Approximately how many cars does a full grown tree take off the road each year?

Question

Thanks.

Answer 1

It depends on how many cars hit it. ;).

I copied this from a web page: Each person in the U.S. generates approximately 2.3 tons of CO2 each year. A healthy tree stores about 13 pounds of carbon annually -- or 2.6 tons per acre each year. An acre of trees absorbs enough CO2 over one year to equal the amount produced by driving a car 26,000 miles. An estimate of carbon emitted per vehicle mile is between 0.88 lb. CO2/mi. – 1.06 lb. CO2/mi. (Nowak, 1993). Thus, a car driven 26,000 miles will emit between 22,880 lbs CO2 and 27,647 lbs. CO2. Thus, one acre of tree cover in Brooklyn can compensate for automobile fuel use equivalent to driving a car between 7,200 and 8,700 miles.

Answer 2

What is a full grown tree? Trees don't stop growing until they die. Coniferous or deciduous?

Doesn't really matter anyway. The myth of trees being able to counteract petroleum emissions is just that - a myth. Trees eventually die and the carbon they have stored has to be released again, either by decomposition or burning. It is just a short term solution to the fixed amount of carbon we have released by burning fossil fuels for centuries, fuels that were originally stored when the earth went through a serious period of global warming millions of years ago. The only real solution is to find a way to store all that carbon back in a carbon sink.