this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
15 points (100.0% liked)

United States | News & Politics

3624 readers
399 users here now

Welcome to !usa@midwest.social, where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.

If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.

Rules

Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.

No memes/pics of text

Post news related to the United States.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A similar decision in the UK resulted in clear-cutting old growth forests to feed biomass-burning power plants, with all the associated increase in atmosphere CO2

You also get all the same health consequences as burning coal. This is not a good move

top 7 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Well, they are not wrong. Trees are basically carbon neutral, they naturally release their carbon into the atmosphere when they die and rot, burning causes the same effect, just faster. Algae are the real carbon sinks, because when they die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean. Coal isn’t because it is carbon that has been sequestered underground.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

if trees are grown again, it's technically correct. however, soot, dust and smell are the real problems.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Kind of; the decision to burn means that you end up with half a forest, instead of a whole forest, with the balance of the CO2 ending up in the atmosphere.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

And it comes out of the atmosphere again when new trees grow, and they actually absorb more carbon when the trees are young and growing fast.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

Ideally, yes, but new human cultivated forests are often less dense than old natural ones. They'd have to plant more and account for forest fires and pests, human cultivated forests are more susceptible for.

It can work out, but you can't trust anybody to do it right.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Technically global warming is burning carbon from underground (coal, oil, ng) so wood is carbon that's in its natural cycle but I still don't like it. Unless you do it right there's still too much PM. Trash depends on the source and since we have so much plastic it's not.>

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago

A meaningful chunk is also from land use changes, where people decide to clear a forest, turning the trees into CO2. A decision to burn wood at scale like this has exactly that effect: you end up with a forest in various stages of regrowth, instead of a bunch of mature forest which is sequestering carbon.