Future Forests bollocks

[peter warm]

I keep coming across these guys trying to say it's OK, dont chnage your lifestyle, just plant trees.
Dont get me wrong, I think planting trees (and burning them) is a great idea - natural solar collector and storage, but this stuff about negating your CO2 emissions, and pictures of casr and aeroplanes...
Back of envelope shows annual Uk CO2 emisions needs area size of Devon to be trees, and stary trees, for whole of foreseable future (100 yeasr min???)

[Chris Herring]

I don't understand this, but it is interesting.  Are you saying Pete, that once an area the size of Devon is growing trees, this will mop up the total UK CO2 emissions?  What happens as growth slows, as trees reach maturity?  Of course trees can be felled and used in houses, further sequestering the CO2 for probably at least another 100 years.  Really appreciate as Nick says seeing the sums laid out, or at least to be clear more precisely what you are suggesting.  Adding an area the size of Devon to our UK forested area doesn't actually sound very demanding (and presumably must be happening with the development of the National Forest, treeplanting and so on going on), but then of course this can't be used for fuel!

[peter warm]

clarifiaction:
As i last calculated it,  Devon would be needed each year to offset the total UK  CO2 production.
The twist is, that this area would need to be maintained continuously under forest - if it was cut down for farming, then the offset is void, and the only benefit is some delay in net emissions to the atmosphere.
Essentially what is happening is that we are locking up the annual UK emissions in the woodland.  Cutting the woodland for fuel is fine as long as the bulk of the wood remains as a carbon sink, and the woodland is allowed to re grow.

Anybody want to do some calcs? pete.

[Dan England]

It would definitely be good to have some proper figures for this... The problem as I understand it is that not only do these schemes encourage people to think that their lifestyles can be rendered consequence-free with just a few quid chucked at a nice tree planting scheme, but that a lot of the schemes which claim to be offsetting emissions aren't at all, as they're planting trees in places such as recently felled forest where there's no net gain to the planets' woodstore. But hey, at least some jetsetters get to feel less guilty...

[Tahir]

Just had someone on our site say that a trip to Spain and back could be offset by the planting of one tree, NZ and back 6 trees.

BY those calcs I'll be able to start carbon trading with my neighbours when I plant my woodland...

[David OLIVIER]

My calcs. suggest that if one has ultra-energy-efficient buildings, local tree planting might absorb as much CO2 as the residual fossil fuel use (a few 1,000kWh/yr of gas or LPG) emits. But I dont know where the space exists to plant new forests to absorb CO2 to offset developed countries' existing use of jet fuel. The world's a relatively crowded place (except for USA, Russia, Canada.)

[Nick Grant]

I had intended to do some sums and show the working but got tangled in the range of assumptions out there for CO2/Ha/tree growth period etc.

However just reading Mayer Hillman's excellent but sobering 'How we can save the planet' and came accross this:

"The Tyndall Centre (Britain's leading centre for climate change research) estimates that the carbon stored from doubling UK forested area over the next 50 years would be equivalent to only 2-3.4% of the current UK emissions of CO2. Their 'conservative achievable' scenario, . . . gives an annual offset of 0.701.3%. put another way, to offset total UK emissions at the current rate for the next 50 - 100 years would require tree planting over an area four times the size of the UK"

[Dan England]

Then we obviously need immense offshore rafts for hydroponic tree planting. Should fit quite nicely in the North Sea right where all those oil and gas rigs used to go. Simple, innit?

[Nick Grant]

Kind of what has been proposed but encouraging alge rather than trees by seeding with micronutrients. Sewage outfalls could do similar!

Thinking I shouldnt have started this off again but will anyway!

[Andy Simmonds]

10 things you should know about tree 'offsets'

http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/carbon-cycle/

....also this contribution in another strand pertains..albeit relating to the use of rather dead trees.. http://www.aecb.net/forum/index.php?topic=370.0