If what you thought was true, imagine a forest sitting there for millions of years. Where would this permanently sequestered carbon be going? Soils do not become unboundedly thick.
Forests sequester carbon through forest fires producing charcoal. Humans could actually cut down old trees, dry them, and convert them to charcoal later used for soil enrichment.
Wetlands capture carbon by incorporating wood from dead trees in anoxic conditions.
> When plant productivity exceeds decomposition, net soil carbon accumulation occurs. This process eventually leads to the formation of deep peat deposits, which can accumulate for thousands of years.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44246-024-00135-y (first search result for wetland carbon sink)
Forgive me if I misunderstand, but the carbon in the charcoal resulting from forest fires isn't sequestered any more than the same carbon in the forest when in its un-burned state. The only difference is that, once you have a forest fire, a lot of the carbon is also just released into the atmosphere as CO2 in smoke.
Show me the megatons/year of charcoal being produced by the worlds forests eh?
We could process them yes, but we can also just make them into timber - or burn them for energy. Or just bury them somewhere under a bunch of clay. Oh, and now we’re back to this thread.
As for using lumber for timber, when eventually disposed it would have to be turned into charcoal rather than burned for energy or let decompose in conditions that don't sequester carbon.
You also missed the point about using charcoal for soil enrichment.
There isn’t enough room. Let alone equipment.
and it sure isn’t what happens naturally.
> A forest or wetland is a carbon sink only in the growth phase. In a long-term equilibrium, it's carbon-neutral, like biofuels.
To which I'm stating that forests and wetlands are not carbon-neutral but carbon-negative.
Then you miss the parent comment's context and start in an inflammatory way:
> Bwahaha, this is so ridiculous.
And take it somewhere else (move the goalpost) - from whether forests are carbon neutral or not to how effective charcoal creation is at carbon capture, in our human timescale.
Meanwhile the only practical point wrt. charcoal creation from forests was:
> Humans could actually cut down old trees, dry them, and convert them to charcoal later used for soil enrichment.
Which doesn't propose an effective carbon capture solution. At most it's something like emission reduction - the key phrase is old trees. And soil enrichment.
Recommendation: don't argue against points people didn't make.
> A forest or wetland is a carbon sink only in the growth phase. In a long-term equilibrium, it's carbon-neutral, like biofuels.
Highlight: *In a long-term equilibrium*. The comment literally talks about long time periods...
The point is that biofuel production isn't carbon neutral. Maybe it could be theoretically, but in practice it takes energy inputs in the production process like in the fertilizers, processing of crop into fuel, and transport/distribution, which makes it net positive for atmospheric carbon.