The Last Post Game!!!!

[Swatopluk]

Unfortunately, trees are only a temporary carbon sink while they still grow. A fully grown tree is in a net equilibrium, very old trees emit net more CO₂ than they consume. And once the tree dies, all its carbon will get emitted again by way of rot.
So, in theory one should repeatedly plant quick growing trees, log them and then put them in final storage out of the reach of oxygen. Some even propose carbonizing them, i.e. turning them into coal before storing them away.

Last _{Refill the coal mines!} Post

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Hmm, so logging for paper or lumber is better [for decarbonization] than forests?

Last _{even more depressing} Post

[Swatopluk]

The forests are still needed all by themselves but if we want to get rid of extra CO2, we'd need to manage  them on a large scale and the stored carbon taken out of circulation. Old- style logging would not be the way to do that.

Although for other reasons this has precedents. In tsarist Russia forest management was planned centuries in advance (in particular for the use of the navy: trees suitable for the keels and masts of ships of the line need centuries to reach the needed length).

Last _{And tropical rainforests are not really suitable since they have essentially no topsoil to grow new trees out of.} Post

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Conversely, trees converted into furniture are capturing that carbon for as long as the furniture is in use, same with paper if those aren't burned (at least immediately).

I also wonder if toxic [cyanobacteria] algae blooms (common due to agricultural runout) at least capture carbon and how much.

Last _{still unhappy} Post

[Swatopluk]

I'd assume that paper is the main product from wood and that most paper ends up in the garbage quickly and thus to a large part in the incinerator.
Solid wooden furniture is a good long term storage but how much of logged wood actually ends up as that? But how much is turned into cheap particleboard furniture that will last for a few years only?

Last _{are coffins longterm storage with a favorable carbon footprint?} Post

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

are coffins longterm storage with a favorable carbon footprint?

Doubtful, interred wood will rot and release methane.

Last _{plus all the nasty chemicals for embalming} Post

[Swatopluk]

Embalming is not the custom over here. Is it anywhwere else but in the US?

Is that methane released into the atmosphere or absorbed by the surrounding earth given how slow the emission is?

Last _{maybe 6 miles would be better than 6 feet under} Post

[Griffin]

We are still opening up new fossil fuel mines while claiming we lead the way. That is real politics. Charismatic leaders don't come along all that often. Is that a good thing?

We are mired in sex scandals, especially at the BBC, and bi-elections (3) caused by the Boris effect. I predict one Labour, one Liberal Democrat, 1 Conservative wins, with a swing away from the Conservatives.

Last _{my bathroom is falling apart again} Post

[Swatopluk]

There are charismatic leaders, boring pragmatic leaders and soulless apparatchiks.

The middle ones tend to be the least harmful. Charismatic ones are ambiguous. They often are a sign of crisis and the question is, whether they use or abuse it.

One problem is that - outside apparatchikocracies - one needs at least a bit of charisma to get into leadership positions but this does not mean that one is good at governing.
Some of the best at governing totally lack in charisma and thus will reach the top position only with great difficulty.
So, the one thing that a good charismatic leader needs is the ability to recognize and choose competent people that will do the actual heavy lifting in particular in those areas where he (still the majority) lacks competence.

Last _{of course the same holds true for successful Evil Overlords} Post

[Griffin]

We don't have any leaders, they are all loss leaders, providers of bad picnics in the park. Rish! does nothing, marginally better than doing anything he might do. Starmer is no kind of leader of anything except being sneaky. And don't believe the stuff about large swings to and from parties in the bi-elections (which I called correctly by the way). The so called swings were actually Tory voters staying at home and the additional votes to Labour & Lib.Dems were actually pretty low numbers. Swingometers are too simplistic, and wrong.

On a different tack I give you a great headline in the Daily Mail in the Unlikely Headline thread. This is going to be a slow burn as the film is not finished yet, though not far to go. I've been sitting on the side lines and chucking a few coins into the kitty to help keep the show on the road. 

Last_{https://www.solvussolutions.co.uk/toadfishmonastery/index.php?topic=89.msg192850#msg192850} Post

[Swatopluk]

The choice is between lead (leed) and lead (led)

Last _{an in some cases you'll get both} Post

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

A close friend says -correctly in my opinion- that the simple fact of seeking office disqualifies the candidate automatically.

Last _{bring in the lottery} Post

[Swatopluk]

That's how the courts in Athens worked. 500 judges/jurors drawn by lot each day (trials had to finish within a day).

Last _{Socrates got condemned by such a court*} Post

*some scholars who consider Platon and Xenophon not overly reliable in the matter now even argue that it was NOT judicial murder but that Socrates was actually undermining Athenian democracy

[Aggie]

The forests are still needed all by themselves but if we want to get rid of extra CO2, we'd need to manage  them on a large scale and the stored carbon taken out of circulation. Old- style logging would not be the way to do that.

Although for other reasons this has precedents. In tsarist Russia forest management was planned centuries in advance (in particular for the use of the navy: trees suitable for the keels and masts of ships of the line need centuries to reach the needed length).

Last _{And tropical rainforests are not really suitable since they have essentially no topsoil to grow new trees out of.} Post

Biochar can help a bit with long-term sequestration and is good for soil building. I don't have an efficient, low-smoke method of making charcoal yet (i.e. a gasifer-retort that can sustain a burn with wood gas), but I have needed to burn a lot of cleared wood and fire-hazard deadfall, so I've been experimenting with charcoal pit composting, with an eye to soil building. The results have been very favorable. Basically, I've taken some good-size septic test pits (about the size of a shallow grave) and filled them with charcoal from my burn barrel, then started burying kitchen waste in them.  The first pit I worked with started out as the drop zone from my construction-phase outhouse, so it's got a few extra nutrients in it, but I found it a convenient place to dump compost in the winter. The second one has been mostly coffee grounds and vegetable scraps with a bit of easily decayed garden waste.

The charcoal keeps the odour down and so far has kept the bears away, although the squirrels were raiding the first pit for coffee filters... caffeinated squirrels, yikes! Better than caffeinated bears, I guess. It's been a non-issue on the second pit as it's more accessible and I just bury each addition a few feet down. It's turning into a fantastic growing medium, with potatoes, squash and tomatoes sprouting spontaneously.  I've let one squash plant just do its thing in there, and it survives with no additional water or fertilizer. I'm not sure it will have enough sun to fruit, but I'll just see what happens. I can always compost it.

Most of the wood I've been burning has been from fast-growing deciduous trees, so it's a very renewable source. I've got a large amount of alder on the land, which grows quickly, fixes nitrogen, and tends to fall over or die back before it gets very large. I'm going to start actively coppicing a section of it this fall and will lay a big stack aside to burn over the winter. I got a bit depressed spending evenings in the house last winter, so it will give me an excuse to get outside around a warm fire a few evenings a week (I often work in the cold, so it's not that tempting to go snowshoeing in the dark, but having a good fire is more attractive).

I'll probably just get a new (i.e. old and used) burn barrel for the job, as the one I was using for waste disposal has angled fins cut in it to increase oxygen flow and can throw 10 ft high cyclonic flames when I get it cranking. I fed it additional oxygen with a blower and could crank through a huge pile of damp wood  in a day, but it reduced most of it to ash and had a low charcoal yield. A blind barrel is better because as you keep adding wood the lower layers become anoxic and won't combust, but usually hold enough heat to keep charring the material. Just needs to be capped tightly and/or doused with snow after a burn, then dumped before the next fire.

As stated, the whole point of the exercise is to build soil for gardening, and char has a much longer retention life than other ways of using the wood. I'll need some decayed organic matter as well, though. In the market for a wood chipper, too, but they're expensive for a decent unit...  have a bunch of aspen logs in long-term decay piles which the fungi and ants make fairly quick work of. I'm going to raid the surrounding forest for a bit of already decayed wood, and have started growing stinging nettle as a compost plant. Can also get a few truckloads of horse manure for free, and maybe some cow manure too. As it stands, between my current bit of garden, a small-ish greenhouse and what grows naturally on the land, I haven't had to buy vegetables since April, and have been eating berries every day since mid June (which should continue into the fall, although I may have to go a bit further afield for huckleberries - they grow in the same area as my mushroom patches). Not having to depend on food shipped from the US in refrigerated trucks helps quite a bit with my carbon footprint, I should think.

Last _{very quick} Post

[Swatopluk]

Seems we have the occasional nightly wild boar visit in the (tiny) garden. No idea what attracts it. Since any construction work on this block of flats had the material stored in our garden the soil is not just bad, I would not eat anything growing there. Grass is and has been on the retreat for years under the onslaught of moss. Raking leaves usually takes most of the growth off too (except the ivy that's in league with the moss). Below it the soil is full of thin but tenacious roots, so digging (if there was any intention) is essentially impossible. I guess one would need to remove and replace 1 to 2 feet of earth before the garden could be put to any actual use. But neither my mother nor me have the energy or the strong back to do it. I love gardens but gardening is not my thing.

Last _{lazy city dweller} Post