Forests and Rice

At an interesting talk right now. The point it's making is that naively, we view (re)forestation as a simple win for carbon dynamics: forests = sequestration and new forests are the best, because old-growth forests are basically in carbon balance, just storing carbon, while new forests are actively sequestering carbon that would otherwise stay in the atmosphere, lowering the net carbon content.

Of course, forest management can be a great tool for carbon management. But what complicates this is that not all forests and settings are created equal. If we engage in willy-nilly forestation that don't fit the ecological history and profile of the setting, we may fail to account for unintended consequences like catastrophic fires and the large carbon releases they create.

Edit: Now listening to a talk by a bioengineer whose team is currently testing a bioengineered rice plant with a gene that allows it to survive sitting in a submerged field for 17 days (ordinary rice dies after about three days of submersion.) Since most of Bangladesh is going to become increasingly prone to catastrophic flooding with global warming, this as a big deal. SUPER COOL.