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melody_magical@reddit

There's nothing wrong with tree planting initiatives, but I think conservation should be focused on the oldest trees. They absorb more carbon and also, a eucalyptus tree can live to 400 years (which is much older and more historical than a "historic building" would be)

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IntrepidRatio7473@reddit (OP)

Because of decades of hotter, drier conditions, Queensland’s tropical rainforest trees have shifted: their trunks and branches now release more CO₂ through decay and mortality than they absorb via growth. That means instead of acting as a “sink” that pulls in carbon and helps dampen climate change, these forests are now a net source of emissions. If this happens more broadly in other tropical forests globally, it would worsen climate change by undermining a key natural buffer

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TuneGlum7903@reddit

If this happens more broadly in other tropical forests globally"

Ummm....you mean like this?

One of Earth’s major carbon sinks collapsed in 2023. — Schib.com 072524

“Extreme heat, drought and wildfires caused forests and other land ecosystems to emit almost as much carbon dioxide as they removed from the atmosphere in 2023, nearly canceling out a major natural sink of the greenhouse gas.”

Regional flux anomalies from 2015–2022 are consistent between top-down
and bottom-up approaches,

with the largest abnormal carbon loss in the Amazon during the drought in the second half of 2023 (0.31 ± 0.19 GtC yr-1),

extreme fire emissions of 0.58 ± 0.10 GtC yr-1 in Canada

and a loss in South-East Asia (0.13± 0.12 GtC yr-1).

Since 2015, land CO2 uptake north of 20°N declined by half to 1.13 ± 0.24 GtC yr-1 in 2023.

Meanwhile, the tropics recovered from the 2015–16 El Niño carbon loss, gained carbon during the La Niña years (2020–2023), then switched to a carbon loss during the 2023 El Niño (0.56 ± 0.23 GtC yr-1).

So, what happened in 2023?

Short version:

The Amazon and SE Asia dried out.

“Imagine your plants at home: If you don’t water them, they’re not very productive, they don’t grow, they don’t take up carbon. Put that on a big scale like the Amazon forest,” — Stephen Sitch, a study co-author and carbon expert at the University of Exeter

This prevented them from taking up more carbon.

And, Canada BURNED.

The SAME thing happened in 2024 and 2025 doesn't look to be any better.

ALL of the world's forests are becoming heat stressed, water stressed, and fire stressed. ALL of them, EVERYWHERE.

Global Warming means "global".

Globally the world's forests are dying.

036 - The World’s Forests are Burning, Ecosystem Turnover is the Cause. Let’s All be Really Clear on What that Means.

We have crossed a tipping point and globally forests are igniting. Warming is now believed to have accelerated to around +0.45°C per decade and trees are having a hard time adjusting to this rate of warming.

Collapse is accelerating and the Great Burning that has started will accelerate it even more.

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SamuraiZach0@reddit

Is there realistically any way of reversing this?

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here-i-am-now@reddit

Got a Time Machine?

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saltedmangos@reddit

Not likely. Even if it’s technologically feasible, the political will to make any sort of sacrifices in addressing ecological collapse isn’t there whatsoever.

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JASHIKO_@reddit

Sounds like a damn good excuse to turn them all into LUMBER!!!

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Sapient_Cephalopod@reddit

Hell yeah

First Queensland, next coming to a rainforest near you! /s

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lordvader5674@reddit

Didn't this happen to the amszon too?

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StatementBot@reddit

The following submission statement was provided by /u/IntrepidRatio7473:

Because of decades of hotter, drier conditions, Queensland’s tropical rainforest trees have shifted: their trunks and branches now release more CO₂ through decay and mortality than they absorb via growth. That means instead of acting as a “sink” that pulls in carbon and helps dampen climate change, these forests are now a net source of emissions. If this happens more broadly in other tropical forests globally, it would worsen climate change by undermining a key natural buffer

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1o7l2kg/australian_tropical_rainforest_trees_switch_in/njodf18/