Increasing Wildfires Could Negate the Effects of Forest Carbon Offsets (opb.org) 94
In 2022, the Financial Times reported:
Wildfires have depleted almost all of the carbon credits set aside in reserve by forestry projects in the U.S. to protect against the risk of trees being damaged over 100 years, a new independent study has found.
As a result of fires, six forest projects in California's carbon trading system had released between 5.7mn and 6.8mn tonnes of carbon since 2015, the non-profit research group CarbonPlan estimated. That was at least 95 per cent of the roughly 6mn offsets set aside to insure all forest projects against the risk of fire over a century-long period.
This month Oregon Public Broadcasting remembered what happened in Oregon, where The Green Diamond timber company promised to slow logging on 570,000 acres. "In exchange, the company received millions of dollars in payments from Microsoft and other companies seeking to offset their carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels by paying to grow more wood on this land."
Then came 2021's Bootleg Fire: In burning through nearly 20% of the company's Klamath project lands, it also has helped to stoke a broader debate about the ability of the multibillion-dollar forestry offset markets to deliver the carbon savings that are supposed to happen from these deals... During the fire, Green Diamond lost live trees that stored some 3.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That is equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced through the course of a year by more than 785,000 cars driving 11,500 miles.
A small portion of Green Diamond's lost carbon went directly into the atmosphere through combustion as the fire swept through the forest. The vast majority now resides in dead trees. They will eventually release this carbon as they topple to the ground and begin the decades-long process of decay, or perhaps more quickly should another fire sweep through this land. Fires also have caused big losses in two other Pacific Northwest forest tracts that had been used to offset fossil fuel pollution. In Northeast Washington, wildfires have repeatedly buffeted a large carbon offset project on the lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville. In Central Oregon, the Lionshead Fire torched most of the acreage of a carbon offset project developed by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. That project — like Green Diamond's — is likely to be terminated.
It's not just happening in the U.S. In June Bloomberg reported that "Canada's explosive wildfire season has already pumped millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Some of that carbon is coming from vegetation burned at a carbon offset project, highlighting the fragility of a tool the world is relying on to fight catastrophic climate change." (Though an executive running one project said "About 100 hectares of our 40,000 hectare project was involved in this fire," or about 0.25 per cent of the project.)
Oregon Public Broadcasting points out that there's currently 149 forest carbon projects on 5.5 million acres in 29 U.S. states...
As a result of fires, six forest projects in California's carbon trading system had released between 5.7mn and 6.8mn tonnes of carbon since 2015, the non-profit research group CarbonPlan estimated. That was at least 95 per cent of the roughly 6mn offsets set aside to insure all forest projects against the risk of fire over a century-long period.
This month Oregon Public Broadcasting remembered what happened in Oregon, where The Green Diamond timber company promised to slow logging on 570,000 acres. "In exchange, the company received millions of dollars in payments from Microsoft and other companies seeking to offset their carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels by paying to grow more wood on this land."
Then came 2021's Bootleg Fire: In burning through nearly 20% of the company's Klamath project lands, it also has helped to stoke a broader debate about the ability of the multibillion-dollar forestry offset markets to deliver the carbon savings that are supposed to happen from these deals... During the fire, Green Diamond lost live trees that stored some 3.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That is equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced through the course of a year by more than 785,000 cars driving 11,500 miles.
A small portion of Green Diamond's lost carbon went directly into the atmosphere through combustion as the fire swept through the forest. The vast majority now resides in dead trees. They will eventually release this carbon as they topple to the ground and begin the decades-long process of decay, or perhaps more quickly should another fire sweep through this land. Fires also have caused big losses in two other Pacific Northwest forest tracts that had been used to offset fossil fuel pollution. In Northeast Washington, wildfires have repeatedly buffeted a large carbon offset project on the lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville. In Central Oregon, the Lionshead Fire torched most of the acreage of a carbon offset project developed by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. That project — like Green Diamond's — is likely to be terminated.
It's not just happening in the U.S. In June Bloomberg reported that "Canada's explosive wildfire season has already pumped millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Some of that carbon is coming from vegetation burned at a carbon offset project, highlighting the fragility of a tool the world is relying on to fight catastrophic climate change." (Though an executive running one project said "About 100 hectares of our 40,000 hectare project was involved in this fire," or about 0.25 per cent of the project.)
Oregon Public Broadcasting points out that there's currently 149 forest carbon projects on 5.5 million acres in 29 U.S. states...
Fix Climate Change (Score:2, Insightful)
The only way to fix climate change is by voting.
No silly, not the Green Party... the leftist establishment. Those are the ones who will save us. - Leftist
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To be fair, the Conservative Part of Canada did vote to ignore climate change
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politi... [www.cbc.ca]
Now a year and a half later, Canada is experiencing the worst wildfire season, ever. And it's the worst by a wide margin, filling cities across North America with smoke.
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Which is fine. I mean, why bother with climate change, when it doesn't affect them as much? . I mean, the Conservatives have no voters in the US they care about, so who cares if the wildfires affect Americans?
Spending money on the pr
Irrigation is how to stop wildfires (Score:4, Insightful)
Wet forests don't burn. Time to step up to the next stage of terraforming mother earth.
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It would also help to vacuum the forest floors. Have you seen how dirty they are?
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https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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Maybe if they just started making trees out of more fire-resistant materials, it wouldn't be such a problem.
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Oddly enough, many of the trees in these areas are already significantly fire resistant- wildfires are part of their reproductive system. But if you are going to stop the wildfires to build a neighborhood in a forest, then you'd better be using your sewage to keep the forest wet.
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Piping water across continents should be just as easy as oil and other poisons, but I don't see any money in it. There is no profit in saving forests
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Doubtful we could build a pipe big enough, let along desalinate that much water from the obvious source, the ocean. Maybe if we get the fusion thing working, we could. Maybe.
I think the truth is becoming more clear, there's not a damned thing we can do about mitigating CO2, we just don't have that much influence. We _COULD_ perform some terraforming geo-engineering approaches, but of course the climate alarmists would all have a cow, so we can't do that, we just have to let the earth cinderize.
Re: Irrigation is how to stop wildfires (Score:2)
We can build large domes where we can live out the climate collapse for generations. Obviously not ideal conditions for libertarians that find difficulty in paying taxes or following community rules. Sorry guys, the future looks bleak for you. Guess you should have invested more time in ecoterrorism than in quoting Ayn Rand. On the bright side the leftists of will finally get the socialized housing they have asked for. And the right will sell us utilities like oxygen and water under a legally enforced monop
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"We can build large domes where we can live out the climate collapse for generations."
No we can't, that "Logans Run" sifi stuff is fantasy. We need the large expanse of agricultural fields open to the sun to produce food for significant populations. The truth is that a real "climate crisis" will more thoroughly depopulate the earth than WOPR-initiated Global Thermonuclear War.
Our best chance is to make sure that all the "climate activists" are the 1st to go, and then the rest of what's left of rational h
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Redesigning your local sewage treatment plant is usually sufficient. Plants don't need clean fresh water.
Canada is Really Big (Score:2)
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You don't need fresh water for this. Use the forest to filter your town's sewage.
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I guarantee that forest will be green!
Those carbon offsets (Score:5, Insightful)
literally went up in smoke.
And this is precisely why carbon offsets are such a scam. Most of them have very obvious loopholes, or are only good for a few decades. This story talks about trees burning. But even if the trees didn't burn, their lifespans are usually measured in decades, and then they die and rot, releasing all that stored carbon into the air.
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Most rotting carbon from trees get stuck in the soil. Not the air.
Re:Those carbon offsets (Score:4, Insightful)
If the trees were cut for timber, and the subsequent lumber used for housing... and a new forest planted to continue capturing carbon... would that still count as a carbon offset?
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Probably. Though one might want to consider the CO2 costs of harvesting, shipping to the processing center, what percentage actually ends up as lumber as opposed to sawdust used to make paper and such, what percentage of the lumber actually goes into the houses, the CO2 costs of the processing*, how long you can expect the lumber to last in the house, etc...
But on the whole, I'd expect the lumber used to construct a house to store the CO2 longer than in a unharvested tree.
*Which could be made better by swi
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Probably. Though one might want to consider the CO2 costs of harvesting, shipping to the processing center, what percentage actually ends up as lumber as opposed to sawdust used to make paper and such, what percentage of the lumber actually goes into the houses, the CO2 costs of the processing*, how long you can expect the lumber to last in the house, etc...
But on the whole, I'd expect the lumber used to construct a house to store the CO2 longer than in a unharvested tree.
*Which could be made better by switching to green power, of course.
It'd emit a lot less CO2 to use wood than building things out of concrete or making things out of plastic.
Materials development & switching to already existing greener technologies is another area where we can significantly reduce CO2 emissions. You can build relatively tall residential & office buildings out of wood these days. Whereas concrete is a huge CO2 emitter.
Meanwhile, the plastics industry has grown exponentially in recent years & plastics production is a heavy CO2 emitter (as we
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You have a point, but I was in the mindset of "carbon credits", where you get a credit for "sinking" carbon.
You're listing ways to reduce, thus reducing the need to buy carbon credits in the first place.
Do you get credits for building a building out of wood? Do you need to prove that without the credit you'd still build the building, just out of concrete instead?
There's also lifecycle costs to consider - would a modern wood framed office building(for example) last as long as a concrete one?
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Well, I do consider most "Carbon credit" schemes to be more or less scams. Sometimes the money goes towards things that are otherwise worthy, but not often.
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Those houses also have a lifespan. In the US anyway, a 100 year old house is very, very old. Most houses built only 80 years ago have already been demolished. That wood largely goes to landfills, where it rots and goes back into the atmosphere. So even using wood in housing isn't a long-term carbon offset.
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So even using wood in housing isn't a long-term carbon offset.
A forest is a carbon offset even if individual trees have limited lifespan. If wood is used in housing it will be a carbon offset as long as there are people living in houses.
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And eventually, all that wood used in houses will be demolished or run down, and rot, and release the carbon back into the atmosphere. So the effect is only temporary, even if that effect lasts for decades or even a couple of centuries.
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Granted the effect only lasts as long as there are any houses made with wood: Beyond that I don't think humans will be around, at least not on earth so it seems like a reasonable timescale to me YMMV.
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Sure, wood will be around a long time, but not forever. And the implication of carbon offsets is that all or most of the wood will sequester carbon indefinitely. The truth is more like, just net new houses add any beneficial effect, since replacing old homes with new ones discards old wood, replacing it with new wood.
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Sure, wood will be around a long time, but not forever. And the implication of carbon offsets is that all or most of the wood will sequester carbon indefinitely. The truth is more like, just net new houses add any beneficial effect, since replacing old homes with new ones discards old wood, replacing it with new wood.
No reasonable person has suggested carbon offsets are "forever" or "indefinitely", earth itself is expected to have a limited lifespan. Yes net new wood in houses increases the carbon offset, I don't think that's been questioned.
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> That wood largely goes to landfills, where it rots and goes back into the atmosphere.
It goes back to the soil and the carbon is still sequestered actually.
You CO2 alarmist can't even get the science right.
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You might want to check your sources. Rotting wood, according to science, is a major carbon emitter. See sources below.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/... [usda.gov] (Paragraph 1)
https://theconversation.com/de... [theconversation.com]
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/j... [nasa.gov]
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Yes and no (Score:3)
This is being actively studied but generally managed forest areas are carbon sinks but are at risk from fire and pests both of which are unfortunately made more likely by global warming. While there certainly are carbon capture scams out there, those are based on the accounting used. The basic principle of forests removing and storin
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While forests may be carbon sinks in the short term, every single tree will eventually die, usually in timespans measured in decades. All that wood--100% of it--that was sequestering the carbon, is broken down by various processes and released back into the atmosphere. So the effect is only temporary, even if that temporariness is measured in decades.
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All that wood--100% of it--that was sequestering the carbon, is broken down by various processes and released back into the atmosphere.
That's not true. Some of it is released but not all of it. The rest is trapped in the soil formed by decaying leaf litter and fallen trees. This is where coal and peat came from. That carbon was sequestered for millions of years until we started to burn and release it.
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OK you're right, 100% was too high. Some is trapped in the soil, though some of that trapped CO2 in the soil is incorporated into new plants, which in turn will die and release more CO2.
The fact remains that rotting timber is a major CO2 emitter. https://theconversation.com/de... [theconversation.com]
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even if the trees didn't burn, their lifespans are usually measured in decades, and then they die and rot, releasing all that stored carbon into the air.
False. A portion of the stored carbon is released into the air. A portion is retained in the soil. Another portion becomes fungus, some percentage of which is eaten, etc etc.
I don't know where you anti-biosphere trolls got this idea that all of the carbon is returned to the atmosphere when a tree dies, but that's false even when it burns. Try science, it helps.
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See https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/... [usda.gov] (Paragraph 1).
I didn't make this stuff up.
All of your destinations for carbon are temporary. Perhaps a bit stays in the soil permanently, but most is incorporated into new living things, which in turn die and release more carbon. Fungus is likewise temporary, as fungus also has a lifespan, and unlike plants, fungi take in oxygen and release CO2. Food passes through the digestive tract and ends up as sewage, which releases C02, or is exhaled as CO2.
Decaying forest wood
Re: Those carbon offsets (Score:2)
ALL destinations for EVERYTHING are temporary, but that's not what's really relevant.
Anaerobic decomposition of tree matter does release most of the carbon. That's why rain forests fix little net carbon. But aerobic decomposition is different.
But EVEN WHEN TREES BURN a third of their mass or more is subsoil, so there is a good chance even then of long term carbon retention, depending on soil conditions.
wait, wait just a minute (Score:1)
you mean if the forests burn and release the carbon in them, that will negate the effects of trying to trap carbon in them ?
+1 insightful
this is why emphasizing REDUCTION of the amount of carbon into the atmosphere is that much more important.
Could? (Score:2)
Forests make ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The only credit a forest should get for carbon sequestration is the equivalent tons of carbon permanently removed by logging trucks.
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Nah, they create soil and lumber.
Some is returned but it's net-negative.
Blame the mushrooms if you want but that's how coal was made.
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Nah, they create soil and lumber.
Some is returned but it's net-negative.
Blame the mushrooms if you want but that's how coal was made.
Considering coal was only possible because no fungus or other microbes had evolved to break down lignin, it’s not a valid argument for forests being a sink because coal won’t form anymore. Well, unless all of those species goes extinct though I’m not sure killing off life to the point there is nothing left to decompose plant material is a good solution to avoiding a planet wide catastrophe.
Also just to be clear, lumber only increases the carbon storage temporarily, and while it has a po
um, that's on odd way of misunderstanding (Score:2)
Yes, trees die or burn and release their carbon, BUT as long as you plant new ones and keep the forests essentially the same, the carbon is re-captured and re-sequestered. This is called "the carbon cycle" and is hardly new.
The idea that this is therefore "carbon neutral" and that this means anything negative about using trees to sequester carbon is however bizarre and seems related to the way politicians in Washington DC do their bookkeeping - static accounting. A deliberate decision to not look at the pos
If only (Score:2, Insightful)
If only the climate were a multivariate complex time series in which we could include other parameters to consider and perhaps use to compensate. But alas, climate depends only on CO2.
Nuclear reactors. ZPG. (Score:5, Insightful)
Generate clean energy via nuclear power as well as renewables.
Aim for zero population growth or managed decline. Family planning should be cheap, available, and stigma-free worldwide.
Re: Nuclear reactors. ZPG. (Score:3, Interesting)
But, but the whole capitalist economy depends on growth. Someone bring the news to Wallstreet that the planet doesn't scale.
Re: Nuclear reactors. ZPG. (Score:2)
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Wake me up when a nuclear reactor gives more energy than it takes to make the reactor, spin the fuel, set the reactor up, set the concrete up, add a reactor head, then the energy takes when the reactor decides to go full elephant's foot and make a hot rush for the water table. Nuclear reactors are either in a state of have melted down, or will melt down... which fossil fuel based energy has to clean up. Especially because even the newest reactors have a fundamentally unchanged design since the 1950s where
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Where did you get the information that construction of a nuclear plant takes more energy than it produces in its lifetime. This study gives about 90 cubic meters / MW output (in the introduction). So about 250 Tons/MW output.
Concrete production requires 100KWH/ton, so we need 2.5e4 KWH / MW output. That's only 25 hours to break even. That is only the concrete, but still it seems no where close to the
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I can understand the issue with older nuclear reactors, since they are essentially a potential "dirty bomb" because many reactors use pressurized water reactor designs.
But once we switch ti reactors that are not going to explode if the coolant is cut off, then we could many thousands of 50 to 250 MW reactors that are extremely safe to run fueled by way more plentiful thorium-232. That way, we don't need to use a huge amount of land or open water for massive solar power farms or wind turbine installations, w
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Do you mean a Zero Point Generator (also referred to as a Zero Point Module)
If we had a few of those we wouldn't need fossil fuels or nuclear.
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Hippy cretins (Score:2, Insightful)
Hippy cretins kneejerking from a couple of nuclear accidents in really old reactors pretty much brought the industry to its knees in the west (except france) and only now that idiot generation is retiring (except in germany where these morons still seem to have sway) from making a lot of noise about stuff they know fuck all about are new nuclear projects being attempted. Unfortunately its way too late.
One can only wonder how many extra billions of tons of CO2 have been pumped into the air due to countries u
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Re: Nuclear reactors. ZPG. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Generate clean energy via nuclear power as well as renewables.
Aim for zero population growth or managed decline. Family planning should be cheap, available, and stigma-free worldwide.
Managed decline?
You mean like what China is probably going thru now? I don't think the government is too happy with how managed it was.
Re: Nuclear reactors. ZPG. (Score:2)
Regrowth impact? (Score:2)
Do they even consider the regrowth of vegetation in the burned areas? Seems like it would be a considerable carbon sink. It would be nice if this was considered in the study.
Re:Regrowth impact? (Score:5, Informative)
The regrowth of the vegetation in the burned areas would only return the area to carbon neutral, at best.
It'd take years/decades for the vegetation to reach the same amount of carbon capture as the trees were holding before the fire.
Oddly enough, cutting the trees down then sticking them in a *deep* hole using sanitary landfill methods(so they won't rot), would result in a lot more carbon capture for longer.
But before that really makes sense, we should really lay off the fossil fuels.
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So, paying the logging companies not to log and thus creating a fire hazard was a terrible forest management plan in 2 ways?
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Mmmm, facts modded down as troll by someone who knows nothing about forest management or the wild fires in North America.
So delicious and expected.
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Mmmm, carefully selected facts modded down as troll by someone who knows more than you about forest management or the wild fires of North America.
Fixed that for you.
You're welcome!
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While his "two facts" might be carefully selected, though in this case I have a hard time identifying them, does that change the idea that our forest management plans have been horrible for a number of years, leading to things like increased forest fires in California?
I think the troll rating is thus ill chosen. "overrated" at best. If they actually "know more", then they should post, not downrate. Educate us.
There's issues with logging, yes. Including tendencies to clear cut an area then replant with a
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Don't worry, I'm not one of those people who will point to a few fire management techniques you didn't expressly list and beat you over the head with them. My beef is with the commenter above, who isn't, despite his name, smarter than most people here (and probably lives under a bridge, if you catch my drift).
I agree with your comment, as a matter of fact. Unless we cut down on fossil fuel use, we're going to be in serious trouble. What really pisses me off is that if we weren't so thirsty for that cheap
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Mmmm, facts modded down as troll by someone who knows nothing
Hmm.. A troll account modded down as troll. What else did you expect?
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The regrowth of the vegetation in the burned areas would only return the area to carbon neutral, at best.
It'd take years/decades for the vegetation to reach the same amount of carbon capture as the trees were holding before the fire.
Oddly enough, cutting the trees down then sticking them in a *deep* hole using sanitary landfill methods(so they won't rot), would result in a lot more carbon capture for longer.
But before that really makes sense, we should really lay off the fossil fuels.
Tell that to Chinese, not me. West is gradually decomissioning its coal plants, they are building new ones.
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I _think_ you can burn the wood in the absence of oxygen to make charcoal (and very little CO2) - then bury that, say, down a coal mine. I'm not sure the rotting problem matters if you do all of that. I'd imagine there are concerns about underground fires, but I'm sure there's a way to make those unlikely/impossible or not a problem. I'm sure someone's done all the research so most problems are probably solved.
Right now, charcoal has value, so anyone doing this would be "losing out" on a whole load of profi
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Burning wood anaerobicly is the way you make charcoal, yes. It is currently valuable otherwise, so lost profit by burying it. It would increase the carbon stored by mass/volume, but it would also reduce carbon storage by amount of trees harvested cecause some co2 is still released, plus is more processing, so more expensive. It may or may not sequester the carbon longer.
Still, even converting them to charcoal first you're still sticking trees in a hole.
Yep, (Score:3)
the death spiral has begun.
What are mn tonnes (BTW I live in MN) (Score:2)
Do they mean million tons (metric)?
There should be no such thing as a tonne
1000 grams = 1 Kilogram (Kg)
1000 Kg = 1 Megagram (Mg)
1000 Mg = 1 Gigagram (Gg)
1000 Gg = 1 Teragram (Tg) - this is a million tonnes
1000 Tg = 1 Petagram (Pg)
and do they just refer to the mass of the carbon, or take into account the oxygen included in the CO2
Anyway Hilary should put out many of the fires on the west coast.
What this shows.. (Score:3)
You need to do it all
Good thing it isn't 100 years ago (Score:1)
Stop being ridiculous (Score:2)
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Re: Good thing it isn't 100 years ago (Score:2)
Free Carbon Offsets (Score:2)
Accept no substitution: http://www.freecarbonoffsets.c... [freecarbonoffsets.com]
Forest Fires = Red Herring (Score:2)
Stop worrying about forest fires and cow burps. Those are part of full carbon cycles and are literally self-managing. For the uninitiated, here's how a forest fire works:
1. A forest exists.
2. A forest burns and emits X amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere
3. A forest grows where the previous forest burned and re-sequesters the previously released CO2.
The only time a problem occurs in this cycle is when the forest is not re-planted.
Here's how cow burps work:
1. Cows exist.
2. We grow plants (which
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Cut the trees down, use some of the wood, pyrolize the rest and sell it to be buried in farms.
No, pyrolysis is not burning. You get volatiles that can be used for fuel or to generate electricity, process heat, and biochar. It turns carbohydrates into carbon, which can stay in the earth for centuries, absorbing nutrients that would normally leach out or run off into rivers.