Submerge that carbon
Monday, 30 June 2008
Look at the stored carbon in Kitch-iti-kipi, near Manistique, Michigan (2005 photo).
I think I have this right. Carbon levels in the air are affected by how much is emitted into the air. Reduce the amount entering the air (or reduce the amount already in the air), and we’re ahead.
So, one way to keep carbon out of the air: dead trees that don’t emit the carbon they hold. This article says by keeping dead trees emerged in water stores their carbon. Makes sense, they’re still trees, albeit waterlogged, and still holding their carbon.
What they don’t say is that if the trees are converted into building material or sculptures or whatever, it seems to me that stores carbon, too. It’s not decaying, so it’s not releasing its carbon….
Lesson? Cut more trees and keep the wood around.* Either submerged—or in your coffee table?
The difference, I guess, is that you can sell the fact that you’ve submerged the trees as carbon credits, but not that you’ve turned logs into lumber and into furniture, etc. Those you have to sell as material objects.
* Damage to the environment…priceless?