This Gene-Edited Tree Captures More CO2. Should We Plant It?
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- Опубліковано 16 тра 2024
- These trees have been genetically modified to capture more carbon. Should we use them?
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You may have heard that the United States Supreme Court recently weakened the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate emissions. That decision harms our ability to fight climate change. In this video, I look for hope in a new research effort - but it's important that new science be paired with regulation. As Mr Beast put it in this video, "we're going to need all the help we can get."
Recently, I visited a greenhouse full of super trees. Over the past few decades, genetic engineering has given us the power to manipulate living things - crops, animals, even humans. At the same time, we’ve been unable to adequately slow climate change. The trees I saw are an effort to use one to help the other, led by a group of researchers at a company called Living Carbon. If it works, it could strengthen one of our best allies in this fight.
Hold on though, easier said than done. In this video, we go behind the scenes with one big, ambitious project. We explore the major challenges to getting this right, and the reasons planting trees has become controversial in the fight against climate change. Along the way, I visit Living Carbon’s lab and greenhouse, and interview CEO Maddie Hall and CTO Patrick Mellor.
The really HUGE idea here isn’t so much about these plants as it is about us. It’s the idea that sometime soon, humanity is going to need to take on a responsibility no species has ever had before: To deliberately, continuously regulate the atmosphere of a planet on behalf of every living thing on it.
And we need to decide: How much do we change other species to do it?
Chapters:
00:00 What are supertrees?
01:44 How do you edit tree genes?
02:26 What’s different about these trees?
03:45 Do these trees really suck in more CO2?
04:18 Thank you Masterworks!
05:24 Why not just plant more trees?
06:44 Why is planting trees controversial?
07:57 What about invasive species?
09:24 What do supertrees look like?
10:19 What’s next for Living Carbon?
11:00 What’s the HUGE* vision here?
12:05 Credits
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Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular UA-cam channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s UA-cam Originals show, Glad You Asked.
Vox: www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
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Additional reading and watching:
- “If We Plant 1 TRILLION Trees Can We Stop Climate Change?” Be Smart • If We Plant 1 TRILLION...
- “These ‘supertrees’ are engineered to capture more carbon” Fast Company www.fastcompany.com/90646232/...
- “Photosynthesis Enhanced Trees Grow Faster and Capture More Carbon” Living Carbon www.livingcarbon.com/post/pho...
- “Enhanced photosynthetic efficiency for increased carbon assimilation and woody biomass production in hybrid poplar INRA 717-1B4” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.11...
Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16-35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro
Music: Musicbed
Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: ua-cam.com/users/cleoabram?sub...
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Welcome to the joke down low:
What kind of tree can you fit in your hand?
A palm tree
Find a way to use the word “hand” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one ;)
There was an audio problem in a previous version, and now it's fixed! Thanks to everyone who flagged it for me. I appreciate you having my back :)
whoop whoop! glad it was fixed!
Big difference for the better now 👍
Less scary 🥰
Heck Yeah!! 🥳🎉 Thanks for the quick fix!!
No worries, keep up the good works!
From a purely economical view, there are lots of people who would see the tree getting to its adult size as an important feature that they would pay for. Just look at how much people already pay for fully grown trees when landscaping.
Saw a mention of a 53% increase in growth speed. Assuming they still grow the same way, that's a pretty big win for landscaping, or even sustainable wood production.
Lumber production and tree nurseries are an obvious industry that could greatly benefit from faster growing trees.
When people get down about environmental problems -- climate change especially -- it's helpful to point out that there have been many environmental problems that people ran into before and overcome. The lumber industry is one of them. Instead of clear-cutting entire forests, we learned that it's better for everyone and everything (including the timber companies) if we manage forests and nurseries properly. The problem is that such tools and methods aren't available in some regions so the short-term cheaper (but long-term bankrupting) method of clear-cutting is still practiced.
If that works for _any_ green plant, than it should also work for fruit-trees, grasses, bushes, literally any plant. If it grows faster it will get to a fruit producing stage faster, that can be a gamechanger for whole agriculture!
And could you imagine the agricultural industry
@@alexdhomochevsky7904 Lets just make clear that I don't want my grass to grow faster, grass can stay like that.
I love how scientists, engineers, advocates, citizens, and more are coming together to combat climate change! WHEN we get though it, it should be remembered in history that all of these people helped to combat climate change. As a student, this video has given me more hope about my future :D
what about the hundreds of millions that will die due to the war on meat and fossil fuels?
Giving hope about the future is a big goal of mine in making this show! Thank you for letting me know this episode helped :)
I’d just like to provide a word of caution: it is awesome seeing a lot of new tech that’s on the horizon, but many scientists agree that we already have most of the technology that we need in order to put a HUGE dent in emissions.
Take solar panels for instance. While it’s encouraging to hear about tech that is managing to be 5% more efficient in lab environments, that doesn’t mean that anyone in a sunny region should wait to put a solar system on their house. Because people in a sunny region are already able to payoff their solar systems in 5 or less years while the system often lasts 20+ years before needing replaced! So it’s a no brainer from an investment point of view.
Now what some of these tech breakthroughs DO do is enable more regions to get in on the party who may have not had such a no brainer opportunity with the current tech.
I think hope is currently misguided. All the trends point in the wrong direction, we are several decades late, we still spend almost 7% of the global gross product (5.6 trillion dollars!!!) a year on fossil fuel subsidies. So all green solutions are competing with products which have an unfair 5.6 trillion dollar advantage on the market. And some still believe in the market self-regulating. That is delusional.
We are effectively publicly subsidizing the destruction of our planet for private profit. And we consider that "rational". But objectively it is radical. Anti-life, pro-capital.
And the people who are profiting the most are the ones our political systems give the most power and influence to and they don't even think about doing whats in humanities long term interest instead of whats in their own short term interest.
The problem with climate change isn't that we are lacking the technology to tackle it, but rather that climate protection is incompatible with our growth and profit focussed global financial system, which just doesn't account for factors like ecological sustainability or species welfare.
As long as our political systems will protect that fossil financial system, we won't make any progress on climate change.
I mean, look at the scale of the problem:
For 150 years we ran a gigantic global fossil fuel industry that dug carbon out of the ground and burnt it for profit.
To undo that damage we did to our global ecosystem by doing that, we needed an industry several times as big as the fossil fuel industry, capturing carbon(which is by a massive margin less effectively captured than burning fossil fuels was at releasing it).
But they cant do that for profit, because their product is just undoing damages that were never priced in prior. This industry will be entirely funded by taxpayers to undo the damage private businesses did.
And before we even think about capturing carbon, we should focus on not burning any carbon anymore, but we can't even do that.
Tech optimism doesn't help us here, it rather harms, because the reasons why we haven't made meaningful progress so far aren't technical ones, but systemic ones. And that what we need to focus on to make progress, not indulge in pipe-dreams about technical wonder-weapons. There won't be one. We released carbon thats been bound over the course of a billion years within a timespan of roughly 150 years, and that has affected the sensitive balance of our planets global ecosystem, that has been carefully self-regulated and evolved over billions of years, in a dramatic way. That is not something you just fix with an invention. It requires change and adaption.
The degree of systemic pathology varies from country to country, but generally the force of fatal neoliberal economic rationality upholding a fossil status quo, is dominant across the globes major economies.
I mean, the supreme court just ruled that the EPA can't enforce emission limits. Kinda hard to get excited over genetically modified supposedly slightly more efficient trees.
@@BangThaBazie To be fair, the fossil fuel industry is on its way out, ironically due to geopolitics it is often more beneficial for a country to be as energy independent as possible. Now we just need to wait for a better energy storage solution before widespread renewables adoption.
I believe that it is more complicated than they think, because giving such advantage to an species would alter ecosystem and population dynamics. Say you introduce that mutation to a hundred willow trees and you plant them near a natural reserve, then when they flower, through cross-pollination potentially thousands of willow trees will end up having a mutation that makes them grow faster and that sounds good until you consider the fact that trees requiere sunlight to grow and faster growing trees would shade the slower ones, which could slow their growth and thus reaching maturity would take longer, which would in the long run decrease their populations. That's the best case scenario because slow growing trees could simply get so much shade they can't even photosynthesize enough and die. I think this could be a good idea for crops since we need them to be more efficient but doing it to other species that will inevitably end in the wild needs to be reconsidered
Terrifying this wasn't addressed in the video and top comments don't mention it. The potential side effect you describe is just one of the most obvious. There are likely far more complicated issues they will introduce. 10 million trees with a major, unprecedented metabolic alteration that may establish well beyond their initial plantings with unknown effects. Yikes
@@ascender816 It's kinda like the banana plant. There's a disease called the Panama disease that's been threatening the whole banana industry because effectively, all the bananas that are sold in stores are from the same genetic species. This species grew the bananas the best and so we duplicated them everywhere. But... this disease is attuned to this particular genetic version of the banana plant and so it's threatening the whole world's banana population because they're all basically the same.
Now, with this genetic mutation, would the same thing be possible? Where a disease passes to trees that have this mutation and so will even cross species because they have the same mutation? We have no way of knowing at this point but it's certainly worth investigating and us making sure it WON'T.
On another point, what about the faster growth? It seems to me that growing faster could mean that the tree's trunk and limbs are not as structurally sound. That the fibers are not as tightly wound and so it's easier for those trees to be blown down in a storm. The same with their root systems, they likely won't grow as fast as required to be able to keep up with the larger mass above ground.
This happens all the time to trees that are grown faster by more water and nutrients than they would get in nature. So while the tree grows faster and is able to provide shade faster (great in parking lots), they also don't have as good of a root system and even as good of a trunk so they can be toppled easier and therefore "die" faster (not going to be able to recover it after it's had major roots ripped loose in a storm).
The idea of 'tainting' is unfounded and purely moral; like the 'contamination' argument used by anti-GMO activists.
Humans have been selecting interesting and useful traits over millenia. This is no different, just quicker. The fear mongering around genetic engineering needs to end.
@@intiorozco5063 Did you see my comment about the banana plants? It's not so much fear as it is prudence. Doing something without weighing the possible outcomes is folly. Not saying to not do it, just saying that it needs to be carefully considered.
You're proposing an all speed ahead approach which is, while fantasy, rather like the Jurassic Park approach. Or less fantasy, using lead in everything or using asbestos for insulation, etc...
@@AustinCameron if the only altered trait is rubisco quality, it sounds like we would want that to be shed.
I’ve wondered before why no one is doing this with algae… there’s way more ocean than land on earth. And you can swim trough algae so it wouldn’t obstruct shipping routes. Combine that with the idea of dumping stuff in the ocean for algae to feed on and there’s huge potential for capturing carbon, isn’t there?
That stuff tends to sink to deeper waters inaccessible to algae.
@@Iamwolf134 Surely there’s stuff that doesn’t sink as much? Algae are definitely eating something, I doubt we’re incapable of mass producing that or something that’s close enough. And we don’t have to dump it all at once we’d probably put in a little at a time, no?
@@scrapgrace Assuming we don't turn to more nuclear power, wouldn't we only be dealing with the emissions produced in making the stuff we feed the ocean's algae?
@@Iamwolf134 I don’t think I know what you meant by the first part, but regardless, it should depend on how the energy used for the production of the stuff was generated. If we were to use solar, wind or hydroelectrics for example there wouldn’t be any emissions associated with the production of it at all unless the process of production itself released co2.
@@scrapgrace I think we both mean algae food, and by the way I was talking about nuclear energy in that first part of my last reply.
If I had to choose one word to describe this episode, and in reality, your channel and mission as a whole, it would be: HOPE. Thanks for another fantastic episode.
Actually this one is terrible, promoting the death of our world just to pretend save it from a non-exiting problem.
This is not to different from causing alge blooms everywhere that suffocate all life in the water.
Think about that for a minute, murdering everything just to pretend save all life in the water.
As a biologist, I'm left with a lot of question and uncertainty by the project. My biggest of all:
Maddie failed to answer your question about invasive species. The engineered tree would be considered as a separate species from it's original and therefore shouldn't be considered as a native species. Why? Because they do not share exactly the same traits. They said it themselves that engineered species grow faster and store more carbon. Growing speed of species is a trait that can influence greatly it's surrounding because it affects the sun/shade distribution underneath it. This simple trait is foundation to how a forest grow and age through different reign of tree.
I'm not a biologist, nor someone who understands this subject matter... but I wonder if monoculture forests are the way to go. With factory farming there's some control and vigilance to protect plants/produce from pests and pathogens. You definitely won't get that for 500 billion trees lol. Which is why I think they're developing and testing the technology to sell later on.
@@perp1exed Monoculture are not the way to go. Monoculture will kill all the biodiversity, which is what we want to avoid in the first place. And the biodiversity is widely responsible for maintaning the nutrients and all the things that keep the forest standing. A monoculture forest would be equivalent to a monoculture plantation, which we know that in medium term harms the soil and makes it impossible to plant anything there.
My concern is environmental pressures caused RuBisCO to be up regulated to enhance the survival of the planet. Altering this gene expression will have some unexpected impact on the trees. Second issue is that in the ancient past a fresh water fern species (azolla) grew to cover the north polar ice caps when they melted and lowered the salinity so they could survive. Those ferns did so well that reduced the CO2 to the point that the earth experienced an ice age. In other words this change could get out of control and tip us in the other direction.
@@jairothevaca2719 You didn't read my reply correctly. My whole point was focused on the company's claim that their tree can absorb twice the amount of carbon compared to normal trees. Sounds fantastic, but a monoculture of 500 billion trees is a terrible idea when you account for almost every other factor. Which is why I assume this company is developing the technology to splice carbon emissions reducing genes into trees... with the prospect of selling it for a handsome profit in the future.
The engineered tree are a different species if and only if they can't reproduce with the wild type. Or at least there's a significant degree of reproductive isolation. In regards to invasiveness, this is a function of whether or not they outperform, without humans clearing out fields on purpose, the other species present.
The whole idea of genetically adapted plants to mitigate effects of climate change is gaining pace nowadays. Not only for sequestering CO2 but also to enhance crop yield, minimizing the area needed for agriculture and in turn leaving more space for wilderness. We might also have a look into this topic from that angle to find out its actual potential or whether it's just empty promises.
Definitely not to say we shouldn't pursue the approach - we should, but I've got a couple concerns:
1) Does that trillion trees account for all the carbon we're expected to produce in the future, or only the carbon we've already produced (or worse, only our annual production)? If its either of the two latter options, then this is a failed plan right from the start because this year's trillion trees becomes next year's 2 trillion and so on, and there's only so much land where trees can grow. "Greening the Sahara" is always a popular go-to answer - lots of available land there! But the Sahara isn't exactly conducive to life (it would have some if it was), and we don't really have the ability to terraform it sufficiently in anything approaching a reasonable time or cost scale, so such an option isn't really viable. A few countries are working toward greening a couple miles of the edge of it with mixed results - and that's mostly land that was only recently desertified (ie: its a lot closer to life-supporting than the deep Sahara).
2) What happens if it works? Now we've got a whole lot of trees that expect higher CO2 concentrations. Will they still be able to survive in a lower CO2 environment? And if not, where do we go from there? Letting them die off and dumping the CO2 they captured straight back into the atmosphere doesn't seem like an ideal solution. Of course nature has an answer to that - it will reach a new CO2/tree equilibrium. So I guess the question-under-the-question is where will that equilibrium lie, relative to current (or pre-industrial) CO2 levels? And can we reach that equilibrium fast enough to matter (ie: before too many ecosystems collapse due to critical species going extinct).
false promise for the powers that be to profit off of. agroecology is the answer
@@Doctor_Subtilis So.. a different false promise for a different set of powers to profit off of?
The answer is to stop worrying about who is "profiting". If they can come up with a solution, even a partial one, then great! Let them have their money!
Every time we delay some potential solution for climate change just because they aren't _also_ a solution for social injustice, you know what we get? A solution for neither problem. And in the meantime, those who are dedicated to destroying everything are able to take another step forward while we stand around fighting amongst ourselves and accomplishing nothing.
Let agroecology try its hand. Let GMO trees try their hand. Let whoever else try their hand. You're perfectly welcome to continue supporting your favorite silver bullet, but please stop trying to prevent everyone else from supporting their own. Because there are no silver bullets, and we'll likely need to take _many_ approaches in conjunction if we want any hope of fixing anything.
I'm Australian. We have a Blue Gum tree that grows like a hyperactive weed. Problem is, you can sit beside it growing, and watch the groundwater level drop. I know this might not be a problem in cooler areas, but the Blue Gum does come with a new set of problems.
@@altrag Exactly, climate change is quite the conundrum in that no one solution can ever be adequate, but many solutions will be required.
Ecosia.
The invasive species theory should have been asked around a bit more, because having multiply species of invasive trees is not necessarily a reassuring answer.
They would be editing the trees native to their area
Another point for the section on controversy of planting trees: there is no one singular solution to climate change.
I’m actually working on a video on this for my own channel but here’s the gist of it: the IPCC and the Drawdown project have both worked to assess over 100 different possible climate change solutions. While there are many which have a huge impact (like tree planting, solar panels, and wind turbines) there is not one solution.
So we need to engage aggressively in all these things. And if those trees manage to suck up more carbon than normal? Heck yea!
Agreed 100%. I'm excited to explore a lot more of these solutions on this show - and we need them all at the same time.
exactly right! Nuclear is another essential element for combating climate change. Without it, we can't decarbonise the grid quickly enough
@@CleoAbram WOW ur gorgeous🥵👩❤💋👩....Meow
@@meghansmith7884 ??? yikes
@@jonathanodude6660 Licks 😹....Hisssss
7:39 Whilst making the fast carbon cycle more efficient might help in the short term, this graphic suggests that all that carbon will eventually get back into the atmosphere anyway. Seems to me that it's the long carbon cycle that needs fixing. i.e., How do we remove all of the carbon that has been released from fossil fuels permanently?
The carbon needs to be captured and held in such a way that it cannot get back into the atmosphere, similar to how it was held captive in coal, gas and oil.
Yeah, I wondered about that. That seemed a rather crucial point but was completely glossed over.
Hemp rope hemp paper, dried hemp stored in old salt mines... cannabis processes 4 times more c02 per pound of leaf than any other land based plant.
the trees have to be cut down and used in infrastructure and furniture. the carbon is released when the trees decompose. if you prevent that, you have a carbon sink. problem is everything we could use wood for is limited in timespan.
you don't have to capture what you never emit though...
all this fancy tech kind of seems like just an excuse to keep doing what we're doing , like "don't worry people, just keep all the cars and factories running. we'll figure something out for this carbon problem eventually"
I may be wrong, but I heard that if you bury the wood in certain marshlands, it will slowly be transformed into coal, keeping the carbon in the ground not the atmosphere. I think this technology is called „Biochar“ if you want to do some of your own research on it.
I wonder if thicker tree rings from the faster accumulation of biomass would result in weaker overall trees that wind and storms break.
Also, seems this in combination with making trees more water efficient would help, especially if deserts could be planted.
My gut reaction was that if the trees are not as efficient at storing carbon as they could be then there is probably a good reason. The researchers seem to assume they are making “better” trees, but I would want to understand why natural selection hasn’t already produced more efficient carbon storage? There maybe some negative trade offs that the researchers aren’t aware of.
Because the “biological goal” of trees isn’t to store carbon… the goal is to thrive in their environment long enough to reproduce
Human beings can add whatever “goal” they desire into their programming
there is a reason and that reason is called balance. like all the trees we have now took millions of years to reach a state of balance where they can all co-exist. if you suddenly introduce a new species (invasive or GMO) that is far better at photosynthesis and can grow faster it will start to outcompete native trees and in the worst case threaten their existence. which of course is bad for biodiversity
@@jarde1989 Would that be the same goal as putting asbestos in buildings for fire prevention? Or the same goal as introducing cane toads to Australia?
Would’ve preferred a quantifiable number for how much more efficient these super trees are at photosynthesis (30%? 200%?) than the unhelpful descriptors (Eg; significant, huge, massive…etc)
I’d imagine that depends heavily on the surrounding environment as it’s all a big chemically balanced reaction. Depending on light exposure, humidity etc. any plant will also have rather big changes in photosynthetic efficiency (e.g. contrary to common belief efficiency doesn’t scale proportionally with light exposure, at high exposures vents on the bottom of leaves actually close up to prevent dehydration which in turn lowers metabolic rates).
So they could at best give you a value under optimal lab conditions but that might mislead people into wrongly assuming the same scales for real world scenarios.
@@waterunderthebridge7950 maybe, still would’ve been better to clarify that instead of the qualitative descriptors
Hemp 500% more the a tree
Rubisco "screws up" about 25% of the time. So less than 33% improvement is possible with modifications to the Rubisco gene.
@@waterunderthebridge7950 you would put a control tree in the same situation though, so you'd just express the increase in comparison to that tree.....
Very interesting! I'm surprised Patrick didn't say that the quick growth by itself is already good enough? Of course it would be great to have bigger trees or something like that, but in my mind that isn't the only option for getting more carbon sequestration. Picture this; let's say the trees end up growing to the same size, but the altered trees do it in half the time it would take the normal ones. What this means it that in the usual cycle of one tree you can now still sequester twice the amount of carbon "by planting a second tree after the first one is done growing". I would love to see more houses being build out of wood as that is such a great method for keeping the carbon from reentering the atmosphere. I think the quicker growth goes Hand in hand with a larger amount of carbon capture / time unit, which is ultimately what it is all about.
Please make more videos on any of the following topics: gene editing/ genetic engineering , biotech, cloning, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, I just found you channel 2 weeks ago and I love it honestly the best technological journalism yt channel I’ve seen in years
I love that I'm here so early. Very very quickly this channel has become my favorite account on UA-cam. You were great on Vox but you are killing in now that you've gone fully independent. You always cover topics I'm naturally interested in anyways, but the way you tackle each video is fantastic! Keep creating, I'm so here for it lol.
I watched and loved all your videos. It’s well made and informative. Keep it up! ❤️
So, in my view this really is something geared towards the forest industry and nothing else. The thought of those trees being planted in the wild is legitimatley scarring me. Ecosystems are often operating at very fine balances. Balances that have become even finer through all the stresses we humans put them through. Altering the fitness of plants within those ecosystems needs multiple lifecycles of those plants to study the effects this will have on the ecosystems even just on the surface. Since we're talking trees here, that means centuries. We don't have that time. And I'm afraid we'll see these in normal seeds used for ecological projects by people who simply don't know better. And for what percentage increase in C storage?
To me this is a technology that isn't huge if true. It's kinda fun if true and *huge* if wrong.
No you're totally right, altering the genetics of our domesticated crops is one thing, but altering the genetics of wild organisms and releasing them back into the wild is a lottttt more iffy. Maybe there's a reason trees with this ability haven't naturally happened because the alteration isn't beneficial to the reproductive fitness of the tree
Exactly, this should be applied only to crops because we need to increase their yield and efficiency in order to reach the nutritional needs of our species in the future, but messing up with species that would end up in the wild is a huge mistake
But we genetically engineer mosquitos to terminate their populations, and these GM mosquitos never travel far from their original location. This fear of "spreading mutants" might be driven more by fearmongering media than reality
@@firstname405 What? Of course these mosquitos can't travel far. They are infertile. They can't get any surviving offspring. So they are literally only going to get as far as one single mosquito can fly in it's lifetime.
These trees aren't infertile. And quite a lot of trees are pollinated by wind. This means they can travel huge distances in one life cycle. Wind pollinated trees can often spread their pollen for dozens of kilometers. Put them next to a street or a rail line and the distance increases until it's basically limitless.
@@thecashier930 No that isn't how the GM mosquitos worked. The GM mosquito wasn't infertile, in fact it worked ONLY because it was fertile. It is edited and released and mates with other mosquitos. When it has children, the males die and the females live to pass on this gene. Those female mate and the males die but the new females live and pass on the gene, etc etc. It wasn't a terminating gene like with crop seeds, and they weren't infertile. But despite their ability to travel anywhere they liked (something trees can't do), over as many generations as they wanted (something trees are incredibly slow at) - the gene still didn't spread further than 200m from the starting point.
Trees can't just get up and walk, and their generational cycle is faaaaaaarrr slower. So all I'm saying is that it isn't inherently a big scary bad thing like the fearmongering makes us think it is. We can instead find out what will happen through safe experimentation and science, rather than just do nothing.
Much better audio… great video by the way👍
Cleo, your videos are incredible. I even enjoy watching the ads. Thank you for great quality work.
this was really informative!! i would love to see more videos from you on genetic engineering
Another great video, as usual. I'm a biochemist in Brazil... genetic engineering is not my field of research, but it brought me many nostalgic memories from the beginning of my graduation... I didn't expect to get emotional in a super tree video hahahahaha
Brasil em todos os cantos 😍
@@azulgally Vamos dominar o mundo hahahaha
@@joao_de_berro siiiiiim kkkkk
Great video, that's a great project.
I really think that photosynthesis is always going to be more effective and efficient at capturing carbon than any industrial attempts, but I'm happy to be pleasantly surprised there, too.
I have always thought the holy grail for genetic engineering will be turning conifers into renewable fuel or to yield some kind of food. Excited to see where the channel goes next!
THIS IS SO AMAZING! thank you for sharing this!
Most things require some sort of trade-off, so in my mind the question is: "Will these changes have any negative effects on the plants and their environments, and if so what are those effects?". I can definitely see the merits of adopting new technology to improve humanity as soon as possible, however it is also that desire to do it now and try to fix any problems later, that got us into this situation in the first place.
I just found this channel and I already love it. Amazing work
Another great one. Lots to think about. Thank you for making
always awesome to see new environmentally focused tech companies :) great vid!
Thanks Cleo for this episode and coverage of this story. Hope is a strong word and a strong feeling. 💐
You nailed it again, Cleo! I love your videos, almost as much as I love seeing you in them!
Loved the video a lot. Cleo, you could explore the CC technology of making BIOCHAR and how huge it could be if truely scaled up. Waiting for your next video!!!
I would love to get into biochar production (among other projects) but that requires land, which is REALLY expensive right now. So unless I had a wildly successful kickstarter or some such, it isn't going to happen. /sigh
I thought i was wrong about the audio...
But Thank yu for fixing it
Thank you for another interesting story!
Why so much shakycam this time around?
Appreciate you clearly marking your ad
Well done Cleo. Eye-opening and though-provoking as always
Really enjoy your interesting content. Thank you.
Am all for it, but what happens if it doesn’t work? What if trees really need to perform that ‘carbon-inneficient’ process for them to survive, and by introducing a genetically modified tree in a forest, we alter the balance (and put the ‘weaker’, natural trees in danger)?
or the trees suddenly spread so fast and become so big that they destroy eco systems and thus releasing more co2 into the atmosphere
@@1nf3ct3dTT forget about C02 having too much forest is terrible for biodiversity. people think of trees and forest as natural and good but in a lot of situations trees are actually a big part of the problem.
I work in natural preservation and the whole point of my job is to counteract all the excessive growth of grass and trees (Eutrophication) in otherwise sparse areas to maintain the natural biodiversity. this eutrophication is caused by the massive nitrogen deposition caused by agriculture and use of fossil fuels
adding some super fast growing tree into this mix won't exactly help the situation.
Gotta hand it to you, this is really interesting. I have to wonder what happens if you apply this to a hardwood, bamboo, a fruit tree, or something that live a ridiculously long time like a redwood. Each of those cases seems like a really distinct set of opportunities.
The remarkable information you provide to your viewers needs to be applauded. I sincerely appreciate your effort to expand your viewers knowledge. A sincere thank you!
I cannot do everything good in the world but the world needs everything good I can do.
I have a question how would that effect fruit trees would it change the fruit or would it have no changes at all ?
Started with the F1 Rookie video and immediately subscribed. This was my second video. I love these videos
Good video. Did you change anything related to audio ? it is very nice.
Your videos have helped me reach over $180,000 in trading by age 23! Thanks Cleo Abram. Keep the videos coming. 👍🏽
Congrats ! i made a lot during covid from my passive income .
I'm convinced that the big investors and analysts are trying to scare us to keep us poor and ignorant to the market.. because its steady doing good after all the jobless and market crash talks
Wow what an achievement! Best of luck for the rest of your future.
@@favourazah1504 💯
@@jamesjude4988 thanks
Nice video, I am all for it, hope they can stay afloat while pursuing the mission
The answer is not to genetically manipulate trees. That could have all kinds of unforseen consequences.
We already have super trees. We need to stop cutting them down and let them do their job.
great video, just want to point out that in the fast carbon cycle, you can harvest the timber to essentially stop the decomposition phase of the trunk. this stores the carbon that would otherwise be CO2 and makes room to plant new trees!
Just growing more trees will help reduce CO2, but yes, once you have filled all the viable land, you can't capture any more, which would necessitate harvesting the trees, storing their captured CO2 somewhere, and planting new trees to grow in their place.
won't it just delay the decomposition phase though? like timber doesn't last forever and eventually some1's gonna burn it or toss it into a landfill or something...
@@TwilightMysts not to mention the fact there's other stuff already living on that land, forests aren't great for biodiversity...
@@zwenkwiel816 If a timber building lasts 200 years and it takes a wooded plot 40 years to reach maturity you can get 5x as much carbon out the air than if you left the wood alone. But yes, the used timber will eventually decompose too
This is fascinating new research! I agree that these trees may succeed in reducing the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere, but I'd be extremely surprised if they could actually put an end to climate change, which I think at this point is inevitable and will be catastrophic. But any effort we can make to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases will definitely help!
Much better sound! Thank you,.
Hey everyone, great video. I really need to know where Patrick got his plant shirt from, like yesterday.
Are you releasing these documentaries on other platforms as well? Cuz these really deserve more recognition for the amount of effort and research put into it, theyre amazingly well made
Thanks! I make shortform videos from these episodes (and extra research) on TikTok and Instagram as well. Where else should I put them?
@@CleoAbram You might be interested in a paid video platform like Nebula. I know there are other UA-camrs who use Nebula for ad-free versions of their videos, or extended versions, or versions that contain content that might not be suitable for UA-cam.
@@CleoAbram I would totally watch your videos on Nebula!
+1 for nebula!
What is the name of their start up? I'd like to do more research on what they've done and read what they've published. If it was said in the video I must've missed it. Also great topic, like another commenter said this inspires me and gives me hope for the future.
What if this creates another problem ? For example - change in carbon cycle. We should not alter the environment / natural cycles that’s what is in our hands.
Neil Degrasse actually said that before we can even try to live on another planet and alter its climate and environment to suit or needs we would need to have to learn how to do a Geo engineering on our own planets learn how to alter the state of our planet itself, and this is a step towards that direction, which is a very needed step
The last bit was truly inspiring "we could be the last specie to ever destabilize the atmosphere" and the coll names for the minitry :p
it's interesting watching this after the anti-aging for dogs video. It's like we're looking to make trees grow larger faster, which is something we're trying to slow down over the lifetime of larger dogs.
I LOVE the Movers and the Shakers, which all three of you are in this video. Well done, Cleo!
Cleo! You should consider dropping Masterwork as sponsor.
great video. only question i have these super trees would need more water to get more carbon out of the air. so is it efficient?
I'm very worried changing this fundamental process of how photosynthesis works in these plant species could open many ecosystems to new runaway events that weren't really possible before, such as a new oxygenation event
considering event at 50% increase in growth speed tree growth speed is still quite glacial (compared to weed family plants like corn)
i'm quite sure it won't be a problem
but i do somewhat wonder the effect of a faster growing forest to the soil quality in an area
Hemp also has 5x the carbon capture of a tree, and its nature strongest fibre
That was incredible. Another thing that immediately jumped to my mind is that if we are improving photosynthetic efficiency of plants and make them grow faster, does that mean we could use this technique to make faster growing crops to produce more food in the same area and time, potentially ending world hunger?
That is what GMO crops have done for twenty years now. The technology is always improving though.
The high tech solution for growing trees is great, but there's also a low tech supplementary solution. When the trees get large enough to enter slower growth phase, we have to cut them down and keep the wood dry so that it won't decay as rapidly as would a trunk left on the forest ground. The way to keep wood dry is to use some of it to build huts that contain the rest of it.
In my mind, the best use of this tech would be in lumber forests, which are large but isolated groups of trees with some control over the spread of the new species. Lumber, especially long lasting wood, is carbon storage, and trees which are genetically designed to grow much faster makes lumber cheaper. 50-year lumber can store carbon at least long enough to get the rest of our energy sources to be carbon-neutral.
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I think its a good idea. You can genetically modify all plants to grow faster. Then, that would also improve the efficiency of things like timber farms at the same time. This means there is alot of economic incentive to continue important research like this.
masterworks throw error on me when I am trying to register, I just want to see if they got Zdislaw Beksinski's work there. Video wise, I love trees. Continue the good job, Living Carbon!
My main question is why poplars. A desert pioneer nitrogen fixer like mesquite or acacia seems like it would have a lot more utility.
Just reading The Code Breakers about Jennifer Doudna.
Thank you to all the scientists who dedicate their lives to make ours better.
I wonder if they could genetically modify some to grow better in areas that don’t have much trees or even life. Like much areas in Canada’s territories. As that would be a great area to plant trees, as not much is already there.
Plus we know CO2 doesn’t just stay where it was emitted. It will travel around the world. So we need to find ways to utilise already vacant areas to suck in CO2.
Plus could a tree be modified to release carbon from its roots, trapping it in the ground/soil?
Something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere here is how significant this is for tree planting efficiency. One can expel the same emissions to plant twice as many trees this way. I'm not sure how close the emission to carbon sink ratio has been, but this will blow it away.
this could be huge for construction, and farming as well.
i luuuv all your videos!! :) i watch like all of them now
Cleo, I just LOVE your videos!
Woah! Super cool! This got my heart racing with hopeful excitement!
Quick maturation of trees would be good for logging. Since the super tree and normal tree take out the same total carbon.
This is interesting, but is a bit scary. I would be worried about unintended consequences. These modified trees would have a genetic advantage over unmodified trees being faster growers. If released into the wild I would expect them to supplement unmodified trees over decades.
Would these trees with their faster growth be weaker? I have along the edge of my property a bunch of Manitoba Maples (Box Elder). Doing research I came to understand that because they were fast growing trees they were popular in landscaping. These trees drop branches every time there is a good storm. I would be worried that a fast growing tree would not last as long with the stronger weather that seems to be present with climate change.
Watching this also brought to mind another concept that I thought was interesting. I watched a video from "Undecided with Matt Ferrell" on turning Human Waste into Carbon. The process is HTC Carbonization. It occurred to me that this process might be useful to convert other biowaste like tree leaves and grass clippings into carbon sequestering them from the environment as well.
when you use video clips from other shows could xou put the source in the description please :)
I love your videos. I've watched them all.
How does an increased growth rate impact the toughness of the wood? Construction lumber often originates from colder regions, like canada or scandinavia, because they grow slower in the cold which makes the lumber denser and tougher. Would this tech impact the strength of lumber at all or is it a non-issue?
I would also like to know this.
I think the best application for this technology is the lumber industry. By making trees that grow faster they would need to take in less space that would otherwise be left for wild ecosystems. Introducing these (fertile) trees into an existing ecosystem however poses a pretty large risk of negatively impacting biodiversity. In nature we can already see that plants that grow more quickly take up light and nutrients in detriment of slower growing species. (think of nettles in nitrogen-rich enviornments)
I'd be interested to know more about the biology of their solution - I would _presume_ that if there were no trade-offs, plants would have evolved this slightly altered mechanism for photosynthesis themselves, given it seems like it would confer such a huge survival advantage.
Also, if the final size of the tree is the same, as Patrick says, then I'm somewhat confused as to how these trees store more carbon? The carbon has to go somewhere.
It could be much more complicated that the video implies (which would be an impressive feat of genetic engineering!) but still.
I'm confused on that as well. Trees already compete for sunlight, so why doesn't this trait already exist? There must be a catch somewhere.
There has been a lot of discussion in the comments about possible side effects, as well as the new trees destabilizing ecosystems because of the changes.
As for how the trees storing carbon. It isn't that they store MORE carbon, it is that they store it FASTER. So a natural species that would take 100 years to store 100 tons of carbon, while the modified version could store that same amount of carbon, but would do it in 70 years instead.
But I think the real advantage is not in using the trees as a way to store carbon, but rather as a way to collect it, and then we chop the trees down, store the carbon somewhere else, and plant new trees to absorb more carbon.
we have been modifying plants since the agriculture revolution but it was done imprecisely and by, trial and error. But now with genetic engineering with things like Crispr to have precise changes into an organism.
Interesting to think about how we'll need to manage the atmosphere, don't know how I feel about a larger organization having that kind of power.... crazy to think how much consolidation of power there is in the future and how much Ai is likely going to be controlling this.
Yeah, the moment she used the word "ministry" I had chills run up my spine.
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Hi, Cleo! One question I had from your video was if there was some benefit to the tree for the inefficiency of the RuBisCo? While it may appear inefficient to us, is there a reason it is that way?
i dont really know is there plant that evolve rubisco enzyme so it became more efficient but plant mitigate innefeciency of rubisco by evolve their tissue. you can read more about C3, C4, CAM plant. there is a reason why weeds grow faster because most of them was C4 plant. i am sorry for my bad english and i hope my answer can help your
As long as we don't make the mistake of monoculture. We need a variety of unrelated species.
What an interesting topic, and well produced video. We really need to plant more trees, our Forrest are in danger, just look what happen in the Amazon every year is getting smaller.
Ok here's a thought, since the ocean is the biggest contributor in oxygen production, are we researching on editing genes with oceanic planktons?
"This is pretty cool" is something I thought I wouldn't hear from someone inside a greenhouse.
Love this as always!
I think the thing you were envisioning is the Ministry for the Future, which is also an excellent book!
Imagine instead of altering trees, we altered humans to inhale carbon instead haha that would be insanely funny
I think super trees are a good idea. Make sure they fix nitrogen in the soil too
The climate math of trees is even more complicated that it was presented. She didn't even mention albedo heating from trees. The sequestered CO2 almost doesn't make up for the increased heat retention. Just calculating how the extra absorbed solar energy impacts us vs the slightly reduced global CO2 level is difficult. For biomass that can be well managed by humans biochar is probably the best long term sequestration solution.
Correct me if i dont understand something here, but isnt the maximum capacity of a tree to store carbon ultimately a matter of its biomass? Why should it significally help to have faster growing plants if they cap out at the same height as the normal ones. You would still have to plant the 1 trillion trees we would just gain a time advantage. I don't think thats worth the risk considering we're tinkering with genetics that could throw whole ecosystems off balance through natural selection benefits (even if the original plant is native its still enhanced and therefore "invasive")
Any counter arguments welcome :)
I'm skeptical: trees evolved over millions of years in tandem with an atmosphere with declining CO2 concentration. until recently the CO2 was actually near an impressive all-time low (we're talking of a reduction of a factor of 10 since the Jurassic). The evolutionary process must already have put tremendous pressure on trees to become more efficient in their photosynthesis (to be more efficient to hook on any of the remaining atmospheric carbon that they can "get their leaves on"). If you modify them to be even more efficient, there's gotta be a hefty price down the road.