alt Hacker NewsTrees respire. They breath in and out. At night time, many trees emit more CO2.
And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2.
Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria). Between 50-80% of it in fact. Likewise, most of the CO2 that has been captured has been captured by the ocean not by forests. About 25-30% of all human emissions have been captured by the ocean.
Forests (and grasslands) are tremendously important for ecosystems and our health but I think this focus on CO2 and oxygen is simply misleading. If that's your concern you should really be focusing on the ocean. Which IMO is in an even more dire strait than our forests
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The ocean breathes in and out too. Very little carbon sinks down to the sea floor. The ocean does happen to absorb a lot of CO2, but that's from acidification rather than photosynthesis.
> Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria). Between 50-80% of it in fact.
That fact checks out: about 70% of the earth's surface is covered by oceans. It follows that most photosynthesis, thus oxygen comes from oceans.
it looks like i'm guilty of having never really thought and done some research about this and i'm a bit ashamed to admit i fell in this trap and used to think forests and trees are the most important pieces in the system.
I don't get why media has been fixating so much on trees and forests (Amazonia!) without even mentioning ocean's role in this.
> Which IMO is in an even more dire strait than our forests
I think you are probably right, but could you kindly elaborate and provide more details? Very curious to hear your view and learn more.
If the ocean is the main hero there, why is the forest still important to our health?
“I couldn’t live with so many trees. They suck up all the oxygen.”
Forests do net sequester carbon. But if you want to really sock away the carbon you harvest the trees and pyrolize it. It will give you energy (heat) you can use and elemental carbon (biochar). You could bury that a few feet under or innoculate it with microorganisms and work it into fields. Carbon in that form will sit in the soil for hundreds of years. Thousands or millions if you bury it.