EV's can potentially Stop adding to the C02 in the atmosphere - but doesn't reduce what's already been done. Watching Smithsonian the other night - their documentary claimed soil - on the other hand - CAN reduce carbon. Here's a similar read; https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/02/21/can-soil-help-combat-climate-change/ The Agro biz either helps or hinders soil health. Follow the money. .
All plants tend to flourish in increase CO2 atmospheres. 75% of this planet is covered by water, water that is loaded with algae. If the CO2 levels climb enough the ocean algae will consume it for us. The World’s Largest Direct Air Capture Plant Is Now Pulling CO2 From the Air in Iceland
To put it indelicately, I think it’ll take less humping, and/or more effective birth control, to reign in this runaway train.
That's what they told me in the 60's....before "human capitol" gained currency in places like Japan, Russia, and Italy. Perhaps Earth's 'primate' infestation is a little off the hook, but nobody ever seems to want to let nature take it's course, but rather wants to keep the climate juuuuuuuust like it is right now.
Marine snails, fish, reptiles, and mammals, graze on algae. Filter feeders strain their food (plankton and detritus) directly from the water. Filter feeding animals include animals like bivalves, tube worms, sponges, and even large animals like baleen whales and manta rays, all eat algae. ET1{ss} retired
^ Thanks for knocking holes in the ocean for our country! There are a lot of vegans in the ocean, BUT(!) there's no such thing as a free lunch. Ocean acidification, according to the "stop climate change" crowd. @ EV's They're technically dirty before they're technically clean - IF there's a carbon throughput penalty for raping the earth for more minerals and metals. EVangelists and Sungazers must be a "little" worried about that because the 'publish or perish' crowd are cranking out papers by the butt-ton(*) (*) Approximately 2.63 HPe, or Hectares worth of pulpwood equivalent. I was going to say A$$-ton but.....groupthink
How high is “enough”? CO2 levels since the beginning of the Industrial Age have climbed from about 190ppm to over 420ppm. The oceans have been absorbing as much CO2 as they can. I don’t see this getting fixed without a whole slew of solutions.
The Gulf of Mexico dead zone keeps getting larger. Nearly all life needs oxygen. Algae blooms at the surface from excess nutrients, whether fertilizer or CO2, consumes all the oxygen in the area. The zooplankton, filter feeders, and everything else asphyxiate. The whales can get by, but there isn't many of them, and the algae will make it harder to spot orcas.
There are many studies of increasing carbon in soils. The 2017 article cited firstly has itself been cited >150 times (which ain't bad for <4 years). Some of those newer publications are studies with actual results, or meta analyses of them. Microsoft Academic Most agricultural soils have much less carbon than they had as 'unused' soils. Replacing that, while still keeping crop yields high and management costs low - well, that's the trick. There are plenty of calls for external money towards those management costs. To some extent it will happen. Maintaining (and increasing) crop production is not really negotiable on a global scale. == The marine dead-zone thing is linked by way of excess chemical fertilizer in agriculture, some of which finds its way to phytoplankton, who are very appreciative. But not all of them act purely in favor of the human enterprise. Marine sequestration of carbon would increase with +nutrients and +CO2, but decrease with +T. So it's a difficult situation. == Future human population seems likely to peak about mid-century (9.7 to 10 billions) and then very slowly decrease. Gaming reproduction rates (especially outside Africa and India) will have little effect on that, but it certainly remains a lively topic for discussion == CO2 is plant food @ForestBeekeeper , certainly true. But current crops grown at +CO2 get a bit diluted in protein and micronutrients, and they seem more attractive to pests & diseases. So, we won't carbonate our way out of that without a bit more innovation. This is a topic I will expound on, but for other audiences Leaving it to others to carbonate soils as such. Check in with J. Lehmann at Cornell, for one example. He's a pip.
Today's Nature spotlights global ocean's role in human nutrition. Another example of PriusChatters riding cusps of many thought waves https://www.nature.com/nature/volumes/597/issues/7876 == I can't miss an opportunity to respond to implication of 'journals killing trees for paper' upthread. Some of such communications remain paper based. Would love to tell ya what fraction of paper products go that way, but I do not know. Presume along with me that it is a small fraction, and ride another thought wave. Most paper products have short lives before discard. Here with some regret, I group newspapers and bathroom sanitary products together. Fast they return to CO2, undoing trees' magnificent slowness. Printed journals and photocopies from them (yes a lot of people still do that) persist much longer. It can be argued that on shelves or in file cabinets, they do little good. But 'slow' pertains to carbon cycling. They better emulate trees' magnificent slowness, and some contribute to global IQ during their time before becoming CO2 again. At the same time, I am fanatical that trees should best live in place, then die, then decompose slowly in place, and during, create lots of biodiversity blah de blah blah. 'Slow paper' retains some of that majesty but 'fast paper' does not. Our world has libraries and museums where cellulose from killed trees provides surfaces upon which, markings inspire, inform, and enrich us. In ways not yet fully supplanted by hard drives and video displays. So yeah, we gon na kill lotsa trees to make things. I'd not conflate the best and worst of those. Quite long ago, humans killed trees and made boats and started going somewhere else. What a thing, eh? Trees: "I live here, I die here". Humans: "Now we don't". I suggest that printing words on paper, and storing those seemingly worth storing, approaches that idea. It is a good thing to have paper to wipe our butts, but it is a different type of good thing. I'd not conflate.
So any idea how we get them started? To some extent, the oceans have been removing CO2 by simply absorbing it. This helps get it out of the air, but when you take water and add CO2 you get Carbonic Acid. As they absorb, the oceans change their pH, which has run on consequences for anything that lives there.
