What kind of tree should you plant if your goal is to sequester the most carbon? One that grows quickly, says Brendan I. Koerner, who writes The Green Lantern over at Slate.
Good bets include the Laurel Oak, pictured above. Five other hardwoods are listed as excellent choices.
Yellow poplars, scarlet oaks, London planes, American sweetgums, and European beech are all good at grabbing carbon out of the atmosphere. Koerner cites a New York City survey that found the Yellow poplar can sequester 137.26 pounds of carbon a year -- nearly double what the Laurel Oak, pictured above, can handle. An important caveat: if the tree dies and decomposes, all that carbon goes right back into the atmosphere; but turn that dead tree into furniture or lumber, and the carbon will stay locked up.
So can we plant our way to neutral carbon emissions? Perhaps, if we get really serious about planting trees, but we've got a lot of work to do: each mile travelled in a average car emits around one pound of carbon. And heating your house, your water, and cooking food also typically results in carbon emissions.
image via City of Huntersville zoning website
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Quick question - Won't a quick-growing tree die off a lot sooner than a slow-growing one? For example, a nieghbour of ours planted a fast-growing maple about 10-15 years ago and today it is on its last legs. Every winter, it loses a few branches due to the wind.
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They are not necessarily short lived, sweetgums and yellow poplars (tulip tree) can live well over 100 years. They both have interesting leaves, sweetgums turn bright red in the fall and yellow poplars have a really nice straight trunk (common in poplars) and bloom a really pretty "tulip-like" flower in the spring. I'm pushing these two because besides being two of my favorite trees, they are both native to the northeastern u.s.
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Question - aren't some evergreen species better carbon sinks? Such as hemlocks, firs, or spruces?
Evergreens grow quickly with a ready water source.
AND
Unlike deciduous trees, they don't lose their leaves every winter. If you look at the charts from Mt. Mauna Loa, it's clear that there's a spike in carbon throughout the hemisphere during wintertime due to the leaf loss - think of it, fewer leaves suckin' up carbon, and all the more detritus decomposing and giving off carbon.
view kmswann's profile
I think some basic facts are being overlooked here. Trees are valuable for more than just their carbon removal abilities.
When planted near homes and other buildings, trees shade buildings from solar heat gain, reducing summer air conditioning electrical demand. When many trees are planted in an area, their overall effects reduce the summer temperature differences often seen between urban, suburban and rural areas.
The softer landscape created by the presence of trees makes urban and suburban areas more livable.
Tree foliage and bark, reduces traffic and other noise by absorbing sound, making neighborhoods quieter.
On hillsides and sloped areas, trees prevent erosion of soil and pollution of waterways by sediment.
The ability of trees to remove carbon from the atmosphere is great, but let's not forget the other important work trees can do for us which also result in the reduction of carbon release.
view John H's profile