California redwoods are tops in carbon storage needed to fight climate change, nonprofit says
Trees almost killed all life on the planet already once. Shocked? Sounds crazy but it’s right – trees bind CO2 very efficiently. Before bacteria learned to digest lignin, trees never rotted away when they toppled. The toppled trees just accumulated over millions of years eventually becoming our coal but they also drained the atmosphere of carbon. Down to the point where we approached too little CO2 and then all plant life dies as photosynthesis stops. With it, all else dies. We were in luck that bacteria learned to digest trees. CO2 is a trace gas in today’s air. That was not always this way. We need the tiny whiff of CO2 we have today as we are very close to the lower limit again. The Industrial Revolution saved us.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat Linkedin Thread
