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Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by pavlov on Sunday February 15, 2015 @08:29AM (#9052547)
So, to offset a Bitcoin, plant 1.6 trees and keep them alive for a century [1].

[1] "On average, one broad leaf tree will absorb in the region of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide during its full life-time (approximately 100 years)." http://www.carbonfootprint.com/plantingtrees.html

Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by odiroot on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:22AM (#9052655)
Shameless plug: you can help by using Ecosia -- https://www.ecosia.org/

Ecosia is helping people help the environment. Currently planting trees in Burkina Faso as a part of Great Green Wall.

Full disclosure: I work at Ecosia.

Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by tinco on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:36AM (#9052694)
Just a heads up, the video on /what doesn't work on Chrome+Win8.1
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by odiroot on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:28AM (#9052842)
Thank you, I will pass it to the main site devs.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by Farox on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:39AM (#9053076)
Same for Chrome on Windows 10
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by odiroot on Sunday February 15, 2015 @06:07PM (#9054561)
Thanks, probably our player just broke. Huge oops.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by TheHippo on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:44AM (#9053099)
Doesn't work on Chrome / Linux, too.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by Intermernet on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:13AM (#9052631)
Personally, I'd recommend just planting two. I can never work out which 0.4 of the tree not to plant.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by dlss on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:34AM (#9052686)
Carbon is what gives trees their mass, so no need to wait 100 years -- just until it's fully grown :)
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by perrygeo on Sunday February 15, 2015 @02:29PM (#9053705)
Actually, trees grow faster and sequester more carbon the older they get: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140115132740.ht...
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by kevinsimper on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:11AM (#9052629)
Yes, do that every 25 second as they github repo says that is how often a bitcoin is released.
[deleted]
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by danbruc on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:34AM (#9052685)
And that is on average 1 Bitcoin every 24 seconds.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by rndn on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:03AM (#9052754)
Isn't the problem that trees do not permanently bind the CO2? You would have to burry the trees when they die so that the carbon does not get released into the atmosphere again. (I might be wrong though.)
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by ufo on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:16AM (#9052799)
If you take an area without forest and plant a forest on it then when the tree dies a new one grows in its place. A mature forest is roughly carbon neutral but reflorestation is taking a bunch of carbon from the atmosphere and converting it to tree trunks.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by lgieron on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:21AM (#9052817)
Does that mean that the Amazon rainforest is carbon neutral?
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by nols on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:04AM (#9052946)
It was a major carbon sink, but as the climate warms up trees die earlier and release more carbon so it's becoming a carbon emitter. It's obviously hard to calculate an exact plus or minus, but it's not looking good, especially with the amount of deforestation occurring.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by ufo on Sunday February 15, 2015 @04:49PM (#9054279)
For now, the biggest contribution of the amazon rainforest in terms of climate is improving rainfall. If you cut down all that trees that regious would pretty quickly turn into a big desert (in fact, the forest is actually recent in geological terms)
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by graycat on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:28AM (#9053028)
Most green things add to topsoil which has to be heavily carbon. E.g., from my experience growing up, a healthy front lawn can add ballpark one inch of topsoil in 15 years. Similarly for prairies and forests.

Also a major fraction of trees, ballpark 50+%, have leaves and drop them once a year, and the leaves contribute to topsoil.

Even if a forest burns, the burned trees create ash which has carbon and adds to topsoil.

Some of the topsoil gets washed into rivers and lakes, becomes mud, gets covered over by more mud, and, thus, essentially buries its carbon.

There is more that is similar: a major fraction of the surface of the earth has, within 1000 feet deep, a lot of limestone, and that is partly, largely, or mostly just old sea shells where the animals pulled carbon from the water or what it ate and converted it to calcium carbonate, that is, buried the carbon (disclaimer, I'm no geologist).

In simple terms, basically, net, the earth's biosphere grabs and buries a lot of carbon including CO2 from the atmosphere.

Note: Nowhere here have I made a remark of any kind about the effects on climate of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by panarky on Sunday February 15, 2015 @11:12AM (#9052974)
> ~1602 kg of CO2 by May 1st 2015

You'd have to plant 1.6 trees every year, in perpetuity and keep all of them alive for a century.

Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by andrewdietrich on Sunday February 15, 2015 @12:56PM (#9053345)
I think this calls for a planting trees as a service company. Ideally delivered via drones. Talk about efficiently planting the trees needed ;)
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by draugadrotten on Sunday February 15, 2015 @03:10PM (#9053878)
There is such a company: Viskogen or viagroforestry (sounds like spam doesn't it) They plants-trees-as-a-service. In 2013, 4,118,064 trees were planted

http://www.viagroforestry.org/what-we-do/agroforestry/

Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by kaybe on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:16AM (#9052640)
And then bury it so it doesn't rot and rerelease the CO2. Otherwise you're just moving the problem to the future.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by zitterbewegung on Sunday February 15, 2015 @09:33AM (#9052679)
Unless the tree burns down you realize that it incorporates the CO2 in its structure right?
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by wongarsu on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:08AM (#9052769)
Most trees die at a certain age (or due to other factors). By default this leads to the tree falling over and starting to decompose, a process which releases most of the CO2 formerly stored in that tree.

The obvious solution is to plant an entire forest to ensure that new trees grow to replace old trees.

Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by avar on Sunday February 15, 2015 @12:13PM (#9053224)
If you kept planting and burying trees you'd be taking oxygen out of the atmosphere in addition to carbon, which would cause other problems.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by kaybe on Sunday February 15, 2015 @04:27PM (#9054199)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis

n CO2 + n H2O + photons → (CH2O)n + n O2

carbon dioxide + water + light energy → carbohydrate + oxygen

Even if the single oxygen per carbon stayed buried, we'd lose a maximum of 400ppm[1] of oxygen, of currently 20.95 % volume of oxygen. That does not even affect the last digit of that rounded number, and the number is normally not given with more digits because it changes with the season and stuff.

No carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would probably be really bad for further tree growth (among other things), so it is naturally limited.

[1]http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo

Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by taf2 on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:24AM (#9052826)
yeah, but i want to make a billion bitcoins?
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by zanny on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:55AM (#9052917)
There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins, and we will be about 90% of the way there by 2025.
Re:BitcoinEmissions – A project to calculate CO2 emissions o... by williamcotton on Sunday February 15, 2015 @10:27AM (#9052838)
Well I guess it is too bad for you that they're capped at 21 million.