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What's the likely solution here? Is it possible to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without damaging it in some other way? Or are we destined to slowly

by highace 12y ago

What's the likely solution here? Is it possible to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without damaging it in some other way? Or are we destined to slowly but surely destroy this planet?

shinryuu 12y ago
Yes, that is the likely solution. The ocean currently absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigating climate change. It is a tall order though given how much carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere every single day.
socialist_coder 12y ago
I'll take eventual destruction for $1000, alex
pjc50 12y ago
It is somewhat self-stabilising over time, but the first step is to stop putting it into the atmosphere in the first place. Or at least reduce the rate. That implies not opening new fossil fuel fields; not fracking, and not extracting the tar sands.
Theodores 12y ago
> What's the likely solution here? Turn your computer off. The CO2 that acidified that ocean came from the fossil fuels + oxygen that were burned to make the power needed to build that wind turbine that powers your computer. So, if you want to save the life of a snail, turn off your computer. And stop breathing. Instead of having a 'war on terror' and a trillion dollar arms trade we could get serious about greening this planet, as in planting green things that look pretty, take in CO2 and breathe out oxygen. If we set our minds to it and found some political will we could do it, to create a true paradise on earth and not have this fear of climate change. We could steward this planet whichever way we wanted rather than always going for the tragedy of the commons and electing the evil, corrupt, lying retards such as the politicians we have. I thought we had reached the turning point (of no turning back) about 15 years ago when action would have been worthwhile. But, since then we have gone the other way, hit on fracking and decided to go for mass die-off. Are we to be no better than bacteria on a petri dish, to bloom exponentially, hit resource depletion and die off? Is that it? Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan had us conquering new worlds rather than just assuming the zombie apocalypse will miss our generation.
- hyperbovine 12y ago
  Alas, planting green things will not save us either: http://phys.org/news/2011-06-afforestation-dent-problem.html http://phys.org/news/2011-06-afforestation-dent-problem.html We've finally encountered a problem that pits our desire to survive against our (apparently) inherently greedy nature. I for one am not optimistic.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  "And stop breathing." That will also stop you eating, you'll die, decompose, and the carbon will become available to other things that respire. Humans don't breath out any carbon that wasn't recently in the atmosphere. What's needed is to somehow have more carbon sequestered in things-that-are-not-the-ocean-or-air. Some of that can be biomass. Some of that is "big puddles of gunk deep underground" (which is what we've been un-sequestering). In principle, doing more manufacturing with carbon (carbon fiber, synthetic diamonds, plastics) would help provided the carbon itself came from the atmosphere (or something that would've ended up there) and the energy was produced without emitting still more carbon - in practice, the amounts involved in manufacturing are probably too small to be relevant...
gizmo686 12y ago
The planet survived cyanobacteria [1], which dumped vast amounts of highly toxic oxygen into the atmosphere. The planet had a mass extinction, a global freeze, but life managed to pull through (even Cyanobacteria survived). Compared to that, our addition of Carbon to the atmosphere is minuscule. To your first question, it is entirely possible to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, but it is expensive. Consider how much of GDP was put into getting the Carbon there in the first place, and that burning fossil fuels is cheaper then recovering the carbon they emitted. The most promising solution I have heard is to take an organic approach. Instead of sequestering it ourselves, engineer the planet to do it for us. For example, we can dump nutrients into largely dead regions of the ocean stimulating photosynthesis, and let the carbon fall to the bottom (as a solid). [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria#Earth_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria#Earth_history
ars 12y ago
> What's the likely solution here? Nuclear power. Once we (global we here, the US alone would do little - China and India are the main ones that have to act) stop burning coal for power things will fix themself.

by highace 12y ago

What's the likely solution here? Is it possible to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without damaging it in some other way? Or are we destined to slowly but surely destroy this planet?

shinryuu 12y ago

Yes, that is the likely solution. The ocean currently absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigating climate change. It is a tall order though given how much carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere every single day.

socialist_coder 12y ago

I'll take eventual destruction for $1000, alex

pjc50 12y ago

It is somewhat self-stabilising over time, but the first step is to stop putting it into the atmosphere in the first place. Or at least reduce the rate. That implies not opening new fossil fuel fields; not fracking, and not extracting the tar sands.

Theodores 12y ago

> What's the likely solution here? Turn your computer off. The CO2 that acidified that ocean came from the fossil fuels + oxygen that were burned to make the power needed to build that wind turbine that powers your computer. So, if you want to save the life of a snail, turn off your computer. And stop breathing. Instead of having a 'war on terror' and a trillion dollar arms trade we could get serious about greening this planet, as in planting green things that look pretty, take in CO2 and breathe out oxygen. If we set our minds to it and found some political will we could do it, to create a true paradise on earth and not have this fear of climate change. We could steward this planet whichever way we wanted rather than always going for the tragedy of the commons and electing the evil, corrupt, lying retards such as the politicians we have. I thought we had reached the turning point (of no turning back) about 15 years ago when action would have been worthwhile. But, since then we have gone the other way, hit on fracking and decided to go for mass die-off. Are we to be no better than bacteria on a petri dish, to bloom exponentially, hit resource depletion and die off? Is that it? Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan had us conquering new worlds rather than just assuming the zombie apocalypse will miss our generation.

hyperbovine 12y ago
Alas, planting green things will not save us either: http://phys.org/news/2011-06-afforestation-dent-problem.html http://phys.org/news/2011-06-afforestation-dent-problem.html We've finally encountered a problem that pits our desire to survive against our (apparently) inherently greedy nature. I for one am not optimistic.
dllthomas 12y ago
"And stop breathing." That will also stop you eating, you'll die, decompose, and the carbon will become available to other things that respire. Humans don't breath out any carbon that wasn't recently in the atmosphere. What's needed is to somehow have more carbon sequestered in things-that-are-not-the-ocean-or-air. Some of that can be biomass. Some of that is "big puddles of gunk deep underground" (which is what we've been un-sequestering). In principle, doing more manufacturing with carbon (carbon fiber, synthetic diamonds, plastics) would help provided the carbon itself came from the atmosphere (or something that would've ended up there) and the energy was produced without emitting still more carbon - in practice, the amounts involved in manufacturing are probably too small to be relevant...

gizmo686 12y ago

The planet survived cyanobacteria [1], which dumped vast amounts of highly toxic oxygen into the atmosphere. The planet had a mass extinction, a global freeze, but life managed to pull through (even Cyanobacteria survived). Compared to that, our addition of Carbon to the atmosphere is minuscule. To your first question, it is entirely possible to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, but it is expensive. Consider how much of GDP was put into getting the Carbon there in the first place, and that burning fossil fuels is cheaper then recovering the carbon they emitted. The most promising solution I have heard is to take an organic approach. Instead of sequestering it ourselves, engineer the planet to do it for us. For example, we can dump nutrients into largely dead regions of the ocean stimulating photosynthesis, and let the carbon fall to the bottom (as a solid). [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria#Earth_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria#Earth_history

ars 12y ago

> What's the likely solution here? Nuclear power. Once we (global we here, the US alone would do little - China and India are the main ones that have to act) stop burning coal for power things will fix themself.