Millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are being wiped from company ledgers based on offsets generated from flawed forest conservation schemes, a new study has found.
Reminds me of the cultural burning program where allegedly burning higher swathes of the country deliberately in a “cool” fire will somehow prevent further carbon release in an uncontrolled fire.
I mean, that’s definitely not the main reason for cultural burning or hazard reduction burns, but it kinda makes sense that it would be, to some extent, a byproduct. When doing a hazard reduction burn, you burn off a relatively small amount of underbrush to reduce the fuel load and help reduce the chance of out-of-control bushfires during the fire season. As a result, the total amount of area that gets burnt will be less than if a massive bushfire ended up burning huge swathes of bush and rural & suburban land, thus releasing less carbon. But it very much needs to be stressed that that is, at best, a byproduct. It’s certainly not the purpose.
I mean, that’s definitely not the main reason for cultural burning or hazard reduction burns, but it kinda makes sense that it would be, to some extent, a byproduct. When doing a hazard reduction burn, you burn off a relatively small amount of underbrush to reduce the fuel load and help reduce the chance of out-of-control bushfires during the fire season. As a result, the total amount of area that gets burnt will be less than if a massive bushfire ended up burning huge swathes of bush and rural & suburban land, thus releasing less carbon. But it very much needs to be stressed that that is, at best, a byproduct. It’s certainly not the purpose.