FAISON, E.K. 2021. BACKYARD CLIMATE SOLUTIONS. ARNOLDIA, 78(3): 28-37 
Backyard Climate Solutions 
Edward K. Faison 
arbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmo- 
sphere stand today at 415 parts per mil- 
lion, which is significantly higher than 
concentrations have reached for at least the 
past eight hundred thousand years. Through- 
out this time, levels oscillated between 180 and 
280 parts per million, until the mid-nineteenth 
century, when they began an inexorable rise. 
By the end of the century, if business as usual 
continues, carbon dioxide levels could be higher 
than at any time in the past fifty million years.! 
Like many other concerned citizens, I have 
wondered what one person can possibly do to 
help stem the rise of carbon dioxide levels, 
warming temperatures, and accompanying 
species extinctions that characterize our Earth 
in the twenty-first century. Carbon is a two- 
part problem: we must simultaneously reduce 
combustion emissions and increase the removal 
of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As an individ- 
ual, I can take action to reduce emissions (use 
more efficient LED bulbs, drive a more effi- 
cient car less often, use airplanes sparingly), 
but what about the other side of the equation? 
I have increasingly come to recognize that, as a 
landowner, the way I steward the vegetation on 
my property can make a difference to both sides 
of this problem. 
I live in a small, residential neighborhood 
in an otherwise rural part of Connecticut. 
My property comprises a one-and-a-half-acre 
lot, about two-thirds wooded. The other third 
includes a yard (where the kids can kick a soccer 
ball), the house, and a gravel driveway that can 
accommodate several cars. Plants on my prop- 
erty, like those growing anywhere else, remove 
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during pho- 
tosynthesis and store it as carbon molecules in 
wood, roots, and leaves—a process known as 
carbon sequestration. Yet it’s surprising to learn 
just how much carbon dioxide is removed by 
the Earth’s natural vegetation: about 30 percent 
of all carbon emitted each year globally. With 
changes in the way we manage vegetation, this 
percentage could increase dramatically.” 
Trees are key. An acre of temperate grassland 
and an acre of temperate forest store a similar 
amount of carbon in the soil, but a forest stores 
as much as seventeen to twenty times more 
carbon in the vegetation than does a grassland.? 
Compare an acre of forest to an acre of lawn, and 
the carbon storage disparity is far greater. When 
we replace natural forest with fields, lawn, and 
other less-natural land covers (like roads, park- 
ing lots, and buildings), not only do we release 
huge amounts of carbon once stored in the trees 
into the atmosphere but we also sequester sig- 
nificantly less carbon going forward. 
The Carbon in My Trees 
I became curious about the role of my prop- 
erty in sequestering carbon and how much 
of a difference simple management decisions 
could make towards this end. How much car- 
bon is stored in the trees on my property? To 
answer this question, I measured the diameter 
of every tree at least five inches in diameter at 
breast height and then used carbon estimation 
(“allometric”) equations devised by the United 
States Forest Service and researchers from 
Harvard Forest to estimate the total biomass 
in the trees.* Plant tissue contains about 45 to 
50 percent carbon, so dividing total biomass 
in half is a good approximation of the carbon 
storage in the plants.° The results: 226 trees 
storing 84.3 tons of carbon total, including a 
forty-inch-diameter black oak (Quercus velu- 
tina) and a red oak (Quercus rubra) of nearly 
the same dimension. These big oaks comprise 
less than 1 percent of the trees on my lot but 
store a remarkable 13 percent of the carbon. 
The big oaks are not idle reservoirs of carbon 
either. A healthy red oak forty inches in diam- 
eter may add two-tenths of an inch to its trunk 
Facing page: Homeowners can take action on climate change by making simple management decisions that leverage 
the carbon-absorbing power of trees. 
ALL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR 
