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catachresis wrote

Still not sustainable. It takes decades to grow a tree, that over the course of its lifetime absorbs a ton of carbon from the air. When burned for energy this carbon releases back into the atmosphere where it will need more decades to be absorbed by new trees, meanwhile more trees are being burned for their energy.

Surely it can be done, but I think this is one area where I agree with new green energy and that trees should stay in the ground and not get burned. (Even better is burying the trees to sequester the carbon underground.)

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lettuceLeafer wrote

I don't know what to say to this. Like wood has been used primarily for heat and cooking sustainably for over 100k years. Not to mention it's the method used by the poorest half of the world whos impact on climate change is basically nothing.

Idk it just seems weird that my statement which is just basically saying "let's replicate the lifestyle of the poor people who aren't causing climate change" and u respond with that will cause climate change if you burn wood like European settlers.

Which no shit. But like the people who burn wood current in the modern day aren't the ones responsible for climate change. It's usually one ton or much less. While the people who don't burn wood have like 10+ tons.

So instead of replicating the people who aren tcuasing the problem u wanna what? Just do more industrial products? Which sounds strange bc industrial products are the problem

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catachresis wrote

You’re totally right in that wood has been sustainable, but that isn’t the case anymore with 8 billion people on the planet. The world population has basically quadrupled in 100 years. There aren’t enough trees anymore for everyone to get one.

The poorest people in the world are the poorest because they don’t have access to energy. They also can’t find food or earn income if they are too busy harvesting firewood. This article suggests that people are resorting to digging up tree roots because there is no wood left.

Maybe I am saying more industrial energy products is the solution. I’ve been reading too much Hacker News recently. The people contributing 10+ tons of carbon aren’t contributing that because they aren’t using biomass for energy, it’s because they refuse to not use their AC (I read a claim yesterday that the US uses more power for AC than the entire African continent uses energy combined) or give up meat, not drive their oversized vehicle three miles to work, fly on planes without thought, and expect a package from Amazon everyday.

Energy is tricky. Industry isn’t going to stop until we are all dead. Energy consumption isn’t going down either, but you propose burning more trees even though we are already losing our forests to animal grazing and forest fires? The only solution I can see are new industrial solutions that can shift the paradigm of energy generation. Terraform Industries is doing very cool stuff in this space.

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lettuceLeafer wrote (edited )

Yeah I wasn't suggest a centralized energy company burn wood instead of oil. I meant that wood is a great solution if the individual has a vested jnterest in cutting it at a sustainable rate. Let's day someone lives in a cold area of the American Midwest and owns a forest of 10 acres. Cutting primarily dead trees and branches this can be done infinetly.

This being done is always going to be infinetly better than any industrial alternative. It's a energy method that an individual has a vested interest in enforcing conservation which has a multitude of benefits other than carbon. While industrial products the negative externalities of production are ridiculously harmful even if carbon nuetral from mines, to Millitary occupation, water poisoning, and disturbing the local ecosystem.

And it's Ovi not something I suggest everyone should do. Just saying it's a tool available

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catachresis wrote

Absolutely if people own a large forest they can responsibility use that for their energy but that’s such a small percent of the population it doesn’t help anyone. For the 99% of us that live in urban areas or by protected forests or can’t afford land or any other scenario where harvesting wood isn’t accessible what do we do?

That individual with a 10 acre forest is still going to need to rely on gas engines to fell trees and transport the wood across the forest.

It’s not nearly as efficient either. My mom loves her wood stove but spends nearly twice as much on wood in the winter as her natural gas bill would be if she used her heater.

I don’t like that I’m defending industry either, but biomass isn’t the way.

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