A fresh paper in npj Climate Action (January 2026) from researchers including Ulf Büntgen at the University of Cambridge has floated one of the most bizarre geoengineering ideas yet: cut down vast swathes of the boreal forest across Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia, float the logs down major Arctic rivers (like the Yukon, Mackenzie, Ob, Yenisey, and Lena), and let them sink to the deep, cold, low-oxygen floor of the Arctic Ocean. The goal? Lock away carbon for thousands — or even millions — of years, removing up to 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year (about 3% of current global anthropogenic emissions).
The logic sounds superficially clever on paper. Boreal forests (the taiga) are already expanding thanks to higher CO₂ levels and warmer conditions — greening the north by about 12% since the 1980s. But wildfires are also intensifying, releasing stored carbon back into the air. So why not harvest mature, fire-prone trees before they burn, raft them to the ocean (where low oxygen and cold supposedly preserve wood like ancient driftwood or subfossil logs in Alpine lakes that last 8,000+ years), and replant the cut areas with fast-growing young trees that suck up more CO₂? It's pitched as a "thought experiment" for durable carbon removal to offset hard-to-electrify sectors like heavy industry or aviation.
But let's apply basic biology and physics. Wood rots when exposed to oxygen, microbes, and fungi — and that's exactly what happens in most natural environments. The proposal assumes the deep Arctic seafloor is a perfect anoxic tomb. Reality check:
The Arctic Ocean isn't fully frozen or anoxic everywhere. Surface waters are above 0°C in many areas, with currents, bacteria, and marine wood-borers (like shipworms) that degrade logs over decades, not millennia.
Trees are buoyant (specific gravity ~0.4–0.6 vs. water's 1.0). Most logs float for years before waterlogging enough to sink — if they sink at all. Many would beach, rot on shore, or drift into warmer Atlantic/Pacific waters and decompose, releasing CO₂ faster than if left standing.
Cutting and transporting 180,000 km² of forest annually (an area larger than some countries) requires massive chainsaws, trucks, helicopters, fuel, roads — and yes, those operations emit CO₂ themselves. Replanting? Seedlings take decades to recapture the carbon released during harvest and transport.
Jo Nova's blog nails the lunacy: this is like curing a headache by chopping off your head. The boreal forest is already a massive, expanding carbon sink thanks to CO₂ fertilisation. Killing trees now releases stored carbon immediately (via decay or machinery emissions), while new saplings sequester slowly. Net effect? Likely more atmospheric CO₂ in the short-to-medium term, not less.
Why not just plant more trees instead?
That's the sane, proven alternative — and it's already happening naturally. Higher CO₂ acts like free fertilizer: boreal forests are greening, tundra is shrubifying, and global leaf area has increased dramatically. Planting trees (afforestation/reforestation) on suitable degraded land sequesters carbon without the massive upfront emissions or ecological disruption of industrial-scale logging and ocean dumping.
Planting on the northern edge of the boreal zone (as other 2026 studies show) could remove gigatons of CO₂ by 2100 with minimal albedo issues if done carefully.
Avoids destroying existing mature forests that store carbon now and provide habitat, biodiversity, indigenous livelihoods, and wildfire buffers.
Costs far less than hypothetical mega-logging fleets and river-rafting ops.
No risk of polluting the Arctic with sunken debris, disrupting marine ecosystems, or violating international waters treaties.
The proposal admits it's speculative, with "significant issues" needing study — yet it's getting headlines as a serious fix. Critics (including in CBC and Popular Mechanics coverage) point to ecosystem costs: habitat loss for caribou, bears, birds; altered river flows; potential methane release from disturbed soils; and the sheer scale making it logistically impossible without turning Siberia and Canada into industrial wastelands.
This isn't climate action—it's desperation theatre. When "solutions" involve destroying the planet's largest land carbon sink to supposedly save it, you've lost the plot. Real progress comes from reducing emissions first, protecting existing forests, and letting nature do what it does best: grow more trees with the extra CO₂ we've already added.
If environmentalists are serious about carbon removal, then plant billions more trees—not chainsaw the ones we have and hope they sink forever in a warming ocean. The boreal forest isn't the problem; it's one of the few things still working in our favour. Leave it alone.