this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2024
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Climate
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No the scam is eg buying a piece of land with a bunch of trees, and then promising to not cut them down. The not cutting down is then calculated as x tonnes of co2 compensation.
That’s the issue though, trees were thought to be carbon positive, A the tree species matters, and when the trees naturally die it comes back out. It’s only temporary storage.
Idk if I would call it a scam or if they just didn’t do enough prior research ahead of time.
You’re being way too thoughtful and nice about it. Commendable, truly - but the people running this scam might just as well buy a box of matches and promise not to ignite them. It’s to evade regulation, not to actually make a change.
In the context of the USA, yeah I guess that’s fair.
Other countries have better checks and balances, most of what I’ve seen on this has been non-USA research, so likely there’s a reason for that.
I don't think it all comes out though? Unless you just burn the wood or allow it to decay.
I reckon that a timber house is going to be carbon positive for quite a while. Unless it burns down or is neglected so bad that it decays. Same for high quality furniture.
You’re not wrong, but eventually it will decay and come out. 1000 years, or demolished for an expansion after 10 years.
Survivorship bias as well, not all timber houses will last the test of time, same with furniture. The point is, it all will eventually come back out, so it’s more of a, not my problem, it’s the futures problem. Or ship it to someone else. Either way, it’s neutral.
In the span of 1000 years, is there anything we can do anyway?