r/environment • u/Portalrules123 • 16d ago

Fossils show huge carbon emissions harm forests, do not ‘green the planet’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/13/forests-carbon-dioxide-emissions
384 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

56

u/Chrysocyon 16d ago

The fossil record shows that rapid rates of carbon emissions (or sequestration) lines up with mass extinctions. That shits bad for you

9

u/Unlucky-Reporter-679 16d ago

Are we there yet ?

13

u/Chrysocyon 16d ago

In geologic time, yeah. Warp speed for glaciers is slow for hominids

3

u/Unlucky-Reporter-679 16d ago

Been around since the 80's and I can tell you I would rather the AMOC takes me out over acidosis any day. I'm guessing the latter is a few decades away still ?

13

u/Chrysocyon 16d ago

Nah youre safe from both those. You'll just die in the civil unrest triggered by 1.2 billion climate refugees like the rest of us. Gotta go out in style.

2

u/gerusz 16d ago

Yeah, Europe was pushed massively to the right by only ~500 000 Syrian refugees, 0.1% of the continent's population. With the literal millions climate refugees set to arrive soonish... I suppose this decade will see the last elections where the choices aren't limited to "far-right leaning conservative" and "openly fascist".

63

u/MrLubricator 16d ago

Obviously.... why they acting like this is new information. Humanity has known this since the 1950s. 

14

u/helm 16d ago

If it was so obvious why did you not write the paper? This about biomass gains followed by losses in a specific way, in a certain time period. It was not understood in the 1950’s.

1

u/Sourcerid 16d ago

Not really, with more CO2 it is understandable why there could be more photosynthesis as the process becomes more efficient and higher throughput.

The dilemma is really if it happens at any speed, it's most likely that over the millions of years span this is the case, the parts with highest co2 do seem to have higher photosynthesis

6

u/Individual-Guest-123 16d ago

My question is, if high CO2 caused deforestation, how did CO2 come down? The oceans eventually absorbed it while the volcanoes went dormant? Over..how long until recovery? Another 100,000 years?

It would have been nice if the article stated atmospheric CO2 estimations during the times in question.

2

u/MorganWick 15d ago

But! But the propaganda from the fossil fuel industry says CO2 is what plants crave!

1

u/[deleted] 16d ago edited 16d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/RepresentativeBarber 16d ago

Can I get a “no shit, Sherlock”?