If I was a fiction writer, I'd be writing a book about how humanity used gene drives to wipe out the ability to decompose lignin. Perhaps the original plan was

If I was a fiction writer, I'd be writing a book about how humanity used gene drives to wipe out the ability to decompose lignin. Perhaps the original plan was to release the gene into the wild again after CO2 levels normalized, but somehow the gene was lost, and atmospheric CO2 is reaching dangerously low levels...