61–70 of 117 posts
1. Cognitive decline starts above 600 ppm according to air quality studies.
2. Levels below 200 ppm are actually dangerous.
Trees respire. They breath in and out . At night time, many trees emit more CO2. And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2. Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton,…
> Which IMO is in an even more dire strait than our forests I think you are probably right, but could you kindly elaborate and provide more details? Very curious to hear your view and learn more.
- ocean acidification and deoxygination (imo the most alarming and underdiscussed doomsday scenarios of climate change): About 0.5 to 3.3% of dissolved oxygen had been lost between 1970 and 2010 which has led to the rapid expansion of Oxygen Minimum Zones ("dead zones"). Acidity has increased by 30 to 40% and at a clearly accelerating rate. That's 10 times faster acidification than at any other point in the last 300 million years
- they estimated oceans had absorbed about 90% of "excess global heat" and their ability to absorb is slowing rapidly
- up to 99% of permafrost could melt by 2100. Permafrost melting was completely unanalyzed in the 1.5C report due to lack of good data
Forests on the other hand have shown surprising resilience. And, if they survive the impending destabilization, they might in the long term (I mean looong term) even benefit from increased CO2 concentrations as they historically have.
PS the IPCC reports are more accessible than people realize. Even the technical reports are often not much more difficult to parse than the policymaker reports meant for the general public. I'd quite recommend giving them a try
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Which IMO is in an even more dire strait than our forests I think you are probably right, but could you kindly elaborate and provide more details? Very curious to hear your view and learn more.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/explore/the-ocean-and-climate... Has a pretty good overview. But in brief: Changes in biosphere due to heat and decreasing pH balance due to increased CO2 can leave species unable to adapt fast enough causing deaths.
Trees respire. They breath in and out . At night time, many trees emit more CO2. And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2. Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton,…
Forests do net sequester carbon. But if you want to really sock away the carbon you harvest the trees and pyrolize it. It will give you energy (heat) you can use and elemental carbon (biochar). You could bury that a few feet under or innoculate it with microorganisms and work it into fields. Carbon in that form will sit in the soil for hundreds of years. Thousands or millions if you bury it.
Trees respire. They breath in and out . At night time, many trees emit more CO2. And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2. Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton,…
Trees respire. They breath in and out . At night time, many trees emit more CO2. And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2. Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton,…
> Which IMO is in an even more dire strait than our forests I think you are probably right, but could you kindly elaborate and provide more details? Very curious to hear your view and learn more.
And now deep-sea mining.
Trees respire. They breath in and out . At night time, many trees emit more CO2. And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2. Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton,…
I don't get why media has been fixating so much on trees and forests (Amazonia!) without even mentioning ocean's role in this.
Or, just let the oceans recover, let the mollusks return to the bays and shores, let them do their efficient thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Forests do net sequester carbon. But if you want to really sock away the carbon you harvest the trees and pyrolize it. It will give you energy (heat) you can use and elemental carbon (biochar). You could bury that a few feet under or innoculate it with microorganisms and work it into fields. Carbon in that form will sit in the soil for hundreds of years. Thousands or millions if you bury it.
I mean technically we already do this: renewable plantation timber is a widespread operation (also why I get kind of annoyed at YouTubers talking about how great the timber is in old homes - yes it's great because it was logged from 50 year old old growth forests and now they're all gone because we cut them down).
But the analysis rests on 0 ventilation, which doesn’t work at all.
I think the main thing to keep in mind is plants really aren’t industrial carbon sinks. They were never evolved to be. Their biological functions are about growing and thriving, and the soil they grow in are net carbon producers.
In a broad open system, they are net carbon sinks over the long term. But any analysis in a closed system is bound to fail, you don’t even need numbers to know intuitively this won’t work.
Crack open a window. Run a fan. Have plants because they have many benefits. Reducing CO2 around you meaningfully isn’t one of them.