Kind of old news to me. The amount of carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere is laughably small. I mean, it's huge, but it's the smallest of the large scale sinks, and dwarfed by geological processes. I don't remember the numbers, but it's something like 1-2% of the problem. So every time I hear "plant a tree", I've just assumed it was someone trying to feel good about themselves while entire forests are literally dying from invasive insect diseases and new weather patterns disguised as drought. And the carbon only leaves the system if the wood is buried somewhere to become the next era's fossil fuel.
Carbon credits are basically gamification of preventing pollution, that represents reality in the same way that Catan represents a market economy. I like games, and it's better than nothing, but anything that approaches an actual solution to climate change is nothing short of transforming the entire energy economy. Thankfully you have people like Elon Musk who get that, which is why his "car company" is really trying to be a vertically-integrated energy company.
Also not mentioned in the article: forests are dark, which means they have low albedo. They trap incoming light, and thus energy, from the sun, warming up the atmosphere. I'm sure the researchers accounted for this because it's really well known, but it's just one more negative feedback for the pile.
-- ∇×V
Carbon credits are basically gamification of preventing pollution, that represents reality in the same way that Catan represents a market economy. I like games, and it's better than nothing, but anything that approaches an actual solution to climate change is nothing short of transforming the entire energy economy. Thankfully you have people like Elon Musk who get that, which is why his "car company" is really trying to be a vertically-integrated energy company.
Also not mentioned in the article: forests are dark, which means they have low albedo. They trap incoming light, and thus energy, from the sun, warming up the atmosphere. I'm sure the researchers accounted for this because it's really well known, but it's just one more negative feedback for the pile.
-- ∇×V