Terrestrial vegetation is part of the planet's natural carbon cycle, i.e. forest fires are normal, expected, and necessary. Unlike oil and coal which hasn't historically extracted itself from deep underground to combust in the atmosphere.<p>It escapes me how anyone can consider it for long-term carbon storage/offsetting of excess atmospheric co2 derived from fossil fuels.
Forests can be a carbon sink if managed properly. Lumber is a carbon sink. If you build a structure with lumber, you are locking that carbon up. Smoke from a wildfire is a carbon creator. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Environmentalists preventing California forests becoming lumber are actually producing more CO2 in the atmosphere. I'm all for building more structures with lumber, locking carbon up.
the tweet is about forests burning in washington state, not california. apparently they lease trees up here for carbon offset programs and its not gonna work out very well in the long term based on the fires lately. :x
This is bound to happen as long as we keep practicing emotional approach to solving problems. The real scientific approach consists of breaking the problem down, quantifying different solutions, and prioritizing them based on cost, benefit and risk.<p>But, unfortunately, present-day people don't want to do that. They want instant gratification. The <i>feeling</i> that they are doing something to address the problem, even if it makes no sense in the long term. And the politicians keep sell them that feeling at a cost of such fiascos.
We need to start thinning the forests of dead wood. And use it for fuel. Capitalize this and start saving forests. And create new trees.<p>Imagine if all of those fury forests were to be converted to power