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Comment by mpol | Hacker News Reader

The hype doesn't make sense and is probably just there for click-bait. The CO2 problem is about adding CO2 to the system. Digging up coal, oil or gas and burning it, adds CO2 to the atmosphere that wasn't part of this system. Burning trees that will grow back does not add any CO2 to the system, only just temporary. The trees that grow back will take up the CO2 again.

You could argue all kinds of things however. The toxic dust coming off of it, or the carbon monoxide isn't really good for humans. The wildlife probably doesn't enjoy the fires either. And if there are more wildfires now than there used to be, because of heat, that is a symptom of bigger problems. But the CO2 is not really the problem here in the wildfires.

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This would be true in a system in equilibrium. Although, as you point out, we are not at equilibrium, and so it's possible that the carbon storage won't be replaced if (for example), the burn rate increases.

Also, in our case, the lag matters too.

It takes many decades for them to grow back, and in the meantime these fires will only become more and more frequent so maybe they never will.

In many regions, like my local mid-north coast area, what has burnt is rainforest which doesn't usually burn but has been impacted by several years of drought. It is quite likely these forests won't recover as dense rainforest and will transition to more sparse eucalyptus which is a net loss in carbon storage as well as a tragic ecosystem loss.

> Burning trees that will grow back does not add any CO2 to the system, only just temporary. The trees that grow back will take up the CO2 again.

This is stunningly illogical nonsense. There is no closed system [containing only trees and their CO2; the planet with all its molecules is probably a closed system], trees will happily grab any CO2 in the atmosphere regardless of where it comes from.

If you burn all the trees, none will grow back and all the CO2 will eventually be elsewhere (possibly, but not necessarily in other plants).

If you don't burn any trees, but instead cut them down to use them for building houses, new trees might grow using CO2 from other sources.

If you plant more trees without burning any, they will happily use all this evil "added" CO2 to grow.

It doesn't exactly matter how we count, but it's important we are consistent. If planting a tree is a carbon offset, then a tree burning down must be an emission. Otherwise bad actors will plant and burn and replant and reburn for infinite carbon credits.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised something like it is already happening.

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