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Comment by hackbinary | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what the author is playing at, but I think at the very least he is trying to be a bit clever.

His argument is based upon that forest biomass is shrinking and therefore forest are causing CO2 emissions:

"When you add up both the absorption and emission, Canada's forests haven't been a net carbon sink since 2001. Due largely to forest fires and insect infestations, the trees have actually added to our country's greenhouse gas emissions for each of the past 15 years on record."

Forest only reduce CO2 when they photosynthesising, so if the forests are being killed by fire or insects, then the forests are not ingesting CO2 but are expelling.

They way this article is titled leads one to believe that forests are causing the problem and that it is implicitly okay to be reducing forest biomass. I think the title is misleading and disingenuous.

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For what it's worth, I did not misinterpret the title as you suggest, although I had enough background to know what's going on. What title would you suggest in roughly that amount of space?

Losses of Canadian forest resulted in net carbon emmissions

I like this, although it's a bit ambiguous whether it's the forests or Canada as a whole that experienced a "net carbon emmissions".

That is an ambiguity that is fine to write the story about. At least when the headline readers start posting the headline on Reddit others will know that there is an ambiguity to clear up.

> What title would you suggest in roughly that amount of space?

I'll try! something like this would be my offer:

> Canadian forests net carbon emitters due to biomass loss

vs the original

> Canada's forests emit more carbon than they absorb

close enough for me

Your basic premise is wrong. A forest that is photosynthesizing is not a carbon sink. Once a forest reaches a steady state and births are balanced by deaths the forest becomes carbon neutral. For every ton of new tree, an old tree dies, rots(slow)/burns down(fast), and releases it's carbon back into the ecosystem. Otherwise known as the carbon cycle.

So sure taking a million acres of trees and cutting them down, burning them, and putting building on them releases significant carbon... once. Similarly taking a million acres of desert and turning it into a forest will consume CO2 for 50 year or however long it takes to reach a steady state.

It's difficult to fit nuance into such a small title. And titles are not supposed to convey the entire message -- if they did, what would be the point of the article?

I understand where you are coming from, but that title is pointed, topical, and expanded upon in detail throughout the article.

"Damage to Canada's forests makes them emit more carbon than they absorb"

T,FTFY

And the forest fires and beetle vulnerability are not unrelated to current climate change (at least in California last I read), so that might help close the non-anthro-centricity argument they are using for different accounting methods.

Yeah, I'll concede that's pretty good.

True, but it also shouldn't be misleading. How many will just repeat the headline as a blanket statement but not read into it further?

The title should be changed, as it could be doing more damage than good...

Forest fires and logging are net carbon emitters.

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