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Comment by pistoriusp | Hacker News Reader

Trees are batteries that store carbon. The carbon is restored into the atmosphere when a tree dies and decays, or is burnt.

A long time ago trees didn't decay because the Earth didn't have "fungus" that made them rot and decay. So they just piled on top of each other and turned into coal.

Plant more trees. https://onetreeplanted.org/

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> Trees are batteries that store carbon. The carbon is restored into the atmosphere when a tree dies and decays, or is burnt.

By extension, wooden building materials are carbon batteries as well. Plant more trees and build more things out of wood.

Beside the reasonable point that building out of wood allows "sequestrating" carbon long(er?) term, are there studies working the maths out and confirming that?

It seems the intuitively clear solutions often can be deceiving since there are hidden aspects balancing things out and I'm wondering if it's the case here.

A study is not really required to confirm that wooden constructions contain and retain their carbon. Even over many hundreds of years the wood in Tudor houses is chemically stable (without preservatives - as long as it has correct ventilation)

Studies may look into possible mistakes or optimizations that could be made, but the basic material reality is evidenced in plain sight.

Right, and I asked (or tried to, at least!) about that latter question: stuff like transport, isolation, etc that could make wood less interesting than other construction materials, environmentally.

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