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Letter: Mixed views on the push to suck carbon from the air (3)

Published 15 January 2025

From Martin van Raay, Culemborg, Netherlands

Considering that the world’s terrestrial vegetation absorbs some 12 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year, wouldn’t it have been better to not invest in this plant, but to grow more trees instead? Also, let’s stop burning existing trees – allow them to live a full life, then turn them into useful products, so this CO2 is stored for tens or even hundreds of years. Why build industrial plants to do what real plants already do better?

Issue no. 3526 published 18 January 2025

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