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Newfie wrote:So.... my 168 acres of forest I’m sitting on, protecting from cutting, does that buy me an indulgence? Am I net carbon positive or negative?

In a rational world with a big CO2 tax, it seems to me it should get you a significant tax credit -- especially if you sign up to protect that land in a trust guaranteeing no major development, as some people do (and get tax benefits for that, though I don't know the details of that).

I suppose that at least someone who gets paid to let loggers take a bunch of trees, at least they pay some tax on the income. But they SHOULD pay a CO2 tax on all those trees lost, unless they replace those trees with new trees.

And I know -- our world isn't anything remotely approaching rational, overall.

Outcast_Searcher wrote:

Newfie wrote:So.... my 168 acres of forest I’m sitting on, protecting from cutting, does that buy me an indulgence? Am I net carbon positive or negative?

In a rational world with a big CO2 tax, it seems to me it should get you a significant tax credit -- especially if you sign up to protect that land in a trust guaranteeing no major development, as some people do (and get tax benefits for that, though I don't know the details of that).

I suppose that at least someone who gets paid to let loggers take a bunch of trees, at least they pay some tax on the income. But they SHOULD pay a CO2 tax on all those trees lost, unless they replace those trees with new trees.

And I know -- our world isn't anything remotely approaching rational, overall.

Except for clear cutting that is converted to grazing land or housing projects most timber harvests are promptly replaced by natural regrowth. You soon get a complete canopy of leaves growing as fast as they can trying to beat out the competition from the trees beside them.

Well yes, but the carbon is removed from the forest and used in building and paper and such. That’s the carbons pathway interest the environment. If the trees are left to grow, die, rot substantial fractions of the carbon become tied up in the earth.

Newfie wrote:Well yes, but the carbon is removed from the forest and used in building and paper and such. That’s the carbons pathway interest the environment. If the trees are left to grow, die, rot substantial fractions of the carbon become tied up in the earth.

The carbon in the lumber of a house frame stays in it until the house is burned or torn down. The carbon in paper stays in a file cabinet until it goes to the shredder and land fill. Eventually it all gets to rot somewhere just not next to the stump it came from.

Or burned. Like we need more landfills anyway. And they cap those and extract the gasses for fuel.

No, better to leave it on the forest floor where it was intended to be.

Newfie wrote:Well yes, but the carbon is removed from the forest and used in building and paper and such. That’s the carbons pathway interest the environment. If the trees are left to grow, die, rot substantial fractions of the carbon become tied up in the earth.

You beat me too it. A long time ago I saw a study on how much wood fiber we have stored in old land fills, mostly from junk mail and newspapers that were buried from the 1950's to present in tightly sealed landfills where the fibrous wood pulp can't decay effectively. Even the methanogenic bacteria that decay cellulose in swampy environments lack the water needed as a reaction medium to do their biological business and decay things.

By the same token all those old days landfills that accepted yard waste stored a lot of carbon as well. Just think about all those grass clippings and gathered fall leaves that are buried in huge dumps outside Chicago and Detroit and Pittsburgh! From time to time I have even wondered if all that long chain biological carbon we buried in North America before certain groups fomented for composting programs helped depress the growth rate for atmospheric CO2. Just think about those billions of copies of the NYT that have been buried around the Northeast USA in the last go years. That has to add up to a lot of tons of interred carbon and long delayed CO2 release. Even if you just bury something in the bare ground without landfill engineering to prevent water intrusion if it is more than 3 meters/10 feet deep and the soil is undisturbed the rate of decay is much slower than people realize. The trick is, oxygen flow is highly restricted and there is no sunlight, while temperatures stay very constant at temperatures that average the year around local mean. In the tropics that temperature is about 75 degrees, but in the temperate zones where most of the waste has been buried the last half century the temperature is about 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Up into lower Canada a city like Edmonton has soil that sits around refrigerator temperature another ten degrees cooler still.

As an example of that Tanada when my town closed it's small landfill back in the late 1990s we had to move a lot of the old fill to get to the required slopes. While doing that we were digging up old newspapers from 1968 that you could still read the stories on.

From Wiki
From Wiki LANDFILL-GAS

In the U.S., the number of landfill gas projects increased from 399 in 2005, to 594 in 2012[11] according to the Environmental Protection Agency. These projects are popular because they control energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These projects collect the methane gas and treat it, so it can be used for electricity or upgraded to pipeline-grade gas. (Methane gas has twenty-one times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide).[12] For example, in the U.S., Waste Management uses landfill gas as an energy source at 110 landfill gas-to-energy facilities. This energy production offsets almost two million tons of coal per year, creating energy equivalent to that needed by four hundred thousand homes. These projects also reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.[13]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which estimates that hundreds of landfills could support gas to energy projects, has also established the Landfill Methane Outreach Program. This program was developed to reduce methane emissions from landfills in a cost-effective manner by encouraging the development of environmentally and economically beneficial landfill gas-to-energy projects.[14]

Capture and use of landfill gas can be expensive. Some environmental groups claim that the projects do not produce "renewable power" because trash (their source) is not renewable. The Sierra Club opposes government subsidies for such projects.[12] The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) argues that government incentives should be directed more towards solar, wind, and energy-efficiency efforts.

IIRC the methane from landfills comes from the liquids in it, like slowly spoiling meat products that release moisture to support the bacteria?

pstarr wrote:Methane power generation entrapment is a failure, has been for decades.

But yet my electric co-op gets 36% of it's power from the states only remaining landfill. Name plate capacity 8000KW average, recent production 5500KW. The landfill accepts a little under a half million tons a year and has space and plans to operate through 2044.
http://www.washingtonelectric.coop/wp-c ... 6-2017.pdf

Better off to leave the trees in the forest, let them rot into the soil naturally.

Newfie wrote:Better off to leave the trees in the forest, let them rot into the soil naturally.

That assumes no human use of the forest or it's products. If that were true from the end of the last ice age to today could you be certain that humans would have survived to this time?
I think not.

Didn’t say it was possible, just desirable.

Newfie wrote:Didn’t say it was possible, just desirable.

I hear you but desirable for who? The snails and soil bacteria?

The “others”. Not people. Haven’t we had engiugh of our share already? When do we leave something for other species and our future generation?

So yes, snail and soil bacteria. Builds soil ya know.

Newfie wrote:The “others”. Not people. Haven’t we had engiugh of our share already? When do we leave something for other species and our future generation?

So yes, snail and soil bacteria. Builds soil ya know.

Hopefully there will be more then one future generation.

Yes. Hopefully there will be many more. Not certain, but ....

I hate even having to contemplate our future. Why do we even have to consider it?

The more I know about humans the more I’m convience that there is no great difference between us and chimps. Yes we have a few more tricks we have mastered. But we surely are not our own masters.

You fellas are kind of Doomish if you ask me. The human race persisted and even thrived for thousands of years before beginning the burning of FF's. TEOTWAWKI and the Apocalypse are not one and the same, after all. Just because we lose access to cheap fossil energy does not mean we all die. It probably means that our population overshoot halts and we die back to lower numbers, and that's grim enough in itself. But as long as nobody presses the nuclear button, we should survive as a species.

Maybe, maybe not. You and I will never know.

But the natural world you and I grew up with is severely altered. It will at least be further degraded. Who knows how much more devestation we wreck upon Earth in our further efforts to support our lifestyle, our food sources.

It’s past time to pay attention to our natural resources.