4 ms·

Plants pull 100 gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere every year and convert it to biomass (essentially, oxy-ammonia-hydrocarbons like sugars, proteins, fats

Plants pull 100 gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere every year and convert it to biomass (essentially, oxy-ammonia-hydrocarbons like sugars, proteins, fats, etc.). Humans pull about 6 gigatons of carbon out of the ground each year and pump it into the atmosphere. The reason this cycle doesn't exhaust the atmospheric pool, of course, is that animals and fungi (more the latter) break down biomass into CO2 and release it back into the atmosphere. That's not what I'd call 'very very little carbon'.

lazide 4y ago
On a planetary atmosphere level? It’s still tiny. Literally .0441% Getting anything at that concentration out is… generally not easy. Doable! But not easy. That it’s chemically low reactivity makes it even harder. Plants have spent billions of years evolving to do it, and from an energy perspective aren’t very efficient at it. Unless we want to burn even more oil trying to power the process or just make a tiny dent in it, we’ll need to not only figure out a somewhat efficient way to do it, but also figure out how to generate a massive amount of power without burning oil to power it.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  For even more perspective, human breath can be easily composed of somewhere between 20,000 ppm and 40,000 ppm, and tens of thousands greater than that with enough energy expenditure. (I know this because I've actually measured this myself with research grade NDIR CO2 sensors) 441 ppm can be "a lot" depending on the gas and the expected effect. You don't want to breathe in 441 ppm of chlorine gas. But CO2 being fairly non-reactive makes 441 ppm of it relatively minuscule in contrast to the other predominant atmospheric gases. It's also nowhere near enough to cause outright catastrophe.
  - pencilguin 4y ago
    441 ppm CO2 turns out to be quite close to enough to cause global catastrophe.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Eventually. But no one is going to keel over dead due to suffocation today because of global CO2 concentration, which is ‘outright’. Pretty sure global minimum temperatures above 100F would also count as ‘outright’.
      - pencilguin 4y ago
        There are already places where being without a cooling method other than sweating would be fatal, at least one day of the year. In many more places, crops are failing. People necessarily leaving these places will need to go where other people already are.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        lazide 4y ago
        That happened before too, and has been (at lower frequency) for all of recorded history, near as we can tell. As noted, not an outright catastrophe right now. The discussion is about avoiding it becoming one, and relative impacts. Humanity isn’t going to be dead tomorrow because of this, but may be in more pain in a decade or two, and longer term even more so.
        pencilguin 4y ago
        Regional collapses have happened. This will be the first global collapse. If it happens, it will be much earlier than you hope, as millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions force their way across borders, and fascist governments ride that into power and then start a global thermonuclear war. The refugees will only be fleeing crop failure and increasingly murderous kleptocratic government. It is already starting. Lots of governments are flirting with dictatorship, and many have got there already. US and Brazil have drawn back a hairsbreadth from the brink, but for how long?
        4y ago
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Multiple Megatonnes of many different materials are mined at much lower concentration, and that requires digging up rocks. CO2 has many properties that make it fairly easy to select for. We've already figured out that last part, it's called putting a few tens of square km of solar panels and heliostats (don't need it all to be electricity) in egypt or bolivia. A square metre nets you enough energy for a few tonnes per year in realistic current tech. This will never stem the tide if we don't go to net zero first, but reversing the damage in a century is doable by covering one medium sized desert.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Sounds easy and we’ve got it all worked out at scale. Problem solved then?
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Maybe. Just maybe there's a middle ground between something being unfathomably difficult and impossible because big number bad, and being trivial? There are lots of potential avenues for stuffing the genie back in the bottle with a small fraction of the energy we got out of releasing it. All that's lacking is the political will to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable, stop them doing more damage, and confiscate the proceeds of their crimes to start undoing the damage. This last part isn't helped by reactionaries constantly screaming 'big number mean impossible' and 'der entropy'. Almost as if the goal of such discourse is to prevent solutions.
      - lazide 4y ago
        Who are you talking to exactly? I never said anything of the sort, nor did anyone else near as I can tell?
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        You were concern trolling to try to shit on the best plan we have for a planet that remains habitable by vaguely gesturing about how hard it is with no context. Then you sullenly implied I was saying it was trivial when I contextualised the actual scale involved. This is part of the standard reactionary fud playbook. Now you're playing the victim and trying to imply that's never what you meant.

lazide 4y ago

On a planetary atmosphere level? It’s still tiny. Literally .0441% Getting anything at that concentration out is… generally not easy. Doable! But not easy. That it’s chemically low reactivity makes it even harder. Plants have spent billions of years evolving to do it, and from an energy perspective aren’t very efficient at it. Unless we want to burn even more oil trying to power the process or just make a tiny dent in it, we’ll need to not only figure out a somewhat efficient way to do it, but also figure out how to generate a massive amount of power without burning oil to power it.

ravenstine 4y ago
For even more perspective, human breath can be easily composed of somewhere between 20,000 ppm and 40,000 ppm, and tens of thousands greater than that with enough energy expenditure. (I know this because I've actually measured this myself with research grade NDIR CO2 sensors) 441 ppm can be "a lot" depending on the gas and the expected effect. You don't want to breathe in 441 ppm of chlorine gas. But CO2 being fairly non-reactive makes 441 ppm of it relatively minuscule in contrast to the other predominant atmospheric gases. It's also nowhere near enough to cause outright catastrophe.
- pencilguin 4y ago
  441 ppm CO2 turns out to be quite close to enough to cause global catastrophe.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Eventually. But no one is going to keel over dead due to suffocation today because of global CO2 concentration, which is ‘outright’. Pretty sure global minimum temperatures above 100F would also count as ‘outright’.
    - pencilguin 4y ago
      There are already places where being without a cooling method other than sweating would be fatal, at least one day of the year. In many more places, crops are failing. People necessarily leaving these places will need to go where other people already are.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - lazide 4y ago
        That happened before too, and has been (at lower frequency) for all of recorded history, near as we can tell. As noted, not an outright catastrophe right now. The discussion is about avoiding it becoming one, and relative impacts. Humanity isn’t going to be dead tomorrow because of this, but may be in more pain in a decade or two, and longer term even more so.
        pencilguin 4y ago
        Regional collapses have happened. This will be the first global collapse. If it happens, it will be much earlier than you hope, as millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions force their way across borders, and fascist governments ride that into power and then start a global thermonuclear war. The refugees will only be fleeing crop failure and increasingly murderous kleptocratic government. It is already starting. Lots of governments are flirting with dictatorship, and many have got there already. US and Brazil have drawn back a hairsbreadth from the brink, but for how long?
        4y ago
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Multiple Megatonnes of many different materials are mined at much lower concentration, and that requires digging up rocks. CO2 has many properties that make it fairly easy to select for. We've already figured out that last part, it's called putting a few tens of square km of solar panels and heliostats (don't need it all to be electricity) in egypt or bolivia. A square metre nets you enough energy for a few tonnes per year in realistic current tech. This will never stem the tide if we don't go to net zero first, but reversing the damage in a century is doable by covering one medium sized desert.
- lazide 4y ago
  Sounds easy and we’ve got it all worked out at scale. Problem solved then?
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Maybe. Just maybe there's a middle ground between something being unfathomably difficult and impossible because big number bad, and being trivial? There are lots of potential avenues for stuffing the genie back in the bottle with a small fraction of the energy we got out of releasing it. All that's lacking is the political will to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable, stop them doing more damage, and confiscate the proceeds of their crimes to start undoing the damage. This last part isn't helped by reactionaries constantly screaming 'big number mean impossible' and 'der entropy'. Almost as if the goal of such discourse is to prevent solutions.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Who are you talking to exactly? I never said anything of the sort, nor did anyone else near as I can tell?
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        You were concern trolling to try to shit on the best plan we have for a planet that remains habitable by vaguely gesturing about how hard it is with no context. Then you sullenly implied I was saying it was trivial when I contextualised the actual scale involved. This is part of the standard reactionary fud playbook. Now you're playing the victim and trying to imply that's never what you meant.