
Bushfires Release over Half Australia’s Annual Carbon Emissions - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-24/bushfires-release-over-half-australia-s-annual-carbon-emissions
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mpol
The hype doesn't make sense and is probably just there for click-bait. The CO2
problem is about adding CO2 to the system. Digging up coal, oil or gas and
burning it, adds CO2 to the atmosphere that wasn't part of this system.
Burning trees that will grow back does not add any CO2 to the system, only
just temporary. The trees that grow back will take up the CO2 again.

You could argue all kinds of things however. The toxic dust coming off of it,
or the carbon monoxide isn't really good for humans. The wildlife probably
doesn't enjoy the fires either. And if there are more wildfires now than there
used to be, because of heat, that is a symptom of bigger problems. But the CO2
is not really the problem here in the wildfires.

~~~
truculent
This would be true in a system in equilibrium. Although, as you point out, we
are not at equilibrium, and so it's possible that the carbon storage won't be
replaced if (for example), the burn rate increases.

Also, in our case, the lag matters too.

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robbiep
I had a robust discussion about this today with my dad.

He says that the carbon released from back burning is counted in carbon
tallies, but that from bushfires isn’t.

I have no idea where he gets his sources from, and he generally doesn’t
either. However he nailed current carbon dioxide levels (407 ppm) - sI he
might know what he’s talking about. Does anyone know any more about this?

~~~
yodsanklai
I don't understand "back burning", but I'd say it makes sense not to count
bushfire since these trees are going to grow back and re-capture the same
amount of CO2 that has been released in the fire.

~~~
ajdlinux
> I don't understand "back burning"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn)

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exabrial
Is this a natural occurrence in this area? This may be hard to hear, but
natural wildfires are an important part of certain ecosystems. If man
interrupts, the native species can die out decreasing biodiversity and leading
to bigger problems.

~~~
sp332
The reduced rainfall of the last several years and the extra heat this year
means the forest is much drier than usual. It's burning faster and more of it
is on fire at once than normal. Last year, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology
predicted an increase in droughts and fires based on long-term trends in
rainfall and temperature. "There has been a long-term increase in extreme fire
weather, and in the length of the fire season, across large parts of
Australia." [http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-
climate/](http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/) Here's an article with
quotes from more Australian scientists: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
australia-50341210](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50341210)

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missosoup
Reforestation is not a viable solution to climate change. This should be a
wake up call to anyone who thinks planting trees will fix anything. As global
temperature rises, these kinds of wildfires will become more and more frequent
and we are not equipped to stop them. At this point scientists aren't even
sure if forests are a net carbon sink or source after accounting for
increasing wildfires.

At best, forests are not carbon _sinks_ , they are carbon _stores_. The only
way to turn them into sinks is to cut down fully grown trees and do something
with them that will prevent the release of their carbon content back into the
environment. If they burn or if they rot, they release all the carbon back
into the environment.

The scariest thing about climate change isn't the deniers, it's that most of
the people who identify as activists, are active towards ineffective measures.
If global climate policy doesn't involve a massive rollout of nuclear to power
electrochemical sequestration alongside a steep carbon tax, we might as well
just roll over now.

An average of 5 billion people has spent an average of 100 years burning
various fossil fuels to provide their energy which brought Co2 from ~300ppm to
~400ppm. There's no way to solve climate change without repaying that energy
debt.

[https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6)

~~~
h0l0cube
> Reforestation is not a viable solution to climate change.

It's a strange tangent to take here. The article makes no mention of
reforestation.

Just to give some background about the situation in Australia: many of the
trees are not just fire tolerant, but their seeds are triggered to germinate
when a fire passes through - they depend on fire. This means that 1000s of
saplings will arise where there were once 100s of established trees. This
increases the fire risk over the next 5 years, but it does capture back a lot
of that carbon.

A big problem is that much of the old growth forests, that have less tree
density, and thick canopies that rob much of the sunlight to smaller plants,
have been clear felled. In their place, is either regenerated forest, with a
higher fuel content, or with paddocks, where grass fires can rip straight
through.

But still, large canopy fires can still affect these old growth forests. As
with all bush fires, the only thing that can be done is to back burn to
contain them, and to ensure that sections of forests are divided by fire
breaks.

I suppose, to reduce fire risk and potentially releasing all this carbon, we
could just turn all the trees into furniture. But I love forests, so I hope
deforestation never becomes a popular idea.

So what are you suggesting Australia does here?

~~~
missosoup
There's a number of really obvious things for Australia to do. Like not voting
in a prime minister who literally brought a lump of coal into parliament and
told everyone that it represents the future[1]. We're ideally located for
renewable power, we have an abundance of uranium for nuclear. And yet we're
one of the worst polluters per capita in the world.

But my comment wasn't about Australia specifically. It was about the general
notion which has spread, that planting a bunch of trees will make a meaningful
dent on climate change. It won't. It takes 10 minutes and the back of one
envelope to do the math to understand that it won't. If you do the math,
you'll find that every person on earth must plant 20 trees each year to offset
their average Co2 emissions for that year alone, nothing to speak of the 5b
people * 100 years debt we must repay to wind back atmospheric Co2. And once
fully grown those trees need to be cut down and buried deep underground to
contain their carbon content from returning to the cycle.

We must focus our effort towards effective solutions because focusing it on
ineffective ones is worse than doing nothing. Afforestation is not an
effective solution.

I'm not against afforestation, but at this point we need to run the numbers to
figure out whether it makes things better or worse given that rising
temperatures mean an increasing number of wildfires that can't be stopped.
Wildfires that dump 6 months of an entire nation's Co2 output into the air in
the span of a few days.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-m...](https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-
morrison-brings-a-chunk-of-coal-into-parliament-video)

~~~
solarengineer
It is necessary to have multiple solutions. There needn’t be just one.

We need to restore forest cover for reasons I’ve responded to you on in
another thread.

We need to have low carbon energy - I’m one of those coming around to Nuclear
energy.

We need to stop pollution via plastics.

We need to stop greenhouse gas emissions and figure out solutions to address
those gases that we’ve already released.

Your reminder about the wild fires dumping half the years CO2 into the air the
the span of a few days is a sobering thought. But, your general message
(despite your clarifications) seems to suggest that we might just as well get
rid of all trees and artificially supply ourselves with oxygen.

