European forests near carbon saturation point (uh-huh)

Euronews ^ | 08/19/2013 07:36 CET

[Olog-hai]

A new study has warned that Europe’s forests are showing signs of reaching saturation point in their ability to absorb carbon dioxide. …

Forests currently soak up about 10 percent of Europe’s emissions, but woodlands from Spain to Sweden are getting older and are packed with trees that are less efficient at soaking them up. …

The information comes in a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. …

[wbill]

I read somewhere that grasses are the predominant producer of oxygen, not trees.

Yep, that makes a lot more sense. Grasses and underbrush.

I live in the Southeast. The Kudzu vines down here grow 10' a day, and will catch and eat slow moving animals (kidding, sort of). Just that right there is one heck of a carbon sink.

[KarlInOhio]

Yep, that makes a lot more sense. Grasses and underbrush.

But if it either rots or is eaten then it isn't a carbon sink because the carbon is released back into the environment. You need a way to freeze the carbon so that it isn't released, so I propose chopping down the Black Forest and making and burying non-degradable bioplastics. Let some water bottle's 10,000 year life span do some good. (Do I hear the Sierra Club's heads exploding like the Martians in Mars Attacks yet?)

I live in the Southeast. The Kudzu vines down here grow 10' a day, and will catch and eat slow moving animals (kidding, sort of).

I'm far enough north I've never had to deal with kudzu (my battles are against honeysuckle and fence eating mulberry bushes), but that was funny.

[wbill]

Re: Kudzu....I drive by a pasture on my morning commute. The horses LOVE it! They hang over the fences to get to it. They haven't figured out that if they just wait a little bit, it will come to get them.

A few local entrepeneurs have been grinding up the (roots? stems?) into a flour, and marketing the flour over in Japan. If "kudzu flour" ever takes off, there are plenty of people, right here in my hometown, who are sitting on a fortune.