[extropy-chat] Global warming news

[Gary Miller]

Unless the leaves are actually burnt in backyards, we don't actually lose
their biomass and dissipate the CO2 do we?

In most wooded areas leave form a thick blanket on the ground and gradually
decompose eaten by bugs and slowly becoming soil.  If one takes a shovel to
the soil and turns it up one can find intact soggy leaves several inches
down.

Also do the tree mass calculations take into account the root systems of the
tree?  In many large trees there can be as much wood under the ground as
above ground needed to support the tree and nourish it.

Even if the trees is cut or burnt down the CO2 present in those root systems
deep in the ground must still contain sizable amounts of carbon which buried
as they are will be released very slowly back into the atmosphere.