Soldato
Could one become carbon neutral if one had the money, by just buying up a load of woodland and leaving it?
Philosophical question of the day
- Thread starter PapaLazaru
- Start date
Associate
No
Soldato
Buying up a field and planting native tree species and just leaving it, yes. However it depends on your lifestyle as well, you may exceed your allowance.
Man of Honour
No, because that existing woodland would have been helping to make you carbon neutral to start with.
You would need to hold your breath for the rest of your life also.
You would need to hold your breath for the rest of your life also.
Theoretically just buy more as required?
Well the woodland would have been offsetting carbon, but as it was not mine, it could have been built upon.
By buying it myself and making sure it was not built upon, I would be preserving it, hence being able to offset it against my own carbon footprint.
This is all theoretical, was just thinking about it today.
Associate
If the woodland already exists, buying it doesn't do anything to offset your carbon emissions, so no.
Would have*
Also, preventing trees from being cut down is as good as planting that many trees.
But I would be making sure they would not be cut down at some point?
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Caporegime
I think you should change the word 'philosophical' to something more accurate.
Like 'stupid'.
Like 'stupid'.
Associate
If they were actually going to be cut down imminently then alright, I'll give you that. If you just buy them based on the chance that they might have otherwise been cut down at some point in the future then no.
Soldato
This.
Because not all woodland is timber stock. And not all woodland is likely to be developed into housing. It's part of our ecosystem and has been tended, tailored, and protected for centuries. This is true of western Europe at least, forestry is a serious profession.
Buying the land or not will probably not influence much. And what good is being carbon neutral if the other 7,000,000,000 people don't change their behaviour?
Man of Honour
Peat bogs are more effective than woodland if CO2 is the only environmental concern (as it currently is, for some reason).
Boris, 50k new nurses means new nurses
e: A serious answer to the OP is undoubtedly "yes".
If you own x things that take carbon out of the environment, equivalent to y things that (directly or indirectly) put an equal amount of carbon into the environment, you must be carbon neutral.
Who built or planted those things is of no importance whatsoever.
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If you had a low carbon footprint you could offset it i guess. I would love to do this buy a few acres of woodland and look after it.
Indeed there are billionaires out there throwing away good money, Give me some and i would buy bare land and turn it into forest and look after it and unlike our forestry departments i would not be planting them just to cut them down either. They stay there unmolested so if you have a few k spare im willing to be a custodian.
Indeed there are billionaires out there throwing away good money, Give me some and i would buy bare land and turn it into forest and look after it and unlike our forestry departments i would not be planting them just to cut them down either. They stay there unmolested so if you have a few k spare im willing to be a custodian.
Not sure but I think it was an episode of Countryfile.If you had a low carbon footprint you could offset it i guess. I would love to do this buy a few acres of woodland and look after it.
Indeed there are billionaires out there throwing away good money, Give me some and i would buy bare land and turn it into forest and look after it and unlike our forestry departments i would not be planting them just to cut them down either. They stay there unmolested so if you have a few k spare im willing to be a custodian.
A chap claiming you could have more yield from a forested/underplanted "field" than a traditional, bare soil+cabbages type field.
You just, he claimed, have to grow trees which bear food, underplanted with shrubs that bear food, underplanted with crops that don't mind shade.
Whether that's true or not I don't know; it was a chap trying to sell himself/his way of farming, so maybe a pinch of salt required.
Hmm a good question would be how much is lost in yield? If not much it would be amazing for carbon and the Enviroment. I wonder would it work? A traditional soil field seems quite barren and needs a lot of fertilizer etc.
What if a tree line helped put nutrients in the soil? I know people use leaves as black gold fertilizer so theres some, And trees attract animals which poo there. And i guess if the trees drop the odd fruit that rots your soil would be richer.
I would maybe say theres something to it, They should look into things like this as modern farming is a bit chemical for my liking. Too intensive, Too chemical and it packs the soil too much.
Man of Honour
I'd go along with a maybe, but increasing yields enormously is the reason why modern farming developed in the way that it did. Even if the new/old method suggested did work, it would certainly make harvesting vastly more difficult (and thus more energy-intensive and labour-intensive). Are there enough people who'd do seasonable work harvesting by hand? Is that sustainable nowadays? Could anyone make enough money to live that way?
Maybe not food is vastly deflated in value, If people knew the time needed and benefits of organic food more the price of real food would double and more people would have re-thought the move from farm to city.
There is a sinister interest in the de-valueing of food i think.