I was a bit discouraged to hear that the CO2 the plants remove is ultimately rereleased into the atmosphere when the plant decomposes. So I’m wondering what positive impacts I’m making with my backyard garden, if any.
Also, with millions of gardens, would they really be totally useless for CO2 removal? Or is there some small amount that gets captured by the plant and then *not* rereleased into the atmosphere, in other words, permanently removed from the air?
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Your backyard garden does very little directly to affect CO2 in the atmosphere, and sadly, the same is true of the sum of all vegetable gardens, for just the reason you mention. One way plants help remove CO2 from the atmosphere by using the carbon from it as building blocks for their energy reserves and cells. When those are consumed, whether that’s in the form of being eaten by bacteria in your compost pile or being eaten by you in the form of a delicious ratatouille, or being eaten by voracious wildfires, the thing eating them – whether bacteria, animal, or inferno – releases that carbon back into the air in the form of CO2.
That said, all hope is not lost. Growing your own vegetables can be at least a little helpful to the atmosphere not because of the CO2 they sequester, but because of the CO2 you spend to get them. If it takes X amount of fuel to get your seeds and all your gardening supplies, but you save more than X amount of fuel by not needing to make a trip to the grocery store for your vegetable needs, that can be a very, very, *very* small but still positive change for the air. You are almost certainly not the primary cause of climate change, but every little bit does help. Save a trip, save a dinosaur, as it were.
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