Every Year we need to continue to sequester more Carbon to offset what every year we have been generating as our Carbon footprint. Carbon footprints are receipts for volumes of Carbon Dioxide that have already been emitted into our air, and will continue to do so until systems change to reduce emissions. We also need to Sequester Carbon to fill our footprints back into our lands. Forests alone can not be relied on to sequester Carbon. When a forest burns up it releases a huge amount of Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and other Gasses adding to our fossil fuel footprints and setting the forest capacity back with its ability to inhale or absorb more Carbon Dioxide.
Meanwhile standing dead remains of a forest fire are still holding carbon in an unstable state, crews are needed to work in overgrown or previously burned forests to clear dead vegetation and convert it to BioChar to sequester permanently stable Carbon, while clearing space for new trees to grow. Dead wood in forests which need to be cleared took years for brush, decades to half centuries or more for trees to reach valuable harvesting lumber. Trees harvested this year is sequestering Carbon footprints of decades ago.
Every year in agricultures we prune fruit & nut orchards and thin vines in vineyards. Those branches, nut husks, and vines that are annually removed from plants for healthy orchards & vineyards maintenance can also be converted into BioChar as an annual Carbon Sequestration. All new growth this year is Carbon Dioxide being absorbed into plants, so if that growth was unwanted and pruned it can be a great value as having captured Carbon that we can burn into BioChar a form of permanently sequestrable stable Carbon. We need to also be burning our annual crop residues into char to be sequestering more Carbon from our air this year and every year.
Annual plants absorb Carbon Dioxide each year, if we convert them into BioChar as part of our annual cycle we would continue to improve our environment. Hemp, including all varieties of medical Cannabis, are annual plants which will absorb four times more Carbon Dioxide than any other known plant. In one growth cycle this plant can produce the usual flower or seed crop, the cambium layer could be utilized for fiber, leaving the stems core to burn into BioChar for increased Carbon sequestration. Bamboo also is an excellent fast growing Carbon absorbing plant, however bamboo is a perennial with a seven year life cycle for each growth stem, every year the oldest stems can be removed to make room for new growth. Scotch Broom is a highly flammable successfully established widely available plant which makes a wonderful quality BioChar taking many more years to grow as large as hemp can each year. What ever plant that is grown each year when we are able to burn its dried remains into BioChar we are locking Carbon into a stable form that is solid and not in our air.