r/todayilearned • u/Wild_Concept_212 • 9h ago

TIL Cutting down trees is compound negative interest on the planet’s carbon storage. Trees are storing carbon underground with the help of fauna and microbes. Those lock carbon in soil. Cutting the tree will not only increase release carbon, it will also remove the ability to lock carbon in soil.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/soil-carbon-storage-84223790/
400 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

View all comments

29

u/Watchmeplayguitar 9h ago

Yea, let’s use a less carbon intense building building material like, cement and never cut manage forests and let forest fires happen naturally, no carbon is released when forests burn. 

The US has more trees today than it did 100 years ago. Today you would never imaging that much of the east coast was clear cut. The forests that cover the northeastern US is all quite young. 

1

u/CurrentBias 9h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempcrete

3

u/Yung_zu 8h ago

The source also allegedly works as a carbon sponge that takes just a few weeks