Why almost all coal was made at the same time

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Most of the coal on earth was created during a single short period of geological history 300 million years ago. It's called the carboniferous period. Find out why coal production stopped so abruptly.
CORRECTIONS
So this video was quite rushed because I wanted to get it out in time for the #teamtrees launch. Here are a couple of things I got wrong:
Not ALL coal was made during the carboniferous period. There exists some younger coal here and there that formed under rare conditions that enabled it in spite of the presence of capable fungi. I did film myself saying that but it was lost it my rushed edit.
Photosynthesis is more complicated than I described. It involves water for a start. And it seems that the oxygen released during photosynthesis comes from the H₂O not the CO₂. Though I haven't be able to verify that.
And here's a non-correction! The thing I was holding up at the start was not charcoal. It was a coal dust briquette. You could argue that the briquette was made recently but the coal it's made of is old!
So yeah, the thrust of the video still stands but it's been a learning opportunity for me!
A final thought on planting trees for carbon capture. A lot of comments saying "what's the point? When the trees die the decomposers will release the CO₂ back into the atmosphere. But really this is more about planting *forests*. In a forest, when a tree dies, another tree grows in its place recapturing the carbon. But also, it's my understanding that it takes a very long time to release the CO₂. Like hundreds of years. So in terms of tackling climate change which is a problem of human time scales, it's a useful endeavour.
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[@SteveMould]

CORRECTIONS So this video was quite rushed because I wanted to get it out in time for the #teamtrees launch. Here are a couple of things I got wrong: Not ALL coal was made during the carboniferous period. There exists some younger coal here and there that formed under rare conditions that enabled it in spite of the presence of capable fungi. I did film myself saying that but it was lost it my rushed edit. Photosynthesis is more complicated than I described. It involves water for a start. And it seems that the oxygen released during photosynthesis comes from the H₂O not the CO₂. Though I haven't be able to verify that. And here's a non-correction! The thing I was holding up at the start was *not* charcoal. It was a coal dust briquette. You could argue that the briquette was made recently but the coal it's made of is old! So yeah, the thrust of the video still stands but it's been a learning opportunity for me! A final thought on planting trees for carbon capture. A lot of comments saying "what's the point? When the trees die the decomposers will release the CO₂ back into the atmosphere. But really this is more about planting *forests*. In a forest, when a tree dies, another tree grows in its place recapturing the carbon. But also, it's my understanding that it takes a very long time to release the CO₂. Like hundreds of years. So in terms of tackling climate change which is a problem of human time scales, it's a useful endeavour.

[@MelindaGreen]

Yep, I came to the comments to tell you that briquettes are not coal. I suggest you change the thumbnail.

[@_yuri]

@@MelindaGreen theyre made of coal no oopsie here

[@SofaKingWhatA]

Even with the mistakes you still managed to get me to part with £10 (13 trees for those of you who live in one of the colonies). Another great video.

[@SteveMould]

@@SofaKingWhatA thank you!

[@OffGridInvestor]

They have found a hat that turned to coal after 80 years. This was DUG OUT of a previous mine collapse. And they have created coal in a few years in a lab.

[@YouLilalas]

So basically we are stuck with plastics for the next 60 million years until some bacteria figure out how to decompose them?

[@KevinUchihaOG]

There actually already exist a bacteria that can do that. It is called Ideonella sakaiensis. It was discovered in Japan in 2016. I don't know much more about it. But i'm guessing it's pretty rare and in small amounts. Hopefully we can learn to multiply it.

[@virgil6892]

humans happen to do this cool thing called "innovante"

[@PedroCarvalho-bk4yn]

i believe there that been a few that have been engineered and/or discovered or something. But we don't necessarily want them to be wide spread because we don't want plastics to be decompose. Yes it would be great to deal with the land fills and the thrash in the ocean but It would suck to have to buy a new pen every ten days because it's rotting away and it stinks (and every two days in the summer because its hot)

[@hedonisticzen]

A better solution is to have something like a plastic eating worm that is an intermediate step and a bacteria that likes the worms waste.

[@ObjectsInMotion]

The entire reason we use plastics is *because* they don’t decompose. The second something that does becomes widespread, we will switch to something else.

[@TheDirtyShaman]

A common misconception that you included is that plants split CO2 into carbon and oxygen, while they actually split water and bind the hydrogen to the CO2 to create sugar and release the left-over oxygen from the water into the air.

[@TheDirtyShaman]

@@st0rm-xx The amount of atoms in a molecule is defined after its type. H2O means there are two hydrogen atoms and only one oxygen atom present. Carbon Dioxide has two oxygen atoms per carbon atom and is thus written as CO2.

[@Bangmomsmakebombs]

So it splits carbon and releases the oxygen?

[@luminescentlion]

Thus the effective result is the same, water and CO2 in, oxygen out.

[@minecraftnoob-vu3ye]

@@luminescentlion oxygen and sugar

[@ciprianpopa1503]

@@Bangmomsmakebombs splitter

[@solalflechelles1216]

Hello, and good day! The theory presented here has been mostly abandoned by experts a few years before you published this video. I greatly appreciate your videos, and recently I watched your 2019 video on the Carboniferous coal production peak. It presents a very compelling and persuasive story, dating as best I can tell all the way back to a 1990 paper, that explains the coal production peak by a lag between the evolution of lignin production in plants and the evolution of lignin degradation in fungi. That hypothesis was bolstered in 2010 by a Science paper which used the molecular clock to estimate the evolution of white-rot Agaricomycetes, the main known lineage with lignin degradation ability, to the early Permian, right at the end of the Carboniferous. However, that hypothesis has been mostly abandoned after a 2016 PNAS paper questioned it on several grounds: - the low lignin content of some of the most important Carboniferous peat-forming plants: lycopsid bark is very abundant in Carboniferous coal, yet it contains no lignin, - periods when lignin was abundantly produced do not correspond to observed peaks in coal production, - coal accumulation peaks seem to reflect local environmental conditions, not the lignin content of the plant material, - Carboniferous fossil wood often does exhibit signs of fungal decay, - while lignin-degrading peroxidases do seem to have appeared in the Early Permian, other less effective lignin-degrading enzymes do exist which seem to have evolved as far back as the Devonian (420-359 Ma), effectively closing the gap between lignin production(∼420 Ma) and lignin degradation evolution, - massive coal deposits have been formed during the Permian, after the evolution of lignin degradation by white-rot Agaricomycetes, - furthermore, if the gap hypothesis was correct, the lack of lignin degradation and subsequent carbon burial should have led to the depletion of atmospheric carbon in a much shorter time than the proposed 120 Ma Carboniferous gap. Rather, the Carboniferous peak is explained by the abundance of equatorial wetlands, which maximize productivity while minimizing decay thanks to waterlogged anoxic ground. Crucially, this accumulation is sustained thanks to the continued subsidence of the ground (ie, the ground sinks) caused by the formation of the Pangea: the collision of continental tectonic plates led to buckling of the crust, creating basins where the ground slowly sink, being filled all the while by sediments charged with organic plant matter, which eventually formed coal.

[@fabio2634]

This comment seemes to be very underrated!

[@NavigatEric]

Excellent comment. Let us not overlook that atmospheric chemistry has evolved with time and associated oxygen levels too. Many environmental conditions become anoxic which favors preservation of organics, both today and in deep time. I was a geology intern at Rochester and Pittsburgh Coal Co. back in the days when the coal was still forming ...

[@almahmudtaha7641]

Was thinking the same thing

[@LabGecko]

_"a Science paper"_ - I'm guessing you are referring to a paper in the journal Science? Could you please provide authors and date so we can see the study ourselves?

[@solalflechelles1216]

@@LabGecko Sure! The DOI of the Science paper is 10.1126/science.1221748, and that of the PNAS article is 10.1073/pnas.1517943113.

[@nodoxplz]

1:50 Lignin: Essence of Wood, A Mould Fragrance

[@azayles]

Pour homme and pour fern

[@PlanetRylosIV]

Lyrics to the song: “Pour some Lignin on meee...” ... If hippies were in charge of 80’s lyrics.

[@ewy4010]

I play Minecraft, and I can confirm this is true

[@NoName-de1fn]

Minecraft is more real than life!

[@probablynotabigtoe9407]

Minecraft is trash... That's just my opinion

[@lordtachanka903]

Eben WY I had that same thought lmao

[@ewy4010]

@@probablynotabigtoe9407 lol chill dude. 'Twas but a joke

[@probablynotabigtoe9407]

@@ewy4010 still not as funny as your face

[@kekeke6224]

Millions years later: "Why almost all fossil plasic was made at the same time"

[@berekhalfhand4775]

Coal found in Australia is from the Permian period i.e. after the Carboniferous period, therefore not all coal formed at the same time.

[@raycorcoran137]

not only Australia, also India, Antartica, Zealandia and a few others - Gondwana

[@beornthebear.8220]

I guess it took time for the news to get across the oceans and deserts.

[@paulf1071]

Maybe it's something to do with the Subduction process. This occurs in the Earth's crust where one tectonic plate is pushed under an adjacent plate, forming a geological feature known as an Arc-trench complex. Lithosphere is continuously recycled into the Earth's mantle, which may explain a shift in the sedimentary layer that coal and anthracite are discovered. Only a guess...!

[@garyjaensch7143]

You can find out why all the different theory’s by subscribing to Creation research Channel, watch coal form in a week or so, watch strata form in minutes on video called The rocks cry out , layers and liars, watch their videos on coal, and you will see how absurd all the different theory’s are, trees with no roots or branches are found all over the world, trees that couldn’t have survived in swamps, And check out where there museum is in Queensland, massive area 7 times the size of England covered by fossilised trees, generally going one direction, far greater than a “ local Flood, “. Also worth watching video called boomerangs to Babel, interesting that “ throwing sticks” were in Egypt and India before Australian boomerangs, explains why University studies show that Australian Aborigines languages are only 4000 years old.

[@KevinUchihaOG]

That's actually one of the most interesting thing i've learned this month.

[@pendleeldnep]

repeated?

[@royzevisionneur2045]

Each one of his videos are the most interesting things I've learnt every month

[@unlokia]

And a lie, so be careful what you believe.

[@maesterwillyofthehouseofboink]

@@unlokia Sad that people still buy into these bs stories as they've so called been proven by "science". Just look into the Australian professor Peter Ridd his case and the way his university was trying to do their utter best to censor him, but luckily their plan backfired and the court's ruling might be a big game changer IF enough people get to know it that is. And it's up to us to spread it, because mainstream media won't, so please look into it and spread the word!

[@Hallowed_Ground]

@@unlokia What is a lie, exactly?

[@Lorentari]

I love geological time "It all happened at the same time" = it happened over a time period more than 60 times the period humans have existed

[@robertquartly5866]

Yet in a set time frame hence the same time

[@CorazonDeCristoCano]

@@robertquartly5866 I love geological time "It all happened at the same time" = it happened over a time period more than 60 times the period humans have existed

[@alalalus7692]

@@CorazonDeCristoCano Yet in a set time hence the same time

[@archangel_metatron]

Fake news.

[@alalalus7692]

@@archangel_metatron I see you didn't read the pinned comment

[@hannesschwan6284]

As a kid I always wondered why fossil fuels are limited and never got a sufficient answer.. it seems over time I just accepted it and forgot I was wondering about it. Thanks for reminding me that I was once curious. glad u corrected yourself about photosynthesis :)

[@jeremylarson6267]

you're telling me the packaging for the briquets for my grill that say it was made in october of last year is inaccurate?

[@dijasom]

always wondered why there are no "new" coal deposits.

[@SteelSkin667]

Peat is the closest we have.

[@pewpewdragon4483]

really puts into perspective why we will run out of coal if we keep using it

[@SteelSkin667]

@@pewpewdragon4483 If we run out of coal it would also mean that we released 60 million years of plant life worth of CO2 in the atmosphere. Yikes!

[@dijasom]

@@SteelSkin667 sad way to put it. :-\

[@brainzend]

unless you count the recently discovered 'clean' ones?

[@notgate2624]

So for millions of years the ground just had stacks of dead trees that couldn't break down? Just miles of soggy wood that goes down a long way?

[@firstnamelastname9918]

Read up on The Great Dying (or watch videos) -- the worst mass extinction in Earth's history. It's believed that much of it was caused by volcanic activities igniting massive coal seams resulting in sulfuric acid condensing as morning fog over much of the planet!!

[@gonebamboo4116]

@@firstnamelastname9918 Let's rule out Noah's flood shall we. Even though there is plenty of evidence of sea life everywhere.

[@gonebamboo4116]

@@ohasis8331 Does this mean a coal seam 10' deep came from a forest floor 640' deep with trees growing out the top?

[@firstnamelastname9918]

@@gonebamboo4116 Wait, wha.. what!? The f*** does Noah have to do with this?

[@firstnamelastname9918]

@@ohasis8331 Well I haven't researched this yet, but that doesn't sound right at all to me. iirc, coal is some 60-80% carbon and the rest mostly hydrogen. I believe that wood is largely oxygen (by mass). Most of the moisture will be lost, the remaining material compressed, not sure about the other chemical processes, but 64:1 sounds really low. EDIT: Did a little research and wow! That's a lot of complex processes! (Well, several complex processes.) Haven't found info on wood to coal mass yet though. Would love if you could post a link on the 64:1 number.

[@williammoore6067]

Most coal was made at the same time...like a single global event covered the Earth in a layer of silt that stopped the wood from decomposing.

[@JaminTaylor]

It’s called the great flood. It happened around 4,500 years ago.

[@dobson777a]

Micronovs

[@imconsequetau5275]

The lignin-bonded cellulose was deposited over a span of about 60 million years. *Some* was compacted and buried as it was covered with sediment. Over the next 300 million years it was chemically converted mostly into coal, but also into some crude oil, and methane gas.

[@williammoore6067]

@@imconsequetau5275 You say that as if it is an absolute fact...but you don't know that. It is just a guess. Nobody observed it and it cann't be repeated. So it is not science. It is just a guess.

[@xmarine73]

@@williammoore6067 while I don't disagree that this is a hypothesis... ... I do disagree that his statement isn't science or scientific. A hypothesis is the way most discoveries in science begin. Whether that discovery aligns with the hypothesis or completely deviates from it, it's still the starting point from much of our scientific understanding.

[@richardrobertson1331]

Well said! You are a wonderful teacher and, after all, who is more important than a teacher . . . well, maybe a mother. I have a related question: Does graphite come from coal deposits or from oil deposits, prior to being super heated by magma? Thanks for posting this video.

[@EmoryM]

The world must have looked so alien covered with dead yet not decomposing trees.

[@lenovo762]

What, no forest fires ?? Hard to believe. Planetformers inserting an experimental species sounds more like it.

[@gonebamboo4116]

@@lenovo762 Has to be right? Couldn't possibly be Noah's flood.

[@user-bl4oq7fd8d]

@@gonebamboo4116 How has Noas arch anything to do with undecomposable trees?!

[@caseyb1346]

the world was a lot wetter back then. It rained all the time, so no fires.

[@ShaggyTheClown17]

@@user-bl4oq7fd8d robably the fact rotting flesh and plants don't tend to stick around long out in the open and occurs much less often in the wild, noah's flood perfectly explains how we got all the coal and oil we have by rapid burial, any other explanation is wishful thinking and desperation.

[@1959Berre]

Coal is solar energy stored as a solid fuel.

[@thomasfleig1184]

Yes, so when some climate change fanatic says we need to use more solar energy, tell them "we already are when we burn coal".

[@dojinho]

@@thomasfleig1184 You understand absolutely nothing about climate change, do you? Or are you just trying to be funny? Probably both!

[@thomasfleig1184]

@@dojinho... I know that these fucking so called "experts" are nothing of the sort. You can go back to the early 1900's, and look at all the times these idiots have alternated between warning us of global cooling and global warming. Before the 1930's, they were concerned about global cooling. In the 1930's, which was the warmest decade in recorded history, they told us we had 10 years to stop the "irreversible effects of global warming"... Lol. Sound familiar? I remember in the 1970's listening to all this talk about global cooling, and a possible "mini ice age". Then they went back to global warming again in the 80's. Every ten years we get some idiot telling us we "only have 10 years". The UN warned us in 1989, yet again, we only had a decade to stop global warming. Well 30 years have gone by since that warning, and we are still here. In 2007 Al Gore said the sea ice was going to be gone by 2020, and possibly as early as 2014, and that the polar bears were going extinct. Also that the sea level was going rise and flood places like NY city. Now here it is 2019, and we have more sea ice than we did in 2007, and the polar bear populations have increased. Also, the sea level hasn't risen and NY is still here. Yet here we go again, with idiots like AOC telling people we only have a decade and that this is "our WW2". Proving that bartenders shouldn't be elected to congress. Idiots keep telling us we have 10 years, which we've heard over and over again since the beginning of the LAST century, and morons listening to them. Let me ask you this; if these idiots knew what they were talking about, why are they wrong about their predictions far more than they are right? Why didn't anyone predict the 18 years, where there was NO rise in temperature, which they now call "the pause"? Why did several climatologists get caught changing data, because what was actually happened didn't agree with their predictions? You see, real scientists would NEVER change data to make their hypothesis correct. That's not science. That is politics. So yes, I understand climate change VERY WELL.

[@firstnamelastname9918]

@@thomasfleig1184 Yeah, you're argument is pure bullshit. Not that you care to get educated. Science is science. I don't give a rats arse what media says about science -- that's often wrong. There was no "global cooling scare" -- that's bullshit. You're attempting to compare early scientific speculation with decades of mature, peer-reviewed, solid FACTS! There's nothing wrong with early speculation -- we have to *find* something interesting to study before we start a study. But don't fking call that science -- that's bullshit.

[@commontater8630]

@@thomasfleig1184 @Thomas Fleig Too bad you don't use all that mental energy to take a sober look at the facts instead of trying to baffle us with bullshit.

[@TOMAS-lh4er]

Im 70 yrs, old , I love science and always learning, This video about coal is the best thing I have heard about in many years !!!WOW !!

[@donstanfill832]

You should consider it was all formed within a short period of time during a catastrophic world wide flood.

[@krisknowlton5935]

"All coal was formed at the same time." Holds up a charcoal briquette.

[@williammeek4078]

It is actually a coal dust brick.

[@miked5106]

A coal briquette that was manufactued last month. :)

[@HootOwl513]

@Major Problems Charcoal briquettes are made from wood byproducts, not Coal. Much lower burn temp.

[@nickkerr5714]

@@miked5106 yeah but the carbon molecules were created during the big bang

[@xmarine73]

@@HootOwl513 and what he's holding isn't a charcoal briquette

[@Mykasan]

got 20 notifications about trees. That's a great collaboration.

[@Rainbow__cookie]

MR BEAST WHAT HAVE YOU DONE Anyways im proud of this community

[@MrDude-yy8zf]

Love your explanation. It's exciting and have a lot new information for me.

[@q_kun1494]

I doubt many people know that about coal. At least i didn't. Always love science or natural phenomena explained in such simple and engaging manner. Keep spreading the knowledge and more importantly the curiosity and enthusiasm Steve.

[@0MG.N0]

It's very rare that I learn something radically new on KZbin, but this clip did it. When I went to school (admittedly way back), we still learnt that coal was made when the conditions were just right, meaning that large swaths of plant matter became trapped underground (in swamps and whatnot). That was, at the time, the only circumstance where it could be explained that decomposition couldn't happen. But once you think about it, the other condition where decomposition can't happen is just what this video explains. This made my day, because another element of the world has now become much better explained. I always had a nagging feeling that there seems to be far too much fossil fuel in the ground for the original explanation to make (complete) sense. Now it finally does -- thank you :D !!!

[@solalflechelles1216]

Sadly, the video is incorrect - a 2016 article points out several massive flaws with this hypothesis: to wit, that lignin-degrading enzymes did exist in the Carboniferous, that some Carboniferous fossil wood does show evidence of fungal decay, etc. So yes, the hypothesis presented here is very compelling, but it is false: quite annoying! But the upside is, it doesn't happen so often that a scientific hypothesis is disproved in so many ways in one article, and that make for some terrific reading. Here is a good summary if you're interested: www.pnas.org/content/113/9/2334#ref-5

[@victorquesada7530]

@@solalflechelles1216 Thank you for sharing the article. It's really fascinating and fairly accessible as well. While I am sorry that the video is wrong, it also serves as a good example of the nature of advancing scientific understanding, and how paradigms shift. The other thing that's at the core of the video, though, is about how the carbon in fossil fuels was a limited resource formed over geologic periods of time, and our consumption of it is thus also bounded. That conclusion is supported by the article you linked as well.

[@Geokinkladze]

Just remember the video is titled "almost all coal..." not "all coal..."

[@MaverickSeventySeven]

"Mould" - seems an appropriate name for someone studying decomposing........

[@Cooliemasteroz]

Maverick I bet he’s a fun gi.

[@sleystad872]

its almost like hes a character from a comic book

[@MaverickSeventySeven]

@@Cooliemasteroz - That's very good!!!

[@croakingfrog3173]

That would be "mold" not "mould"

[@MaverickSeventySeven]

@@croakingfrog3173 - Yes I know, but phonetically, it is "correct"......

[@PasseScience]

Seen your correction about planting trees, yes trees or forests are a storage not really converters, it means that as soons as the forest has a stable size it's not taking anything anymore (in fact it still is but it will take a very small part that will end up forerver trapped in the soil). Yes we can think that it takes a lot of time to have a new forest of stable size but it still is a storage and not a converter, it's adressing a flux issue with a stock solution if you see what I mean. That beeing said it could be possible to find better solution than forests using plants that would more work like converters than storage, or even possible to engineer some.

[@sarkou34]

Really fascinating. And sooo clear and succinct. Very well done

[@rickdsancheziii1909]

I think that coal was made about two months ago at the Kingsford plant!

[@Dubanx]

You're thinking of charcoal. Not the same thing.

[@diablominero]

@@Dubanx The guy in the video was holding up charcoal, despite claiming to be talking about coal.

[@w8stral]

ITs not coal, it is char

[@mopoerapesminecraft]

@@w8stral did you know based off its look that contains around 5-20% clay

[@asamitchell7948]

Its a brick of coke not coal he's holding its compressed coal dust true coal is shiny and layered

[@cautiousoptimist]

I've planted over a hundred trees on my 3 acre property, over the years. Doing my part...

[@dondobbs9302]

Thank you.

[@medexamtoolsdotcom]

Until they die and decompose and return every gram of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.

[@cautiousoptimist]

@@medexamtoolsdotcom Actually, I turn that lumber into furniture and charcoal for my garden...

[@Timurkani]

nobody asked but thanks anyway

[@Abelx]

Thank you for spending time in doing that :) You are a good person.

[@shannonjaensch3705]

Giant tree's that were felled, caught alight, burnt to a state of coal then flooded/extinguished. Flood covers the coal with water silt and clay preserving it then coal gets dug up many years later. Giant felled burning trees that lie down on the ground which are then buried then become giant coal seams. Charcoal is made by way of digging a big pit in the ground, filling it with wood, setting fire to that wood filled pit then covering that burning wood pit with sand/soil before the wood turns to ash.

[@victorhuffman5068]

Well, you answered that question quite well, thank you. I learned something today! 😊

[@fairwinds610]

It looks like he's holding a charcoal briquette that was made sometime this year.

[@lolaice8959]

Charcoal briquettes contain coal as well as other fossil based ingredients. Invevented in 1919 by Henry Ford and manufactured under the name Kingsford.

[@STho205]

Which should warn you of the likely incorrect material in this presentation. Read a mining engineer text or geologist text and this one layer worldwide falls apart. His presentation is to get you to contribute to his activist PAC. He could just have easily scammed you by saying it all happened in a worldwide flood that Noah survived, or when an asteroid hit burning the Earth.

[@captaintrips2980]

@@lolaice8959 But I've handled coal. It's hard and shiny and doesn't leave as much black on your hands as charcoal does. In the video that looks like charcoal. Not that it makes much difference, the guy is pushing his agenda and soliciting money.

[@captaintrips2980]

Coal looks more like black crushed rocks. That's a briquette.

[@LaurensCarlier]

Glad someone else noticed.

[@stephengrant6316]

In fact, coal has been formed over a great range of time. The oldest coal dates from the Precambrian and was formed from deposits of organic material 3 billion years ago. It was formed from an offshore layer of algae at the mouth of an ancient river delta. Over time, dead algae built up on the sea bottom and was then buried under flood deposits of silt. The youngest coal dates from the Eocene, fifty million years ago and is characterized as soft coal deposited in the subtropical forests of ancient Germany.

[@colvinator1611]

3 billion years Steven? 50 million years Steven? You're living in cloud cuckoo land. Who told ( taught ) you those numbers? Can we have some scientific validation of these rediculous time spans please.

[@vamshis1756]

@@colvinator1611 who told(taught) you those numbers are wrong?

[@drswaqqinscheckingin7210]

@@colvinator1611 lol how are those timespans ridiculous at all? You're off your rocker colin, carbon dating makes telling how old coal is as simple as testing it and studying the land from where it came from tells you why it's found there. Oh I forgot the earth and everything on it was created 6000 years ago by sky daddy.

[@victorquesada7530]

@@colvinator1611 Not to be mean, and because I do understand the skepticism, I searched for some basic resources online briefly. Lignite is relatively new coal in most cases, forming without the same levels of deep pressure and high temperature, and its youth is attributable to the correct conditions to prevent decay, in waterlogged basins with acid formations in the peat like substrate allowing for the buildup of carbon from previously living things. This video explains part of why coal is so prevalent in this short time period, but of course geologists can spend their entire undergrad years focusing on the subject, instead of watching a 6 minute KZbin video.

[@bobroberts8500]

Tell me more about the algae coal

[@jonahansen]

Dude - that looks like a charcoal briquet, not a lump of coal...

[@KG-if2oc]

Fascinating! Thank you!

[@Jesse__H]

Another fun fact that I'm paraphrasing from one of my other favorite youtube channels, PBS Eons: The Environmental pressure that originally caused the ancestors of trees to grow so tall was all that undecomposed matter lying around. It got so deep over time it blocked out access to the sun for plants trying grow on the ground! So over time, trees got taller and taller in an effort to retain access to sunlight!

[@dinoj61]

Jesse H. What about higher carbon dioxide (what plants breath) being higher back then? That makes plants go crazy, look up some videos on it there are some super cool experiments with plants growing super big

[@livedandletdie]

PBS is not educational... It's mostly nonscientific garbage. CO2 levels being high causes Plants to grow faster, taller and produce more fruits. It's a well established fact, and it also causes the Water level in the ground to not deplete as fast because it lowers the amount of water that trees waste when there is higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

[@Dockhead]

@@livedandletdie but also not all plants grow the same and not all fruit bearing plants grow the same. although they all tend to stick to a rule it can be completely different for some. c02 can only do so much and pouring in higher and higher levels doesn't just equate directly to more and more, as that would be classed as a miracle. preperation techniques and methods of whatever to maintain water run off or water logging and the addition and prevention of minerals and nutrition leaving the soil before the fruit has bared etc, different environments cause different things like water evaporation even how much water is available and temperature drops, some plants dont like to bare in certain temperatures or conditions, much like cherries they tend to halt growing in the span they do if it rains heavily on the tree and the weight puts pressure and stress into the stems and branches and apparently halts the growth, look it up they use helicopters to blow the water off the tree using its propeller thrust from above. all im trying to get at is while c02 is vital its not the only thing that decides the fate of the said plant or fruit. just like water for us, if we drink too much it can infact actually kill us.

[@jpe1]

The Major do I understand you correctly that your hypothesis is “higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2 correlate with taller trees, and the mechanism is CO2 promoting taller growth, and that is sufficient to explain ever taller forests during the Carboniferous period”? I want to make sure I correctly understand what you are saying, so if I’ve mischaracterized anything please correct me.

[@Michelo5697]

Total missunderstood fact, that's what's happening in every forest, every tree wants to grow taller so it has more acces to the sun light. It's an endless cycle where CO2 grown because of fires and other factors, the globe becomes wormer so there are more BIG trees, then they produce too much oxygen that creates bigger animals just like in the carboniferous period, huge toads, then snowglobe and not that many plants, oxygen lowers and the cycle starts again. Amen.

[@cyrkielnetwork]

I wonder how forests look like with all this dead trees stack on each other, how tall this stacks was, and how new trees can grow when everything was obstructed by dead trunks.

[@sizzlenotsteak]

"Life will find a way."

[@ewmegoolies]

I had the same question

[@Ck-mt8ef]

This is one of many of the little problems the evolutionists have with their presentations of how everything happened in this world

[@asherdie]

Shhhhhh you will upset the educated with common sense.

[@monad_tcp]

I'm pretty sure there would be almost no dead trunk. The only thing bacteria won't digest is the lignin, but all the other structures would be, everything would be turned into a powder and mixed into the ground and end up compressed when more and more things pile on top of it, the ground would be getting even higher, things would just grow at the top. It's just dirty as usual, with a thin veil of humus. There are also other things happening, like fires Fire would turn the lignin protein into a soap, ever tried to cook wood? just try, you'll have your answer. common sense is useless for science.

[@zacharyorme2474]

Oh my god, I have known about photosynthesis for years, and have enjoyed fires all my life, but I have never fully released the whole process. I had intense waves of realization when you connected the dots between separating Carbon and O2, storing the solar energy as carbon, and then reintroducing the 02 and the carbon to release the solar energy as fire and recombing the molecules into CO2. I knew those things independently, but never connected the whole process together. Thank you for this video!

[@eddypoletto1852]

Probably just as most people. The problem becomes major when supposed "scientists" fail to connect so obvious dots and talk about idiotic technologies to sequester CO2 from the air...

[@Geokinkladze]

That's why almost all the energy we consume comes from the sun.

[@superchuck3259]

It is called the Carbon Cycle.

[@DC9848]

Most educative video on this channel I have stumbled upon so far

[@wiggles877]

I really want "Essence of Wood" on a shirt.

[@wiggles877]

@Hulagan 808 Weirdly hostile for a small joke, relax dude. Not really the thing to be offended to the core about.

[@torstenbehrendt870]

What's in your hand is a piece of barbecue coal and it was made in march 2019 ;-)

[@jmcbri]

Indeed. Sure looks like charcoal, which of course, isn't coal. But good show nonetheless.

[@gazsibb]

It could also be a coal briquette formed by compressing coal powder. Quite hard to get the real thing nower days in UK.

[@dextertreehorn]

Our "Gretas" here don't care about such small differences. "Climate chance is an actual problem" our smart leader says in the video .... and boys, THAT'S the message of this video.

[@Sceleri]

@@dextertreehorn haha yes

[@torstenbehrendt870]

Ok my bad 😨 This is a language thing now. In the German language all the black stuff is coal regardless of the age.

[@PerspectiveEngineer]

This is one of my favorite stories. Thx

[@theoutlook55]

I'm so glad I saw this, and that it explains one thing that I've been curious about for years. So what I'm getting from this is that no Dinosaurs (or their fossilized remains) were hurt in the making of modern-day coal or oil deposits.😜

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

Correct. Coal predates the earliest dinosaurs by about 100 million years. Hence no dinosaur fossils in coal deposits, but lost of plant and insect fossils. Mostly imprints.

[@Allworldsk1]

That's oil 💯👌🏻

[@slick-px4pq]

When I was in elementary school in the 1970s a teacher told us that oil was the product of decayed dinosaurs. I then asked her why their fossils were close to the surface and oil was so deep. Crickets.

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

@@slick-px4pq Oil does not come from dinosaurs. It comes from _marine_ organisms, zoo- and phytoplankton that lived in shallow seas hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs. Geologists know this and look for oil in areas that show signs of having been dried up ancient sea beds (for example, salt deposits).

[@slick-px4pq]

@@olmostgudinaf8100 yes, I know.

[@pernordin2641]

One of the best natural science videos I have seen (and I wach science videos every day). I had no idea about the history of stone-coal! So cool!

[@esa062]

Actually plants break water into hydrogen and oxygen and then combine the hydrogen to CO2 to make carbohydrates.

[@diamondflaw]

ATP and NADPH FTW!

[@tamjansan1154]

Basically if they stop cutting forests, CO2 problem will be solved.

[@rikk319]

@@tamjansan1154 No, it will take a long, long, long time for plant life on this planet to re-fix carbon into living tissue by taking up CO2 in the air. Millions of years. All that burned coal was buried, fossilized wood...there isn't enough surface area on the Earth, nor enough temperate zones, to turn the released CO2 back into wood and just have massive forests again.

[@tamjansan1154]

@@rikk319 what is solution ?

[@lucasbudega]

@@tamjansan1154 that's where you come in! figure it out for us

[@CheezDoodlezz]

Imagine a family of coal chilling for the past 30303 Years then a man just mines it all with a stone pickaxe

[@davidwallace3933]

I always enjoy your content.

[@janekath3221]

There's an app called 'ecosia.' They plant trees for every thing you search on the app. It's like Google but also plants trees.

[@TorreFernand]

And they don't save your search history (in case that's something that bothers you)

[@Shamazya]

@DivinexDragoonxRising Do you have a particular reason for thinking that? Doing a quick surface search on google isn't bringing anything to the contrary up.

[@MaxCoplan]

DivinexDragoonxRising @pmg @divinexdragoonxrising well if it costs the Arbor Day Foundation (the biggest tree planters in the world) $1 to plant a tree, then there’s no way ecosia makes $1 per search, especially if they don’t collect your data. Google doesn’t make anything near $1 per search, and they take every piece of data that exists on you

[@janekath3221]

@@MaxCoplan They do not plant a tree per search. It takes more like 45-50 searches for them to plant a tree.

[@janekath3221]

@Wyatt Watling if someone's planting trees, even if their engine is not as good, I'd still prefer them.

[@BDAShadow1]

Just a casual 60 million year time window. And I thought the 4 hour window for the cable company was ridiculous.

[@damo5219]

Wow. This has blown my mind. Thank you!!!

[@matthewberry201]

Fascinating, never really thought about it.

[@SaishiX]

When 60 million years can be considered the same time.

[@dazuk1969]

Hi there, in Geological terms...60 million years is nothing more than a small percentage. Even though to us, it seems like forever.....Peace to my friend.

[@1320crusier]

@@dazuk1969 its about a week on the geological scale =p

[@drewb1263]

Its because the earth has been going for a long time, like 65million years

[@laurynastamosaitis1996]

@@drewb1263 no, the earth is like 3000 years old. And, btw, the earth is flat

[@dazuk1969]

@@1320crusier Hi there, i think i upset some people with my post, but at least you seem to know what you are talking about...probably more than me. When i read the earth is 3000 yrs old, 65 million yrs old, Flat ?...i just can't even respond to that...thank you for your reply....Peace.

[@Mysticfox-wk2be]

Trees consume a relatively small amount of co2. Its the oceans that absorb most co2. Sea life consumes co2 and when it dies it sinks to the bottom of the ocean

[@guesswho6038]

Right, it comes to mind when looking at the huge mass of all limestone mountain ranges. They're so abundant and all formed in part from CO2 in the seas.

[@bennichols561]

Shellfish are selfish they would lock up all the co2

[@dialecticalmonist3405]

Um... ok, sure. But what is your point? Is is insanely easier to plant trees compared with attempting to engineer ocean ecosystems that absorb carbon at a higher rate than the base line.

[@bennichols561]

@@dialecticalmonist3405 we want higher carbon. The base of the climate religion is that carbon is bad. Its wrong.

[@bennichols561]

@@dialecticalmonist3405 with higher carbon trees plant themselves

[@destrygriffith3972]

I remember looking at a big tree and trying to work out why it doesn't sink into a sink hole where the mass was derived from the earth, and the same thing finally hitting me after a few days: it's mostly made of air. But my correction I eventually realized is that, by mass, it's probably mostly made of "ground" after all - that by-definition wet stuff that flows *through* the ground, thus not leaving a void when sucked up.

[@solalflechelles1216]

You were mostly correct initially: the tree is formed mostly of carbon, and that carbon is formed from carbon dioxyde in the air. That said, some water is also used in the process and become part of the mass of the tree, but it's a much smaller part.

[@bazzybazon2525]

ABSOLUTELY FACINATING

[@bibektg]

Oh my God this has been the most recurring question of the entirety of my childhood , year and year again these teachers told me the the coal started forming millions of years ago and I can't figure out why oh why does that make it limited

[@STho205]

Then don't listen to this guy blind. There are three distinct layers hundreds of millions of years apart in North America. There are small truths in this presentation, but the overall thesis is wrong out of the gate. There are mining scientists as geologists you may wish to check out first. Oh school teachers often have a only a surface knowledge of any one subject, unless they are passionate about a particular subject. Then they may have studied it on their own or watched crap money grab con jobs like this.

[@Deebz270]

@@STho205 - Although I agree that there are inaccuracies in Steve's presentation, you are being unnecessarily harsh in your commenting. One thing I'm sure of, Steve is no 'money-grab con job'. I agree about teachers though....

[@STho205]

@@Deebz270 #tree whatever is trying to raise money to pay their staff to talk and travel. I like trees too. Most do. If presenting a case *they don't have to lie* . When people present such obvious inaccuracies as "science in media" then it causes people to distrust other "science in media". This was ham handed at best.

[@Bialy_1]

​@@Deebz270 "Although I agree that there are inaccuracies" Coal mines in USA are mostly open-pit type but for example in my country(Poland) you have mines like "Budryk" where they diging coal from 1290m(4232 feet) below surface... so what part of this video is not misleading? It is sci-fi from the begining to the end...

[@1pcfred]

Most organic matter is not converted into fossil fuels. You need a unique set of circumstances for fossil fuels to form.

[@goatgod2009]

You beat smartereveryday and veritaseum by like a minute.

[@MrFurriephillips]

Erik Neumann for me too :)

[@MrFurriephillips]

Well, I added them to my watch later queue, but I watch in reverse order.

[@Hyacinth77]

I was waiting for someone to say this!

[@differentlyabledmuslimjewi4475]

plus veritasium just reuploaded an old video with a minute or two of explaining the teamtrees project. So that is pretty impressive.

[@itisdevonly]

Good thing I watched Veritasium's video first, because Steve Mould quickly asks and then promptly answers the question posed in Veritasium's video. Kind of spoils it if you already know the answer.

[@snubbedpeer]

Very interesting indeed! You mentioned plastics, we could wait for microorganisms to figure out a way to decompose them, I have read that some such activity have been observed? Or we could help the organisms along and make it easier for them to do the job. 👍

[@michaelgreen1515]

I have a 100 and something year old friend whose father was a superior for the National Coal Board in Sheffield. Her father was able to taste coal and tell which seem it was, it was a part of his training. A interesting combination of your recent videos.

[@danbhakta]

Considering the very specific circumstances for coal to form, I'll go out on a limb and say it is probably rarer than gold in our universe.

[@SuperPhunThyme9]

Oh yeah. By far.

[@SuperPhunThyme9]

Probably rarer the any natural element.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

Not really, low oxygen/anoxic environments aren't that uncommon.

[@vitriolicAmaranth]

@@ANTSEMUT1 Wood is pretty fucking uncommon my guy.

[@stevewest6230]

It's the reason Aliens visit earth........to collect our rare coal for making priceless intergalactic jewelry.

[@TheSuperArx]

Steve you honestly make some of the best stuff on this site imho. Always engaging and always teaches something new

[@naybobdenod]

Hi Raptor. I really couldn't`t agree with you more. Regards John ( UK )

[@SteveMould]

Thank you!

[@scfan7231]

What an amazing story with the lignine and the comparison to plastics. Wow!

[@nicky5683]

Interesting. What about different coals, though? Lignite, bituminous, anthracite? For example, anthracite is rare, coal-wise; only found in a few areas, that I know of: southern Wales, parts of China, and northeastern Pennsylvania (where I'm from). The geology of each area is different, and bituminous deposits (I'm referring to western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, etc) are found in strata below, above and the same as, say, the anthracite deposits are (Pottsville, Llewellyn conglomerates, etc).

[@alexs-fo6jz]

There is a rock formation in my province in an area called drumheller, the rock is about 66-67 million years old and has a quite a bit of coal in it, enough that it used to be mined. It’s very cool that most of the worlds coal was formed at the same time, but definitely not all of it. Great video and I’m glad your on this project!

[@lacuentadevideos]

I`m so proud I`ve planted trees since age of 7 and at age 69 still doing it like taking trees and seeds to the shores of artificial lakes here in patagonia and I do it for free, I encourage everyone to do it to save the planet for our offspring

[@shadabfariduddin6784]

Salute to you, sir.

[@vanlendl1]

You have to do that for 60 million years. Planting trees will not get that CO2 out of the atmosphere.

[@vanlendl1]

@Richard Davies There is not enough room on this earth. The coal was created over 60 million years by trees. You should calculate it.

[@oscargrainger2962]

Your to be applauded however China is probably wiping out everything you do every second. Keep it up though.

[@sislertx]

@@vanlendl1 so true..there is only one small rare shrub that uses the type of carbon that bidens 2.2 BILLION POUNDS OF IT THAT HE SPEWED FROM HIS ONE TRIP TO THE CANCELED EARLY POPE AND ENVIRONMENTAL MEETING!!! MORE CARBON THAN A MEDIUM SIZE TOWN MAKES IN ONE YEAR!!!

[@michelprins]

as a todler my grandfather threw me in the coalshed on the balcony when lying there i saw a diamond in one of the coals so beautifull colors, long time i thought i imagined it untill i learned in school that they are made of the same substance so it made sence. ;)

[@TucsonDude]

Coal: Took 60 million years to produce; took 500 years to use up.

[@mooncowtube]

All the involved KZbinrs are announcing the tree scheme “at the same time”, i.e. within 60 million years of each other...! 😂

[@lenovo762]

After we're all gone, someone will come up with this idea again.... maybe in another 360 m years from now...lol

[@austinbryan6759]

60 million years is a pretty small time frame for the Universe

[@thomassaurus]

Soooo.... I'm looking this up now, and according to every source I can find there is nothing that says all coal formed at the same period. In fact, according to the wiki "coal is known from most geological periods". Is this video just dead wrong?

[@wizardsuth]

It exaggerates. The vast majority of coal formed during the Carboniferous period, but it has formed during other periods, and is still forming in some areas. Conditions have to be such that large amounts of vegetation grows but something prevents it from breaking down quickly, for example being submerged in a low oxygen swamp or marsh.

[@stevewebber707]

I'm no geologist but my cursory research is finding examples of coal that formed in other periods. Peat seems to be a major source of what turned into coal for example. Apparently swamps make for good coal forming precursors. Perhaps the water inhibits the process of decay. I found one source that looks fairly informative: www.britannica.com/science/coal-fossil-fuel/Origin-of-coal The things he said sounded interesting and plausible but he seems to have flubbed the facts rather badly. Perhaps there were conditions in the period he referred to that made coal formation happen more than in other periods, but he stated things in absolute terms that do not seem correct.

[@GaroshiTheAwesome]

Yes, some of the biggest coal deposits are Jurassic in age, for instance

[@ProfezorSnayp]

Not entirely wrong. The creation of coal was ongoing right until basically the present. We have Triassic, Jurassic and Neogene coal seams. We have black coal, brown coal and peat which is being made right now.

[@livedandletdie]

55 Million years ago all the Coal and Oil in the North Sea formed. So Steve is dead wrong, and it's scary how easily influenced people are about the environment, when someone sane tries to reason with them, they blank and screams insults at one. Me personally I'm used to people not understanding scientific data, and drawing false conclusions. The Oil and Coal deposits in the North Sea formed due to the biggest theft of CO2 that has ever occurred on planet Earth, The Azolla Incident, where the Entire North Sea which was a lake by that time, was filled with a little fern the size of a mm^3 which not only drained the atmosphere of CO2 but also the Oceans of CO2, and this little plant which doubles it's biomass in 3 days when conditions are perfect, and as slow as 10 days in suboptimal conditions, formed a 30cm/10inch layer covering the entire North Sea, it lowered the CO2 levels from 3200 ppm to just slightly above 290 ppm this process took roughly 4 years. In 10 years it would have covered a surface so large that you could have covered each planet in the solar system with these plants. Well the plants that formed died over time and sank to the bottom of the sea, and mixed with sediments from rivers and slowly but surely all the CO2 which was drained from the atmosphere sank to the bottom of the North Sea and stayed there.

[@dandaniels851]

Thanks Mate 👍 absolutely bloody brilliant video and explanation 👌

[@bradsillasen1972]

Excellent piece.

[@appdev4861]

I used to think that process of coal making is an ongoing process. This video has washed off that ignorance. Thank you 🙏

[@GhostsOfSparta]

lol I thought it was the dinosaur extinction event. Most of the trees died along with dinos and got turned into coal…

[@geologian5066]

It is ongoing, just the majority of coal comes from this event.

[@2muchofyou]

@@geologian5066 yea its frustrating to have such mixed information.

[@nictamer]

Coal is still being produced, in peat bogs. That only happens in places with special conditions that don't let fungus do its things.

[@joostdriesens3984]

@@2muchofyou it's not really mixed information imo if you imagine with all academic statements: but there are some exceptions.

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

Glad to hear someone from this perspective who understands carbon and lignans and bacteria and fungi. Thanks for the excellent video!

[@tjrubicon5463]

Very good explanation!

[@Drinksfromtap]

“Trees are (mostly) made of air” was something I didn’t realize until well into adulthood, and it blew my mind! 😊

[@jayd6224]

It's a stretch to say carbon is air.

[@erinm9445]

"Trees are (mostly) made of carbon extracted from air." Better? Seems just as cool to me.@@jayd6224

[@SioxerNikita]

Otherwise a tree would make holes everytime they grow

[@YouLilalas]

I would like to donate. But not via credit card, sorry. *Edit:* They have PayPal and other options at teamtrees.org

[@cubertmiso4140]

Doesn't say what payment options. Like is there any digital currencies available. Using paypal is like donating to a bit evil overlord while not giving 100% of the money to plant trees. They should show all the options available before people start to fill forms so the experience to help is always successful.

[@cormacsmall9442]

@@cubertmiso4140 HAH! PayPal is one of the most useful services we've seen since email. And you think it's evil because you have to pay a charge to use it?

[@cubertmiso4140]

@@cormacsmall9442 Not because they charge to use it. You read what you want. It should be platform to make transactions. Not publisher of allowed transactions as of now. Liked PayPal a lot back in the days. Remember their free bonus when joining? They spoke about freedom to transfer wealth. Every project starts with good intentions, then some of them grow too big to act good.

[@deeperlayer]

@@cormacsmall9442 Paypal is horrible everyone should move away from it

[@NGC1433]

@@cubertmiso4140 I am afraid you are stupid. How in the world does PayPal prevent you from wealth transfer? It's their only business. If you are in conflict with limits they impose - go argue with your country's government. Paypal has to obey ALL of the laws of the countries they operate in.

[@LEDewey_MD]

Another "fun fact" - all of those trees dying (and not decomposing) during the Carboniferous era also produced the highest level of atmospheric oxygen - about 35 percent. (Now it's about 20 percent). This is also how insects grew to such gigantic sizes at that time. And, regarding a comment someone made about how planting trees NOW won't eliminate all of that carbon now being released by our coal burning - um....the other part of the "solution", in addition to planting trees,... is to STOP BURNING COAL.

[@koningbolo4700]

Yeah kind of like if you are out to clean up a flood you first turn off the large tap which caused it... #whatdamcandothat?

[@SuperPhunThyme9]

@Donald Kasper hey man, you arent supposed to talk about that.

[@koningbolo4700]

@Donald Kasper You ever read at all ? Or understand the concept of humour ??

[@koningbolo4700]

@Donald Kasper The buchstaben must dazzle you because a simple joke alludes you completely...

[@567891100]

Another fun fact, all the water on earth is billions of years old, it just gets recycled. Meaning that that glass of water you drank used to be dinosaur piss.

[@beebop9808]

Planted 15 trees this fall. Costed a darn site more than a dollar a piece.

[@meadow-maker]

I Couldn't help smile a bit at the nominative determinism there. Steve Mould talking about fungus.

[@TheRolemodel1337]

4:53 wont help unless after they're grown we cut them and bury them so they can become coal algae would be much better for this since they grow much faster you would still need to stop aerobic respiration and methanogenesis for them to become a carbon sink

[@CC-ok2kt]

Well, it’s not supposed to gain us, so much as to the future.. for now, we’re fine, however future humans probably won’t be, and because of this, we can help them a bit

[@TheRolemodel1337]

@@CC-ok2kt wont help future humans either, lol

[@mikavanbeek5253]

Good point! Why doesn’t steve mention this? I mean he kind of indirectly does, but still kind of to important not to mention

[@smashgambits]

@@pluto8404 An asteroid is way more likely to hit mars than the Earth. And if we can terraform Mars, it's difficult to imagine a catastrophe on Earth that we can't recover from.

[@smashgambits]

As long as the tree stays alive, it will continue to be a carbon sink. And if you think about it, deforestation also helps create the sink, because wood use in books and furniture doesn't re-enter the atmosphere for a much longer time. We need to fix carbon emissions really quickly (but based on the rate of solar cell progress, especially in perovskites, I think we'll manage). If the tree lives 50-100 years before decomposing or burning, technology will have progressed to the point that the newly released CO2 isn't pivotal. Or we'll have damaged the environment irreversibly and further damage would be pretty much irrelevant.

[@GilmerJohn]

Well, I've always had the understanding the peat bogs were simply "young" coal fields.

[@georgehugh3455]

If they get buried deep enough (to create sufficient pressure), they will be

[@OldBenOne]

@j mcmann If it isn't in the bible it isn't true.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

@j mcmann lol so your answer is what magic? What else happens? Some sort of chemical reaction/change has to occur, what is the wood going to remain completely identical to before it got buried under tons of sediment.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

@j mcmann so your answer is still because magic.

[@boobgoogler]

@@OldBenOne it doesn’t say anything about computers existing or working in the Bible but here you are watching KZbin

[@electricAB]

And they didn’t teach me this in school..why? Awesome video!!

[@Marco-xz7rf]

would it even be possible today, that if we calculated the amout of used energy could be growing in trees in the same time we use it?

[@Tony-Blake]

When is a 60-million-year time span equivalent to simultaneity? Oh right --- speaking geologically.

[@medexamtoolsdotcom]

The ratio of 360 million to 300 million is not a large ratio, that's the point.

[@austinbryan6759]

Compared to the billions of ages earth has been around 60 mil is pretty dang short

[@JenniArmstrong]

@@austinbryan6759 1/66th of the span of the earth isn't anything to sneeze at.

[@Tony-Blake]

@Donald Kasper I was joking.

[@w8stral]

Yea, except it wasn't 60 Million years ago as ALL coal has C-14 in it many times greater than the error of testing nothing. Just as all limestone has C14 in it. Just as all oil has C14 in it... Either C14 radioacitve decay massively slowed down by MANy orders of magnitude, or their 60Million year age is complete BS. Or you play make believe that C14 magically swims around beneath the earth surface... The only thing we do know is that all the coal around the world is generally composed of nearly identical material.

[@MLeoDaalder]

Trees, the original plastic. So we only need 60 million years before that problem is solved? Probably cheaper to wait it out. /s

[@JoeParizer]

Wow that was very interesting, thank you!

[@jerensteffen]

A perfect example of what advocates are supposed to be like. Regardless of your stance on climate change, he's asking for voluntary donations to a cause instead of getting government to force people at gun point. Much respect.

[@joewilliams7783]

This guy is piggy backing climate change to further his agenda, and making climate change (the #1 problem facing the earth) simpler to attack. Grow trees? Don't those trees die and rot eventually putting the same amount of Co2 into the atmosphere they took out? Is there really some great tree CO2 deposit that everybody missed? I dug holes in the forest, and let me tell you, it is just dirt under those trees, no miles of carbon built up over the years.

[@jerensteffen]

@@joewilliams7783 Your accusation of his motive may be true, but my point still stands. His request of us is purely voluntary action, which allows us to critique ideas and decide for ourselves if it is a worthy cause. As compared to an advocate that lobbies governernment to "steal our money at gunpoint" and give it to a "green organization" by force. As for your other claims, lumbered trees store CO2 for a long time, but admit this is a small percentage and your point is still very valid.

[@enotdetcelfer]

Pretty trippy to think that all the carbon from the gas and coal we burn, used to be in the planet's atmosphere...

[@Corbald]

Yeah, but critically, *not all at once!*

[@jimrichards7014]

Yeah, that’s the root of the problem.

[@iancastleton9052]

@@Corbald Actually the CO2 must have been in the atmosphere all at once for the trees to extract it and convert it into wood. Unless there were other large natural sources of CO2 which kept the atmosphere "topped up".

[@Corbald]

@@iancastleton9052 I mean... it _was_ before the 'Great Oxygenation' event, but it's important to US, now, that it isn't :P

[@haxney]

Apparently, trees almost wiped themselves out by sucking all of the CO2 from the atmosphere. Before the evolution of lignin-eating fungi, there wasn't a carbon cycle, so trees could have made the earth uninhabitable by CO2-breathing plants. I've heard a similar claim made about calcium carbonate today: life forms can't easily break it down, so it just accumulates, potentially exhausting the supply of CO2 in the air. We're at something of a low point of CO2 concentration if you look at the last few hundred million years.

[@iismitch55]

Actually Steve, you are the first video I have heard mention this.

[@PedroMarco94]

It's wierd... Such an interesting explanation

[@caniscerulean]

One of the episodes of Cosmos (newer one with NDT) went into pretty good detail about the carboniferous period, and the massive fire it led to in the ?Permian? extinction. That this also supplied the coal we use now was more of a side note, but great details. This was also the major flipflop between carbon dioxide and oxygen dominating the atmosphere (behind nitrogen, obviously) and the period where we got arthropods nearing B-movie dimensions. (may not be attack of the 50 foot grasshopper, but millipedes larger than the family dog are memorable)

[@Michelo5697]

maybe because it's not true?

[@glenreddy1435]

This was fantastic , thank you 🧐

[@brunofporto]

In Brazil we do use Ethanol from sugar cane as one of the main fuel sources for cars and agriculture airplanes. It is a literal way to use the solar energy and carbon from the air to fuel the economy. The ethanol production plans also generate energy for their own consumption and to feed nearby cities. The tractors used on this production runs on bio diesel and the airplanes that are used on cane production uses ethanol directly. There is no need for nitrogen fertilizer too as we developed a simbiothic bacteria that lives at the roots of the sugar cane and produces the required nitrogen for the plants.

[@SamadhanMachineToolsSMT]

ONE TREE, for the mother's pride ONE TREE, for the times we've cried ONE TREE, gotta stay alive I will survive ONE TREE, for the city streets ONE TREE, for the hip-hop beats ONE TREE, oh I do believe ONE TREE is all we need!!

[@WuxianTec]

At first I was afraid I was petrified I kept thinking I could never be coal without you by my side (pressure and all that) There's so many lyrics that match. Technically all the lyrics to I will survive fit here. You wouldn't even need to change them.

[@MarcoCjOrg]

this is the most interesting bit of knowledge i've learned this year, thank you!

[@plumleytube]

Except it is not true

[@sergiomora5702]

"All this videos are coming out at the same time" Just like coal!!

[@ruslandavidchack7295]

It seems to me that what he's holding is not the mined coal, but a piece of compressed charcoal, which is probably a few years old at most... not 300000000 yo.

[@1956paterson]

This is an excellent idea, where are these trees going to be planted?

[@joewilliams7783]

Why trees? Why not wheat?

[@matthewfarrell317]

The second time I have seen this. NO the plants do not split CO2 at all, the bond is really strong, it splits water and the hydrogen bonds with the CO2 to create the sugars to grow, and the O2 comes from the oxygen in the water.

[@Kriscor01]

Really grinds my gear too

[@mikelong9638]

Good explanation.

[@Niaaal]

The science teacher we all wish we had in school