If we planted lots more trees would it reduce the amount of CO2? THREOTICALLY?

Yes, until the trees died.

There's nothing wrong with being good stewards of the planet. Let's make sure that we plant a good variety so carpenters have a good selection for homeowners. Everyone should listen to Chuck Mangione - "Feels so Good" after they spend a laborious day planting trees. (There's an idea! If there's 5 billion people, then 20% of us could plant 1 tree in 1 day. You're brilliant ash05! How come climate scientists don't suggest things like that?)

Yes, carbon would be captured for the life of the tree, given up when the tree dies.

A better way would be to encourage the growth of peat.

Peat currently harbours as much carbon dioxide as is in the whole of the atmosphere.

Peat if left undisturbed and not dug for burning sequesters CO2 forever.

Main problem is that peat is not as "cuddly" or "sexy" as visually attractive trees, so it is hard to get people's enthusiasm up for it

Too much oxygen is not really a good thing. Our bodies are designed to operate with current atmospheric conditions. I think like 70 percent of the air we breath is nitrogen. 25 percent of the air is oxygen, and like one percent is carbon dioxide. The other 4 percent is about 10 other gases. I can't remember what they are. Now that I think of it, I don't think the atmosphere could support a billion more trees. If trees need carbon dioxide, and only 1 percent of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, you might not be able to plant that many trees without compromising other life that consumes carbon dioxide.

So before you go about planing all of those trees, you should grab a seat on the couch and listen to Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione.

Depends on what time of year you measure the CO2? CO2 goes up when it is winter in the northern hemisphere. That's where most of the land area is.

It would. Probably help save the economy as well with advancing the wood industry. Problem is people are somehow convinced if we chop down all the trees in this country and not plant any....they will somehow grow back over night.

Yes. So why not? It would be better than giving the UN $100 billion like Obama did last December.

In theory, yes it would work. Synthetic trees also could be installed which absorb CO2 1000 times faster than natural trees. Yet there are better ways to absorb and sequester CO2 for centuries. A form of soil called Terra Preta or biochar would also work which also improves soil conditions, retains nutrients much longer, increases microbial activity, retains soils moisture, reduces the need for deforestation and increases crop yields some 350-880 percent over poorer, native depleted soils.

"Slash-and-burn, which is commonly used in many parts of the world to prepare fields for crops, releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Slash-and-char, on the other hand, actually reduces greenhouse gases, Lehmann said, by sequestering huge amounts of carbon for thousands of years and substantially reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from soils.

"The result is that about 50 percent of the biomass carbon is retained," Lehmann said. "By sequestering huge amounts of carbon, this technique constitutes a much longer and significant sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide than most other sequestration options, making it a powerful tool for long-term mitigation of climate change. In fact we have calculated that up to 12 percent of the carbon emissions produced by human activity could be offset annually if slash-and-burn were replaced by slash-and-char."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...

"The difference between terra preta and ordinary soils is immense. A hectare of meter-deep terra preta can contain 250 tonnes of carbon, as opposed to 100 tonnes in unimproved soils from similar parent material, according to Bruno Glaser, of the University of Bayreuth, Germany. To understand what this means, the difference in the carbon between these soils matches all of the vegetation on top of them. Furthermore, there is no clear limit to just how much biochar can be added to the soil.

Claims for biochar's capacity to capture carbon sound almost audacious. Johannes Lehmann, soil scientist and author of Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin, Properties, Management, believes that a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal to the total current fossil fuel emissions!"

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/00...