But they would decay, unless something is done to sequester enough of the wood, and release much of it back into atmosphere, right?

Cross-laminated timber comes to the rescue. Plus the added benefit of being able to replace concrete, which is a huge bonus for decreasing emissions. And it's already in use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-laminated_timber

> unless something is done to sequester enough of the wood

I think that was the idea. He's viewing it as a mass transfer problem. You "harvest" CO2 with trees, then put it back in the ground.

I think the hard part is not hurting ecosystems in the process, but at this point honestly this might still be the best solution we have available.

Unfortunately, the people that plant trees have economic incentives to not put it back in the ground. Timber has considerable economic value, as fuel, or contruction materials or whatever. It's hard to imagine foresters cutting down valuable trees, and then discarding them in some lake.

I imagine it would need to be government funded, not for private enterprise. If the order of magnitude of the costs they mention are to be taken at face value ($80M/year), for the entire world, it would be absolutely trivial for the government to fund, so I don't think expect any commercial enterprise would necessarily be forced to align this with its mission.

> For the entire world, it would be absolutely trivial for the government to fund

Which government? Is that some hypothesised World Government?

The UK Government runs a lot of the forestry in this country. It is run as a commercial timber operation. The Brazilian and Indonesian governments appear to be committed to commercial exploitation of enormous amounts of old-growth rainforest timber. The Polish and Hungarian governments are also committed to logging old-growth.

There's no time left for this kind of dreaming.

> Which government? Is that some hypothesised World Government?

I meant the US government. But you can insert lots of other governments in there, including the UK like you mentioned.

> There's no time left for this kind of dreaming.

Nobody's dreaming. I'm just talking about the feasibility, not claiming anything about the likelihood.

I don't know what kind of construction materials your house is made of, but most wood construction doesn't just vaporize into the atmosphere as CO2 unless it's burnt down, which is considered an undesirable outcome to be prevented.

"then put it back in the ground" - throw it into a lake. Or artificial bogs. When its submerged, the lack of o2 causes the carbon to stay as it is. This is basically how coal comes into existence.

The whole lumber shortage thing makes me think that people are willing to sequester wood in their homes. (I know, I know, it was sawmill capacity or something. But still...)

Most trees are planted in order to be harvested as timber. Most of that timber turns back into CO2 in 100 years or so. Tree-planting is not a long-term solution to excess atmospheric carbon. Combined with carbon-trading, tree-planting is a rather obvious channel for greenwashing.

> Most of that timber turns back into CO2 in 100 years or so. Tree-planting is not a long-term solution to excess atmospheric carbon.

Do you have links to more reading on that? This is the first time I've heard of this particular reason why it might not work.

No I don't. But if wood lasted more than a couple of hundred years on average, then we would be neck-deep in old lumber. We're constantly cutting down trees, and yet the amount of wood in the lived environment isn't increasing noticeably.

Conclusion: all that old wood is either buried, or it's busy turning into CO2.

So I'm not impressed by claims of "carbon offsetting". On the contrary, I take such claims as evidence that the organisation in question is part of the problem.

Incidentally, how are you supposed to recycle chipboard? Like, for example a chipboard kitchen counter? For several decades, I had in my home a pair of oak side tables, that were made by my grandfather from the remains of a large oak dining table. You can't do that nowadays with chipboard.

I can't say I follow your logic at all unfortunately.

But regardless, I also don't get where you see a discussion of "carbon offsetting". This isn't about "offsetting" emissions or impressing you, this is about repaying "debt" that's already incurred. Pulling down old carbon is something we have to do regardless of what we do with our current emissions, even if we drive them to 0, because the current carbon in the atmosphere is already too much. Whether we do it with trees or machines or something else, it needs to happen.

Wooden things rarely last more than 50 years and end up being thrown in fire, or catching fire as a result of natural events. Additionally, decaying wood releases CO2.

It depends on how you use that wood. In old cities around the world, there are plentiful examples of wooden structures that have been around for up to 1000 years or more.

Does our current world really look like we're building thousand year long buildings ?

Well I believe we should be moving in that direction if we want to have any chance of sustaining society. Just like we need to kill fast fashion, we should kill "fast construction" too.