Just looked at my neighborhood's tree canopy from 2015 to 2025 on Google Earth and half the big oaks are gone

Six of the twelve mature oaks on my block in Austin got cut down for new developments, but the city planted 30 skinny saplings along the sidewalk last spring that are somehow already 8 feet tall, so does replacing big trees with small ones actually help or are we just fooling ourselves about carbon capture rates?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnson.ryan12d ago

Saw a study saying saplings capture carbon way faster than old trees cause theyre still growing, but theres no way a few skinny sticks match what a full sized oak was pulling out of the air.

ivan_perez12d ago

Kind of like how I'm still growing but not catching up to anyone either.