Costa Rica is a lush tropical place, which gets a lot of money for carbon credits. They have recently planted their 5 millionth tree. Now, it is generally agreed that planting trees in North America is not a great carbon sink, because of forest fires. But what of places, such as Costa Rica, which has no forest fires, but lots of volcanoes.
I was thinking of this because an old volcano is sputtering back to life, and it doesn't sound like there is any significant monitoring on it. If we plant trees on the slopes of fertile, active volcanoes, are we doing anything? I think Mt. St. Helens did a good job clearing the trees out.
In my opinion, the only good land carbon sink is a nice peat bog. It takes out carbon, until it becomes coal. Unfortunately, the great demand for stupid biofuels is causing these bogs to be drained and burned. These is more carbon released by these operations than most things. Forests are being cut down for land for ethanol-corn, and the high grain prices caused by this silliness, is also causing more land to be cleared for grazing. All of this wonderful activity is being subsidized by taxpayers.
Science, Technology, Linux, Earthquakes, Education, Geology, Nuclear. My retirement blog. I was a geophysics engineer with a big utility, doing earthquakes for Ontario.
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