Ning Zeng is a professor of climate science at the University of Maryland. A few years back he attended a conference in Australia, and during a tea break he heard one scientist talking about the climate impact of burning dead trees while another was discussing landfills.
“Then I suddenly said, ‘Well, how about instead of burning all those deforested trees we just bury it, so the carbon does not go into the atmosphere. We laughed and went back to the meeting, but on my way back from that trip I could not sleep for 36 hours on the road, so I got out a napkin and jotted down key concepts and numbers, which evolved into a paper after a year and a half and was published.”
Archaeology had shown that wood, if buried in airtight vaults or under water, didn’t decay.
"The Viking ships, ancient Roman ships, sunken at the bottom of the sea and ancient coffins of all kinds."
A hundred-year-old oak might release the same amount of carbon in a given year as the average American, so Zeng came up with a plan to bury thousands of dead trees that were stored on a lot in Baltimore – unwanted by a market saturated with lumber, wood chips and mulch.
“Either it’s not the right quality or it does not have enough market value. A lot of the trees are damaged or diseased, so they cannot be used at all.”
He went door to door in rural Maryland – searching for someone to give him land where he could bury 100 tons of wood.
“You enclose the top. Then the surface can still be used for agriculture, grazing or you can build solar farms on top.”
A farmer in Cecil County – Bill Kilby – said okay, and Zeng started making plans – calling contractors to transport and bury the wood. He also set up an online forum where he could talk with others doing similar things around the world and discovered many have run into a roadblock – getting government approval.
“Pretty much everybody is running into this permitting problem. The only way to permit is as a landfill. It takes a long time, because when you’re talking about landfill, you’re talking about toxic material.”
Zeng got local approval to do a small demonstration project. Crews began digging a hole and delivering dead trees. On November 13, 2023, he stood by the vault with several students, farmer Bill Kilby and others who liked the idea of storing carbon in the ground. In his youth, Zeng had written poetry in Chinese. Now, he felt, a poem in English was needed, so he turned to AI.
“I was exhausted, and I just did not have the mental capacity to sit down and write a poem, so that’s why I just asked Chat GPT to do it.”
The prompt: Write a poem about burying trees to fight climate change in the style of Walt Whitman.
Beneath the soil, a sacred pledge,
Trees entwined on nature’s edge,
In burial deep, a climate vow,
To sequester carbon here and now.
It was a moment to celebrate, but a few months later Zeng got distressing news. On learning no official permit had been issued, state officials called the farmer and demanded he dig up those dead trees. In fear of legal action, he did just that, and Zeng says the logs are now sitting outside – slowly releasing carbon.
“Yes – it’s a very sad situation. I still can’t really wrap my head around this. I just wanted to cry.”
But Zeng isn’t giving up on the idea of burying trees, and he’s set his sights on Virginia. The soil here is often high in clay, making it ideal for sealing wood underground.
