CO2 Sequestration

The ELF land, although largely a wildlife habitat with notable CO2 absorption value this is not part of ELF's aims but rather a consequence of ecological aims.

I'm prompted to write about trees being used for carbon offset via sequestration after I received a flyer, from the Liberal Democrats, touting initiatives on climate issues. I consider it a serious and fundamentally flawed proposal.

The two relevant issues that were brought up in flyer are:
1. The planting of trees to sequester CO2
2. The public supply of electrical charging points for the forthcoming electric car use.

The electric car although an idea that need have nothing to do with climate change has become intrinsically linked to a reduction in CO2 emissions. However the offset damage is not as prominently displayed, unsurprisingly ~ the details of which will follow.

The planting of trees to sequester 50 million tons of CO2 from 80,000 hectares of land

Planting trees is of no consequence to the overall CO2 sequestration as is deceptive for the following reasons.

  1. Planting tress requires land which is presumably already covered in vegetation
  2. Annual crops for clothing food and fuel cannot be reduced and the extended use of puffed rice packaging, crops for ethanol etc are already taking valuable resources for food etc,
  3. The active cultivation of trees requires management, which in turn requires people hours and machines which in turn use more resources. Allowing land to naturally regenerate produces no extra human consumer cost in terms of food and fuel etc.
  4. Trees on average collect can store some 2.5 tons of carbon in a year over the life of it's growth which culminates around 30 year whence the tree shed as much carbon debris as it absorbs. On this model the population of Plymouth would need the whole of Cornwall every 30 years to offset its carbon footprint.
  5. Trees are not the best carbon holders per surface area depth is very important as in marshes & wetland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56450965

The carbon footprint is a figure that represent is the amount of land an individual would require for their energy consumption if that used bt coal, nuclear and wind farms etc were to obtained via vegetable biomass. This was in 2010 some 12.5acres per inhabitant of Plymouth.

The footprint isn't just about carbon in it's present state and includes al consumption which brings me to the concept that electric cars are somehow an improvement, they are not. Electricity just shifts the burden of exploitation to other shores or offshore.

Li : wind


May 2023 Update