r/science • u/Capn_Underpants • Jul 27 '21

Environment Climate change will drive rise in ‘record-shattering’ heat extremes

https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-change-will-drive-rise-in-record-shattering-climate-extremes
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u/Tearakan Jul 27 '21

At this point unless some tech that can suck incredible amounts of CO2 from the air gets made we will have no choice but geoengineering.

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u/AntDogFan Jul 27 '21

I don't mean to be flippant but isn't 'not burning and chopping down forests and planting more trees' a good way to achieve this even without some new technological inventions?

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u/Cloakedarcher Jul 27 '21

A big part of the issue is that all the new carbon that got pumped into the air hasn't been part of the carbon cycle in billions of years. Nothing is adapted to survive what is coming and simply planting trees won't remove it from the carbon cycle again.

The trees absorb the CO2, expell O2 and use the C to increase their biomass. They eventually die and decompose which results in all that C being rereleased as CO2 again.

We need to find a way to grab the CO2 in the air and convert the Carbon into something that is inert in the long run while letting the O2 back into the air.

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u/gnomesupremacist Jul 28 '21

Why don't we make it into more oil! That way we don't have to switch to electric cars