it's carbon-neutral, like biofuels.

To which I'm stating that forests and wetlands are not carbon-neutral but carbon-negative.

Then you miss the parent comment's context and start in an inflammatory way:

> Bwahaha, this is so ridiculous.

And take it somewhere else (move the goalpost) - from whether forests are carbon neutral or not to how effective charcoal creation is at carbon capture, in our human timescale.

Meanwhile the only practical point wrt. charcoal creation from forests was:

> Humans could actually cut down old trees, dry them, and convert them to charcoal later used for soil enrichment.

Which doesn't propose an effective carbon capture solution. At most it's something like emission reduction - the key phrase is old trees. And soil enrichment.

Recommendation: don't argue against points people didn't make.

[lazide]

Sounds like you might want to actually read the thread? Unless there is a geological process involved (very rare, and obvious when there is), long term forests and wetlands are carbon neutral - or they would be sitting on massive quantities of carbon. The vast majority are clearly not.

[karolinepauls]

I was responding to as single comment. I do not have a responsibility to respond to the whole thread. I'm going to include it again, in full:

> A forest or wetland is a carbon sink only in the growth phase. In a long-term equilibrium, it's carbon-neutral, like biofuels.

Highlight: *In a long-term equilibrium*. The comment literally talks about long time periods...