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That too, but if half the planet planted a tree per month that would be 42 billion trees to remove sun's energy.

jfengel 5y ago
That isn't anywhere near enough. The World Economic Forum estimates that something closer to a trillion trees are required. And not just planted, but cared for to make sure that they don't just die and release the carbon back. It's also easier said than done: most of the world's population lives in cities, and don't have access to land on which to plant trees. Even so, it's not really solving all of the problems. It's like turning on the taps faster rather than patching the hole in the bucket. There are all kinds of follow-on effects from putting so much carbon into the atmosphere that won't be solved simply by removing it in another place -- even if you could meet that extremely high goal. Fossil fuels pollute other things besides CO2, and CO2 is absorbed by the oceans that make them more acidic. Planting more trees is a worthwhile start, but it won't mean anything if we don't also find ways to dramatically reduce the amount of fossil fuels we turn into atmospheric carbon.
- dougSF70 5y ago
  I am thinking from an energy perspective. Energy used to grow an animal or a plant is energy not used to warm the planet. Perhaps we should design a system that builds a carbon structures using the sun's energy. Rather than Solar Electricity we have Solar Carbon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/splitting-carbon-dioxide/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/splitting-carbon-...
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Energy isn't the issue. The issue is heat. The amount of the energy budget is vast, and we can't substantially affect it by capturing more energy and then using it to build things. The problem is that we have a global-scale heat retention failure, and nothing humans do is going to overcome that. It's entropy. You won't beat the second law.

That isn't anywhere near enough. The World Economic Forum estimates that something closer to a trillion trees are required. And not just planted, but cared for to make sure that they don't just die and release the carbon back. It's also easier said than done: most of the world's population lives in cities, and don't have access to land on which to plant trees. Even so, it's not really solving all of the problems. It's like turning on the taps faster rather than patching the hole in the bucket. There are all kinds of follow-on effects from putting so much carbon into the atmosphere that won't be solved simply by removing it in another place -- even if you could meet that extremely high goal. Fossil fuels pollute other things besides CO2, and CO2 is absorbed by the oceans that make them more acidic. Planting more trees is a worthwhile start, but it won't mean anything if we don't also find ways to dramatically reduce the amount of fossil fuels we turn into atmospheric carbon.

dougSF70 5y ago
I am thinking from an energy perspective. Energy used to grow an animal or a plant is energy not used to warm the planet. Perhaps we should design a system that builds a carbon structures using the sun's energy. Rather than Solar Electricity we have Solar Carbon. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/splitting-carbon-dioxide/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/splitting-carbon-...
- jfengel 5y ago
  Energy isn't the issue. The issue is heat. The amount of the energy budget is vast, and we can't substantially affect it by capturing more energy and then using it to build things. The problem is that we have a global-scale heat retention failure, and nothing humans do is going to overcome that. It's entropy. You won't beat the second law.