Trigger Warning: Community contains mostly bad environmental news (not by choice!). Community may also feature stories about animal agriculture and/or meat. Until tagging is available, please be aware and click accordingly.

🪲

Aussie Zone Rules.

Golden rule - be nice. If you wouldn’t say it in front of your ~~grandmother~~ favourite tree, don’t post it.
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. You are allowed to denigrate invasive plants or animals.
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here. Except invasive plants or animals.
No porn. Except photos of plants. Definitely not animals.
No Ads / Spamming. Except for photos or stories about plants and animals.
Nothing illegal in Australia. Like invasive plants or animals. Exotic microbes and invasive fungi also not welcome.
Make post titles descriptive with no swear words. Comments are a free for all using the above rules as a guide. Fuck invasive plants and animals.

🐝

/c/Aussie Environment acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

lodion@aussie.zone

Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone

Prescribed burns are used to reduce bushfire risk. A new study suggests it has the opposite effect (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 3 days ago by NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org to c/environment@aussie.zone

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Interesting, certainly runs counter to prevailing narrative.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08174-6

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm actually curious, given that forests don't actually fix carbon anymore (yay fungi) is there any amortised effect on co2 levels? or just a peak then increased uptake during regrowth.

Of course, smoke is bad

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

fix carbon anymore (yay fungi)

I've not made the time to get all up in my fungals, but i know a lot more understanding is coming out. Whats the deal?

For the rest of the thought, i've pictured it as a net loss, with a little uptake, a bit like the zoomed in hockey stick graph shows the yearly changes with the seasons. But i haven't any evidence to point to, if any exists.

For context, i live near bush and see the effects, so this all is just like, my opinion man... Ithink it retards growth, but there is definite regreening as you say, a lot though seems to be invasive weeds, so i don't know if the biomass actually increases that much. I suppose a tree ring study would show whether but offs effect biomass increase or noy.

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’ve not made the time to get all up in my fungals, but i know a lot more understanding is coming out. Whats the deal?

So I might be wrong here, I have no formal training in the carbon cycle and am not nor have ever been a biologist but I was under the impression that coal basically no longer can be made as it comes from a time before lignin (the stuff what makes plants woody) could be broken down by organisms. Now, barring unusual geological events, plants die and fall into the soil where the vast majority of their substance is metabolised by fungi which use it for energy emitting co2 in the process.

So if you take some area and forest it, there is now a mass of carbon bound into plant stuff, but since it reaches a steady state quickly it isn't really sequestering any after that. This is why carbon capture is sort of a farce, as captured carbon in its ideal form is coal.

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Oh gawd. Lignin and fungi i'd forgotten all about that. Biology was never my strong suit!

carbon capture is sort of a farce

Yeah, i like your phrasing here. By no means a bad thing to promote, but not the simple silver bullet solution to net zero/GHG reduction the marketing departments of large emitting companies make it out to be.

[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 1 points 2 hours ago

My apologies I lied to you.

That information is wrong, coal is still being formed today. Although mostly in bogs, which provide an environment where decay doesn't happen.

About a million to 10 million times slower than we are using it though, and the rate is declining relatively as bogs are cleared or mined for peat/moss and our coal use increases year on year.