15243user

They absorb carbon while growing, but release it in decay

Can you backup this claim? I haven't been able to find anything conclusive.

This is the furthest I've gone: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9089/does-o... https://www.gardenmyths.com/forests-remove-co2/

Have there been any reputable studies on the subject? Is this the consensus?

checkout the actual forest in Google Maps[1]. If you check the historical imagery in Google Earth Pro, you'll see that sometimes between the end of 2017 and the start of 2018 most of the trees kinda disappeared. I dunno if the forest was cut down or if they just stopped watering it, but its pretty much gone now

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/7mtZYS1v5588fdeYA