Posted By: Joiner
The Earth's "problem" started when we crawled out of the swamp and decided to live on the land.

TBH, at a macro level Earth would be completely ok with much higher CO₂ levels and temperatures, as they've been so in the past. Hell, the introduction of oxygen into the atmosphere was a far bigger change, as it was toxic to most of what was alive at the time. It's only a "problem" from our little perspective, because it could make things more difficult for us.

The opposite of sequesterastion is burning.

Ha ha. Now you've got Tony doing it!

Does it not depend on the difference between the growth rate and the digestion rate, if they are equal, then not a problem (as far as changing the environment), but if rotting is quicker than growth, then it is. I have no idea how fast different timbers rot down (naturally) and what gasses the bugs emit, but if we are to burn timber, then we should match that rate to make it a benign process (not counting other effects from smoke etc).
There must be some tables somewhere about all this, I can't believe that it has not been studied to death.

Quoting Steamy, "but if we are to burn timber, then we should match that rate to make it a benign process (not counting other effects from smoke etc)."

Yea but then that is a big should and as I am trying to explain all additions of CO2 add to the amount in the atmosphere, so not burning at all would have the best impact on minimising that.

And electric chain saws, tractors/forwarders (having no more pressure than horses hooves), lorries, men's lunch and all the rest of the embodied bit.

Seret says, "A certain level of CO2 in the atmosphere is normal though. The vast majority of biomass isn't burned, it just rots and in doing so releases exactly the same amount of carbon as is released in burning it."

But the problems ramp up as rotting takes ages burning happens a lot more and sooner adding to the concentration in the air (unnecessarily and unnecessarily quickly too)

Or we could migrate to areas that are less affected. Where they are is unknown at present but we coudl make a good stab at it. They would not be on low lying coastal areas (barmy idea anyway).
I did a chart once that showed that the early release of GHG causes more trouble than the later ones, but not sure where I posted it.

Posted By: SeretEven if we were speeding up one part of the process, the overall effect would be tiny, and the net amount of carbon moving through the cycle is still the same, so unless the system is particularly sensitive to a small change in timing I don't see that it's a problem worth worrying about

I think that is really the nub of the matter, Climate Scientists, who tend to come from a geology/geography background, can't agree on how things will change and at what level there will be significant change.
Physicists take a different approach and look at the rate of change, and using deterministic methods to predict what will happen, but with huge margins of error.
Statisticians look at the probabilities of something happening and compare it to what would happen if things did not change.
The rest if us tend to try and correlate what we see and extrapolate from there, which is just plain wrong.

Posted By: SeretSupply and demand will tend to push human use toward replacing at the same rate we're consuming. If we want biomass, we plant species which grow (ie: take up carbon) at the same rate we need to satisfy demand.

One of two economic theories that always holds true, just wish everyone would accept it and just get on with what is needed. So if it is accepted that atmospheric, or soot and dust, is a bad thing, force the price up through taxation, rather than subsidies the alternatives. There really is no free lunch in economics.

Posted By: SteamyTeaSo if it is accepted that atmospheric, or soot and dust, is a bad thing, force the price up through taxation, rather than subsidies the alternatives.

Do you mean “[s]o if it is accepted that atmospheric CO₂...is a bad thing”?

I completely agree with you that the financial mechanisms being used to (pretend to?) deal with this matter are totally back to front and that there are downsides to burning too much biomass which also need addressing. If, however, we went to some sort of carbon tax then treating carbon from the woods and carbon from holes in the ground as being equivalent (i.e., taxed at the same rate per kg of COâ‚‚) would not make sense.

Take the two full-time occupied houses in my road for example. The house I'm in has an LPG boiler. My neighbours have a couple of wood burners. At the moment they buy wood from the local estate but they'd like to buy the little patch of woodland immediately to the east of their house to keep as a mini-bird sanctuary (they're avid RSPB type peeps) and to copice carefully for wood for their own use. If they did that there'd be a one-off and proportionally small decrease in the total biomass in the woodland which would be equivalent to an emission of fossil COâ‚‚. After that, their heating would be carbon neutral as the woodland would be absorbing carbon at about the same rate they're pushing it up the chimney. It wouldn't make any sense to tax them for carbon emissions.

The house I'm in, though, would continue to push out fossil carbon as long as the LPG boiler is in use and really does need to be taxed so that the owners think carefully about alternative means of heating it.