“CO₂ isn’t a pollutant” climate change deniers are missing the point, and hopefully this meme is simple enough for them to understand. I’d post it on Reddit too, but I’m trying to cut down on Reddit use.
Alt text:
Meme about Wreck-It Ralph (labeled “Fossil fuel emissions") overfeeding a pink rabbit (labeled “Plants") pancakes (labeled “C0₂")
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“Uh, water is essential to all life, so, like, I think you’re really overreacting about this flood.”
Sure, if you let the plants grow at a pace that matches your co2 output.
(We’re not doing that)
I calculated it a while back and we would need to cover entire the landmass of earth with old growth forrest every 10 years to offset ongoing emissions.
How much more would we need to emit to capture all that, freeze it into a giant cube and fucking YEET that into space? No carbon - no problem.
Not a serious proposal, just curious
I’m interested in your calculations, where…?
In some youtube comment somewhere. It’s just three numbers, the carbon storage of a hectare mature forrest times the land surface area divided by yearly emissions.
Meanwhile we are cutting the last of old growth.
You’re saying that like my Big Mac box isnt absolutely necessary for human life
I seriously doubt the old growth being cleared is going into Big Mac boxes at any material rate tbh
Scientists figured we’d have to cover all of North America, tundra, desert, ALL of it, to offset 10-years of CO2 output. And then we’d have to do it again in every 10-years.
Why does it have to be old growth though? New growth is faster growing species and has more plants at the ground level. I would think a hectare of growing pine would capture more CO2 than a relatively static oak forest. ?
And even then, when these plants die, they release all the carbon they captured. So you need to take that into account as well.
Not necessarily! We could theoretically bury that biomass deep underground where the pressure and heat eventually turn it into fossil fuels.
Not that it’s particularly likely, but it is technically possible!
I mean, not quite, it all depends on what happens to them once they die
Aren’t crops (which of course are plants) actually growing faster due to increased co2. Due to this they’re also not able to develop as much nutrients and vitamins etc
My understanding is that nutrition has got more to do with selective breeding, soil microbial ecosystems, and depletion of plant micronutrients - we focus on macronutrients (N-P-K) in fertilizer.
But I think it does have an impact on plant growth. Fossil records suggest larger plants, and people who grow “tomatoes” indoors sometimes pipe in CO2 I think. Works well if you brew beer near your tent.
Micronutrients are generally represented in foliar fertilizers or seed treatments, not granular fertilizers. So things like boron, copper, zinc, sulphur, manganese, etc are applied by spray, generally, since there is better uptake via leaves than roots, though much of it will hit the soil for later use.
We’ve even identified fields where we applied a certain amount of gold, which is used for better disease resistance.
OK, this is from an ag class 35-years ago, but I’m sure it holds up: Yes, pumping CO2 at a plant gets significant gains.
Using a rabbit for this analogy may not have been the best choice.
The simple science is that plants do grow in heavier CO2 environments, sometimes very well. But they grow differently, which is a problem for food plants, because they don’t produce what we want from them as food unless we also add heavy nutrients and water. In a greenhouse environment, this can increase production. In the outside, it’s far more difficult to get good results.
So they aren’t wrong, they just don’t understand the bigger picture. Change one thing, other things change too, not always in the direction you want.
Also we are cutting down forests…
ironically eating meat is one of the biggest contributors of global warming
If CO2 was thick enough at ground level, where plants grow, we’d be feeling it. We don’t have low O2 sensors, we have high CO2 sensors. Humans can happily suffocate and not notice as long as they can expel breath.
Pro tip: east the plants, then bury their babies in the resulting excrement. Profit!?
I think it was the Incans or Mayans that lived in a community of raised huts, shat from above into an area underneath & moved the village over when it started to stink. Then they’d plant seeds in the cleared fertile areas. Simple, efficient & brilliant… until it wasn’t anymore. Disease or Spaniards or a combination of the two, it ended up jungle again with little left to see other than mostly soil-science and foundational markings.
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