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Or dump them in the ocean.
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Dec 7, 2014 07:00
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WorldsStrongestNerd posted:bury them deep underground. Under a gas impermeable barrier and without emitting more carbon in the process.
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Dec 7, 2014 07:35
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WorldsStrongestNerd posted:Trees and their products are carbon neutral. Every tree planted will eventually die and release its carbon back into the air. Every 2x4 or piece of plywood used to build a house will eventually burn, or be buried in a landfill when the house is demolished. As far as I know trees have no place whatsoever in a discussion of carbon sequestering, unless the plan is to cut the trees and bury them deep underground. Trees are at the very center of every serious discussion of carbon sequestration. It is true that a single tree grows and dies, however a forest, and other ecosystems like prairie or tundra, can persist indefinitely, and can freeze its carbon in place essentially forever. Much of the carbon in these systems gets stored in soils as well as tree tissue and as forests mature they lock up more and more carbon. Changes in forest coverage have large impacts on global carbon flows. Trees are an important carbon stock, and increasing the number of trees really does sequester carbon. It is also extremely affordable, when compared to as yet still experimental atmospheric carbon capture schemes. There is only one downside, one that is of course pretty crippling. Sequestering carbon in natural ecosystem has a huge land footprint. In a world of increasing population and income, land, and the food it can produce, is at a premium. This is probably the most important global driver of deforestation, a major source of atmospheric CO2. For this reason, discussions of sequestration in trees largely center around how to protect existing carbon stocks, especially tropical forests. Total deforestation of the Amazon is essentially a doomsday scenario, preventing it an essential part of any climate change mitigation strategy.
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Dec 7, 2014 09:17
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Isn't there a certain amount of extra carbon locking that can be done by applying things like vertical farming practices? Like, couldn't there also be vertical tree farms or doing things like urban trees on top of buildings?
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Dec 8, 2014 10:32
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Isn't there a certain amount of extra carbon locking that can be done by applying things like vertical farming practices? Like, couldn't there also be vertical tree farms or doing things like urban trees on top of buildings? Vertical farming is about reducing land use by increasing energy inputs. The carbon locking isn't different from the same mass of crops grown in any other way*. Rooftop gardens can't have excessively big trees since they are rooftop gardens, and will therefore have less standing biomass than an equivalent area of actual forest. *well, if you have a vertical farm in temperate areas and run it all year there'll be a bit of extra carbon locked into its crop biomass as long as it keeps running but you could just dump the harvest from a normal field into a mineshaft for one year to get the same effect suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Dec 8, 2014 |
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Dec 8, 2014 10:40
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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That sounds rather impractical. Locking carbon in the form of trees isn't particularly space-efficient, and space is at a premium in cities. At least vertical farming produces something locally. There's no compelling reason to have your carbon sinks nearby.
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Dec 8, 2014 10:42
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blowfish posted:Vertical farming is about reducing land use by increasing energy inputs. The carbon locking isn't different from the same mass of crops grown in any other way*. Rooftop gardens can't have excessively big trees since they are rooftop gardens, and will therefore have less standing biomass than an equivalent area of actual forest. True but I was thinking along the lines of locking more carbon with a smaller footprint. I also wasn't suggesting like redwoods but maybe small fruit trees on top of roofs. I was just reading that some cities have been encouraging things like rooftop gardens. It makes sense as the amount of surface available per human shrinks; instead of having the tops of buildings just kind of being there plant some stuff. There are trees small enough for that, right? Or if nothing else maybe encourage shrubs or flower gardens in places where it is practical. Even so we've already seen the human race's trend toward making taller and taller buildings. The rooftops are there why not turn them to some practical use? Of course the other concern in many places is water and how to get it there.
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Dec 8, 2014 12:47
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Is there anything being developed that takes the carbon out of the air? If C02 PPM keep going up, wouldn't it make sense to make something that removes it from the air?
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Dec 8, 2014 13:23
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Excelsiortothemax posted:Is there anything being developed that takes the carbon out of the air? If C02 PPM keep going up, wouldn't it make sense to make something that removes it from the air? There's been a few prizes to develop something to that effect, and there's been news here and there of artificial trees or chemical processes developed that would do it, but it's a matter of scale and cost. Of course as things progress, the cost is only going to continue to rise, but I guess the pressure to remove carbon isn't there yet. We're barely at the stage where reducing emissions is of a real concern to governments. Mazzagatti2Hotty posted:I won't even pretend to be well-versed in climate science but isn't something like this a temporary fix at best? If the carbon we're putting in the atmosphere is going to stay there for centuries or more, won't we be in the same dire straights as soon as whoever is doing the seeding can't or won't do it anymore? Possibly in an even worse predicament, since the artificial cooling will likely coincide with a green-light by industry to pump even more carbon into the atmosphere in the meantime. Yeah as hiddenmovement said, geo-engineering is something that's largely been shunned from scientific circles, because using something like that as triage might only encourage further co2 emissions. The cruel reality is that we aren't going to meet our carbon emission goals, we'll probably cruise past 400ppm, and we'll probably need some way of keeping the temperature down before the warmer climate triggers the positive feedback loops that take climate management out of our hands. Of course geo-engineering is still dangerous. All you need is some dumb person with too much money to start trying out methods that have been discredited by scientists in order to lower temperatures and you could trigger a pretty major ecological crisis. States need to sit down and have a serious conversation about a geo-engineering treaty, because once some countries starts getting hammered by drastic changes in climate, many of them aren't going to give a poo poo about whatever UN treaty on the environment currently exists. Dreylad fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Dec 8, 2014 |
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Dec 8, 2014 14:09
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Excelsiortothemax posted:Is there anything being developed that takes the carbon out of the air? If C02 PPM keep going up, wouldn't it make sense to make something that removes it from the air? there is constant research, but nothing has broken through to commercialization here's two stories just from last week: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/12/20141204-tunims.html http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/12/20141203-toshiba.html the navy has a system going for taking it out of seawater: http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas but, it works via having a spare nuke gen laying around
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Dec 8, 2014 15:53
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There's also the fear that CO2 capture technology could be first used in a commercial way in order to make previously inaccessible or uneconomic fossil fuel sources available. And in terms of 'proven reserves' we already have more than enough to doom us. Thus you'd need strict regulations that the technology be used in a carbon negative way. If it takes out the same or less CO2 from the atmosphere as it enables, the technology is pointless.
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Dec 8, 2014 16:10
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Whoever claimed that older trees are less effective at storing carbon is incorrect: http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5658/20140116/older-trees-grow-faster-take-up-more-carbon.htm "An analysis of more than 600,000 trees belonging to 403 species found that trees grow more as they get older, which enables them to trap more carbon than their younger counterparts." Also, in other depressing news: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html?referrer "Attorneys general said they had no choice but to team up with corporate America. “When the federal government oversteps its legal authority and takes actions that hurt our businesses and residents, it’s entirely appropriate for us to partner with the adversely affected private entities in fighting back,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi of Florida." Made me gag. OH NO THOSE POOR POOR "ADVERSELY AFFECTED" COAL AND OIL COMPANIES.
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Dec 8, 2014 16:20
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I'd just like to quote a couple of different parts of that article to show everyone how hosed we are:quote:The three-page letter (to the EPA) was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying...The attorney general (Pruitt)’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. quote:Attorney General Scott Pruitt has received at least $215,574 from companies and industry employees since 2010, even though he ran unopposed in his most recent election.
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Dec 8, 2014 16:39
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Excelsiortothemax posted:Is there anything being developed that takes the carbon out of the air? If C02 PPM keep going up, wouldn't it make sense to make something that removes it from the air? Carbon emissions are measured in megatons and gigatons. That's millions and billions of tons. It would make sense but you're talking about thoroughly obscene amounts of carbon. What would you plan on doing with 2,000,000,000,000 pounds of carbon after you sucked it out of the atmosphere? That poo poo needs to go somewhere. Sucking it out of the air also isn't exactly going to be cheap either. It isn't likely to be profitable. You might say "well then taxes!" but we've seen how much the rising right wing of the world loving hates taxes. Then there is the other snag that a lot of the richest people in the world, you know the ones that are buying and selling politicians, are making their money by perpetuating the fossil fuel thing that is causing so many carbon problems in the first place. Good luck getting those guys to agree to become less rich to clean up the mess they've foisted on the rest of us.
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Dec 8, 2014 16:42
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Turn it into diamonds, sell it to rich people. Where's my MacArthur grant dammit.
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Dec 8, 2014 17:07
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WorldsStrongestNerd posted:Trees and their products are carbon neutral. Every tree planted will eventually die and release its carbon back into the air. Every 2x4 or piece of plywood used to build a house will eventually burn, or be buried in a landfill when the house is demolished. As far as I know trees have no place whatsoever in a discussion of carbon sequestering, unless the plan is to cut the trees and bury them deep underground. This is incredibly, brutally, wrong. The carbon drawn down by trees doesn't all magically go back into the air when the tree dies. A good portion of it stays out of the atmosphere, for a good chunk of time. Heres a handy flow chart:  Also, the decomposition that occurs in landfills, is really incomplete. Alot more carbon stays in the landfill than outgasses. inkwell fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Dec 8, 2014 |
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Dec 8, 2014 17:30
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inkwell posted:Also, the decomposition that occurs in landfills, is really incomplete. Alot more carbon stays in the landfill than outgasses. Depending on the wood product and the specifics of the landfill, decomposition of wood often produces methane which is a worse greenhouse gas than carbon.
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Dec 8, 2014 19:42
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Trabisnikof posted:Depending on the wood product and the specifics of the landfill, decomposition of wood often produces methane which is a worse greenhouse gas than carbon.
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Dec 8, 2014 19:46
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Kafka Esq. posted:Also more temporary, though, right? Correct, wiki says 100x stronger for a 7 year half-life rather than co2's 100+ year.
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Dec 8, 2014 20:06
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They are trying to engineer trees for the purpose, but trees in general now are terrible at removing CO2 as a function of how much space they take up. Reforestation with non-engineered trees would probably not even have a noticeable effect on CC, even if done on an utterly massive scale.
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Dec 8, 2014 20:18
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The act of cutting down trees, transporting logs and processing them into lumber, paper etc. in itself releases CO2 to atmosphere, most likely from fossil fuels which is not carbon neutral.
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Dec 8, 2014 20:20
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^ Its less about the cutting down of the trees really and more about the land use change. While there is a carbon footprint associated with sustainably grown forestry it pales in comparison to the massive damage and carbon released when we burn down acres of forest to turn it into crop land (maybe after removing the good lumber trees, maybe not). tsa posted:Reforestation with non-engineered trees would probably not even have a noticeable effect on CC, even if done on an utterly massive scale. So in your world, 60-87 Gt C sequestered by 2050 is "not noticeable"? Because that's the IPCC estimate for potential sequestration via reforestation.
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Dec 8, 2014 20:27
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There's also the shift in local climate towards conditions generally considered more suitable for human habitation that occurs with reforestation.
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Dec 8, 2014 23:01
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Some good news: this November was not the warmest, though it was the 7th warmest at +0.65°C over 20th century average. Some bad news: year-to-date global temperature is the absolute highest on record. Unless December is abnormally cool (less than +0.42°C over average), 2014 wins the hottest year to date award. Evil_Greven fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 20:32
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Evil_Greven posted:Some good news: this November was not the warmest, though it was the 7th warmest at +0.65°C over 20th century average. Just a blip in the Hiatus.
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Dec 16, 2014 01:42
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bpower posted:Just a blip in the Hiatus. If 2014 is a record, it will not be meaningfully ahead of 2010, 2007, 2005, or 1998, so it is correct that the hiatus is ongoing. 2014 will definitely be cooler than 1998 and 2010 in the satellite record. The potential temperature record being discussed is strictly land-based measurements. We've been very close to El Nino conditions this year -- at the beginning of the year it was thought there would be a very strong El Nino in 2014 -- which leads to a slight warming of the planet. We might be entering an El Nino in 2015.
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Dec 16, 2014 16:28
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Arkane posted:The potential temperature record being discussed is strictly land-based measurements.
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Dec 16, 2014 16:32
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Elotana posted:HadSST and ERSST are things. By land-based I mean Earth-based...as opposed to satellites in space.
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Dec 16, 2014 16:41
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Maybe the general circulation models are overstating the effect global warming has on increasing water vapour in the atmosphere. If that's the case, we might have reason for a bit of a breather. On the other hand, they haven't published something specific on what, if any, changes would need to be made to the models.quote:Using the UARS data to actually quantify both specific humidity and relative humidity, the researchers found, while water vapor does increase with temperature in the upper troposphere, the feedback effect is not as strong as models have predicted. "The increases in water vapor with warmer temperatures are not large enough to maintain a constant relative humidity," Minschwaner said. These new findings will be useful for testing and improving global climate models.
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Dec 16, 2014 17:08
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Hey Arkane remember how a few days ago there was this: Also remember how I've said before that satellite measurements ain't all they're cracked up to be? Oh right you never really responded to that. p.s. this is why Arkane likes RSS - because it's poo poo, just like I've said in the past: quote:As can be seen, in the last 10 years or so the RSS temperatures have been cooling relative to the UAH temperatures (or UAH warming relative to RSS…same thing). The discrepancy is pretty substantial…since 1998, the divergence is over 50% of the long-term temperature trends seen in both datasets. Evil_Greven fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Dec 16, 2014 |
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Dec 16, 2014 17:33
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Also the reason satellite measurements are now saying November is hotter than than the surface measurements is because satellite measurements extrapolate the surface temperature from the troposphere, making them far more sensitive to ENSO. Hence the ability to continue championing 1998 even though the surface datasets have left it behind.
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Dec 16, 2014 18:44
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Evil_Greven posted:Hey Arkane remember how a few days ago there was this: Alright, but it's important not to cherry pick an individual month. Notice the long-term trend is significantly below model predictions, and that is a divergence that grows wider by the year. Evil_Greven posted:Also remember how I've said before that satellite measurements ain't all they're cracked up to be? How should I respond to that? Seems like a fine post. Evil_Greven posted:p.s. this is why Arkane likes RSS - because it's poo poo, just like I've said in the past: Me "liking RSS" is something you've made up. Don't think I've ever cited RSS except in relation to other data. I cite UAH. I'm guessing I posted about the RSS/UAH divergence a long time ago. FWIW, there was a time many moons ago when UAH was the hated data set and RSS was embraced. Arkane fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Dec 16, 2014 |
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Dec 16, 2014 18:58
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Elotana posted:Also the reason satellite measurements are now saying November is hotter than than the surface measurements is because satellite measurements extrapolate the surface temperature from the troposphere, making them far more sensitive to ENSO. Hence the ability to continue championing 1998 even though the surface datasets have left it behind. Satellites don't pretend to measure surface temperature. 1998 is still a very hot year...not sure what you mean by "left it behind."
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Dec 16, 2014 19:00
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Arkane posted:How should I respond to that? Seems like a fine post. So then you agree then that land-based measurements are more accurate than satellite measurements, and in the case where they disagree with each other, we should be more suspicious of the satellite measurements?
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Dec 16, 2014 19:47
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Kafka Esq. posted:Maybe the general circulation models are overstating the effect global warming has on increasing water vapour in the atmosphere. If that's the case, we might have reason for a bit of a breather. On the other hand, they haven't published something specific on what, if any, changes would need to be made to the models. Could you explain the implications of this?
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Dec 17, 2014 03:19
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My Imaginary GF posted:Could you explain the implications of this?
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Dec 17, 2014 03:55
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Kafka Esq. posted:Water vapour is the largest contributing greenhouse gas. Most models assume that the science follows observations this far, which is that water vapour can accumulate more in warmer air. If that's not true (or as true as expected), a lot of models have to be reworked. I'm not a scientist so I can't put a number on that. So, less accumulation in the atmosphere, more rain?
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Dec 17, 2014 04:08
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Friendly Tumour posted:So then you agree then that land-based measurements are more accurate than satellite measurements, and in the case where they disagree with each other, we should be more suspicious of the satellite measurements? They all show relatively the same numbers...the argument about whether satellites are better or worse doesn't strike me as particularly important. Pointing out that this will be a record in Earth-based and not satellites illustrates the tight spread of numbers we're discussing here. We've been cloistered right around the same numbers since 1998, and we're flatlined (relative to predictions) from 2001 across all data sets. You can play around with the data sets here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
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Dec 17, 2014 06:35
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Tanreall posted:We're warming faster than expected according to new studies. Just going to quote myself here.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:21
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Having a hard time believing that you read those 4 links and came to the conclusion that these describe the Earth "warming faster than expected." Your 4th link in particular argues the exact opposite (that the heat that is presumed to be building up in the deep ocean is not actually there, at least in that brief window).
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Dec 17, 2014 07:40
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