forests

Old growth forests are good carbon sinks

09.26.2008

Old growth temperate forests are an important global carbon sink, soaking up CO2 at much higher rates than previously thought.The dogma for many decades has been that once forests become mature, they have such a large volume of non-green respiring (and CO2 releasing) tissue that they do not accumulate carbon.As a result, old growth forests [...]

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Carbon sequestering forestry in Kentucky

09.25.2008

A private company, GreenTrees, is creating long-term contracts with landowners in the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley, including Western Kentucky, to plant forests of cottonwood and other hardwoods. The purpose of the project is to create value through a combination of biomass production for industry and carbon sequestration opportunities. Carbon sequestration will create income streams [...]

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Put Forests Back Into Carbon Markets, say Gore and Maathai

09.23.2008

Andrew Revkin  at Dot Earth has a nice article about the proposal by Al Gore and Wangari Maathai to include forest preservation in carbon-trading markets designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions.  Gore and Maathai, both Nobel Peace Prize laureates for their conservation work, are promoting the work of the Avoided Deforestation Partners. Tropical forest conversion [...]

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Carbon Storage in Upper Midwest Forests

09.15.2008

Research by Peter Curtis (Ohio State University) and colleagues shows that northern Michigan forests can store an average of 0.65 tons C per acre per year. This rate of storage is higher than earlier estimates such as those used to develop the Kyoto Protocol, and is consistent with other recent studies that show that temperate [...]

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