Catastrophic Carbon Removal. How the 'Big Solution' is failing badly.
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2024
- Carbon Dioxide Removal is our only chance of keeping the atmosphere of Earth at a habitable temperature in the 21st Century. That's what our scientists tell us anyway. And they say we will need to remove billions of tonnes of the warming gas in the coming decades if we are to succeed in this ambitious goal. So what is Carbon Dioxide Removal? Why is it different to Carbon Capture and Storage, and how on earth will we do it?
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Research paper citation
Smith, S. M., Geden, O., Nemet, G., Gidden, M., Lamb, W. F., Powis, C., Bellamy, R., Callaghan, M., Cowie, A., Cox, E., Fuss, S., Gasser, T., Grassi, G., Greene, J., Lück, S., Mohan, A., Müller-Hansen, F., Peters, G., Pratama, Y., Repke, T., Riahi, K., Schenuit, F., Steinhauser, J., Strefler, J., Valenzuela, J. M., and Minx, J. C. (2023). The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal - 1st Edition. The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/W3B4Z
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"We will go down in history as the first society to not save itself because it isn't cost effective."-Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Ha ha very funny. There are multiple societies and civilizations that died out or collapsed doing just that. The difference is this time it is the whole planet that will die instead of just an island of people who cut down every fruit tree until there was no food to eat attempting to earn an extra buck.
Sickening. I wish I wasn't a fossil worker.
There will be no history to go down into.
You mean it's unprofitable. The more oil, gas, and coal burned, the more profit.
After 25 years working in the woods, I quit in disgust, returned to school and obtained a degree in forest ecology, after 27 years involvement in ecosystem restoration I see piecemeal "feel good" projects when an overhaul of human/nature relationship is necessary. The over utilization of natural resources to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few must change.
We are living the dystopia predicted by many. Change is our only hope.
Since we keep putting our hopes on technology that does not yet exist and kicking the ball down the line, I predict we will soon have to rely on time travel.
You're too late with that idea.
I remember a few years back the IPCC released a few hundred possible pathways that prevented us going over 1.5.
All the pathways that didn't include nonexistent technology included emissions peaking 5 years before the report was released. So demonstrating a reliance on time travel.
Now of course all pathways that see us not exceeding 1.5 temporarily must include time travel, as we were over 1.5 for 3 months in 2016 and a month or two almost every year since.
I can confirm that time travel is exactly how you will solve the climate crisis.
The entire concept of carbon capture is 100% sponsored by the petroleum industry.
A way for us to keep burning their products, and waste time, money, resources and skills avoiding solutions that would stop us burning their products.
Every $, every hour of skilled design, every bit of materials, every government grant, every hour of labor, spent on stupidity like CCS and Blue Hydrogen is resources that could have been spent on wind, solar, nuclear, electrified transportation, or just plain messaging for reduction of consumption.
People and governments of the world are falling for this scam, and it is going to keep us burning fuels decades longer than we need to.
Enjoy the polluted air and high energy prices, brough to you by all those who believe the petroleum industry is our saviour for some reason.
@@ricos1497 if time travel were at all possible it would have solved our ecological disaster already.
... 'Twelve Monkeys ' ...🤔
I think seaweed farming may be the best bet to drawdown carbon. Some of the fastest growing plants on the planet, they can be used as food and animal food as well as processed into more stable forms that lock carbon up. There are risks to seaweed farms but bushfires isn't one of them. Would like it if you considered doing a video on the potential for seaweed farming. Thanks.
THis one wins!!
Part of the climate change problems will be food security. Traditional crops and croplands (including disaster affected lands or inundated coastal deltas and food bowls) so diversifying human and animal feed doesn't just lock up carbon, it can help with meeting some of the more fundamental human and animal needs.
the sea plants are mostly all dead today so you can just forget all about what you were talking about ..elon said there is too much carbon dioxide in the ocean killing all the sea plants ..and if elon said it , it musk be true ...and do you think you could stop repeating the big world wide lie that plants store carbon ..they do just the opposite they eat carbon as fast as they can get it turning the carbon into sugar ..so plants can not possibly store carbon ..if they did they would not produce any oxygen ..and by taking away all the co2 you are starving the plants to death and dead plants dont make oxygen and the pie charts of the air says we are running out of oxygen real fast ..the way it stands today by the numbers if we drop one more 1/2 of 1% of oxygen everyone on earth will suffocate to death..so the way itlooks by the numbers you will be dead before new years ...have a beautiful day it mey be your last one
Don't forget as well, there is one type of seaweed that when fed to ruminants, cows etc, it reduces methane burps.
So it captures CO2, and reduces CH4.
That sounds like a nice little twofer.
How does someone farm seaweed? How do you take a plant that can grow anywhere in the ocean it wants to, grow in more places?
By working as a panning officer pushing better insulation in a couple of city boroughs I think I can probably say I've personally made more of an impact on global carbon levels than to the whole carbon capture industry 😅
I've been watching Dave's excellent videos for years now and I always come away better informed. But every so often after watching one of these videos I find I have to sit with what has been presented and have a little cry. This was one of such videos. Doomerism is unfashionable, but the line between doomerism and being realistic is very blurred indeed.
Wow you guys really are quite frail.
That's because we're doomed. Putin, China, NK, Iran, and the last century are clues to this. It's _The Great Filter._
Those 2 sets converged a long time ago
@@Invisiblehand123 This has been my line of thought for a long time now. It's great to see someone else thinking in the same way!
@@User-jr7vf You're reassured that someone else doesn't give a fuck about anyone apart from themselves? That kind of undermines your 'not-giving-a-fuck-ness'.
I guess most human beings recognize the ability of big companies / research institutions to essentially "game the system " and simply have big flashy buildings with people in white coats and lots of graphics showing the impending doom - our first step in reducing carbon is to seriously reduce " soft " corruption but i suspect sadly humans as a group are incapable of doing that - but i thank you Dave for tirelessly trying to point out those anomalies
It's the same way with those pushing the "solution" to Covid. The jabs *used to* be useful, but the current and last few strains have been *proven* to be less harmful than the jab - even for people in their 50s and 60s.
Sorry for the OT comment, but it's another important topic.
Nice way of saying things, my friend. We are only Europe. A small spec on the planet that does actually quite astonishingly great actually 😂. It doesn't matter though.
Capitalism is the embodiment of human nature and its power to change.
Survival by everyone is the reason for laws.
Don’t see the cars on the road reducing numbers
I agree with the gist of what you're saying, "humans as a group are incapable of doing...".
Collectively, "we" are inventive but individually conservative.
Science & technology advances are readily picked up, mostly through the filter of an outdated brain shaped by equally outdated evolutionary forces.
The lack of common language, overpopulation, warmongering, excessive economic disparities and irrationally biased education systems are only but symptom of "our" collective failure as a species whose good luck is running out.
I, too, think that trying to improve is important and morally righteous, but I am not optimistic.
Eventually, and hopefully before an extinction event, a better intelligent entity will take over the running of the planet, but this will mean that humanity, as we understand it today, will not be the leading force shaping the destiny of our dying planet (dying because over 80% of the theoretical span life can subsist on this space rock, is already gone).
This could be, perhaps, the fate of all, or nearly all, of any evolutionary biological intelligence. This "intelligence" is shaped by the complex interaction of ecological constraints and when a successful organism significantly alters them, disaster is a likely outcome.
Miniature events of this kind happen in the "boom & bust" cycles of prey/predators populations in unsettled ecological systems, and "we" as humanity are now playing with the whole planet.
No other home is available to us to immigrate to, so the magnitude of what going to happen is guaranteed.
Hi Dave, thank you once again. As a soil scientist and 30yr veteran of Australia's carbon wars I would like to make 2 points. Firstly we are at war, the fossil fuel industry profits from war and the fertilizer industry was born from war. Since the earliest days the carbon industry has been targeted as an enemy, the list of dirty tricks is long.
My second point is that we have the capacity to store carbon at the scale needed. The state of agricultural and forest soils is heartbreaking. We are also facing what some scientists call phosphorgeddon, where we are simultaneously running out of rock phosphate whilst destroying waterways with too much phosphorus. This is an inflection point, the solutions to climate change are also the solutions to food insecurity. The solutions to climate change are also the solutions to biodiversity loss. The solutions are beautiful and that has to be the message.
You only have to look at New Zealand to see what we’ve done over the 150 years. Saturation levels of Phosphate’s and Nitrates everywhere.
Pretty words, but please elaborate as to how EXACTLY your "solutions" would work and can be pragmatically realized.
Are you talking about something that might be termed regenerative agriculture? Fewer chemical additives, more careful agricultural practices? I hear so much, from somewhat suspect sources, about how the world will starve without massive doses of fossil-fuel based fertilizers. Like Monkeyboy, I'd just like to know more specifics. Thanks.
@@Monkeyboysdontknow That is a very long answer. Luckily not my solutions but a vast array that offer at least some hope. C+O2 has developed a system to plant trees as fast as we currently plant wheat, which is pretty rocking. Planting trees of course is not enough, we need to get that carbon into the soil. For our part we are working on a Terra Preta project to identify the biological mechanism that makes soil "self replicate" it's pretty exciting stuff. My point about phosphorus is that the global supply is very finite and western leaders seem hell bent on a war which would lock the west out of over half the global rock phosphate supply! The first rule of Empire is that hungry people are dangerous. Using soil biology is the only feasible way to produce enough food without synthetic fertilizer. I would like to note that precision fermentation, particularly from cellulose, mycelium and methanol gives me hope.
All hands on deck time. Government through central bank policy creating debt-free financing of carbon mitigation seems a good idea. Study Carbon Quantitative Easing for a look at the future.
I've been thinking about how to stay a decent person in all of this mess and realized that actually growing thousand of valuable trees per year and giving it away is not unattainable or particularly time consuming for an ordinary bread eater with a piece of land. I'm still learning grafting but definitely will go for it
Our real problem is not a technological one; it is a social or behavioral issue. We have the technology to solve any number of humanities problems including climate change and its cause ecological overshoot. However, as a species we do not have the social capacity to respond in an effective way. You could consider the whole human species to be suffering from an addiction problem where there are no non-addictive support systems to help us stop and no way to clear our system to get sober. That's not even talking about carbon, that's all about the game of wealth and the way it coopts every bit of society's energies. You cannot do anything unless someone makes money off it, and that generally requires subverting the game so the goal is lost. We don't talk about the progress of projects to solve our problem, we talk about how much money we spend or make on them. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: As long as we measure our survival in monetary terms, we cannot afford to survive.
Yeah, at this point I think almost every major problem in our society can ultimately be traced back to capitalism.
Great start in seeing a problem. The effective solution is seeing ourselves as just another member of a planetary society of all beings . It is pretty well understood that as apex predators we should remain very few in numbers. How many? I bet it is less than a billion. That ship has sailed. Overshoot is only solved by collapse, not by playing around the edges with technofixes. Mass human death is coming regardless of hypocrisy, denial or political will.
“As long as we measure our survival in monetary terms, we cannot afford to survive”. Eloquent and brilliant!
Painfully true but there needs to be a global discussion about rejecting wealth at all cost ????
@@michaelbanwell8786 There is no indication that such a discussion will be had until things get really, really bad.
When citing research, especially climate-related research, it’s always helpful to not only say who did the study, but also who funded it.
There's a growing movement of people going back to abandoned areas and living off the land nurturing. I love this thinking.
No! Please don't fall for the 'back to the land' movement which romanticises eating the land. That's part of how we got into this problem. Instead, let's decouple away from the land and grow our food in factories! “Precision Fermentation” can be thought of as a clever way to get more efficient than photosynthesis. It uses solar panels to split water for hydrogen, which is what photosynthesis does to combine that hydrogen with carbon from the air and nutrients from the soil to make our food. But plants only get 6% of the sunlight. The crop must grow and maintain itself, and we only eat part of that crop. Sometimes we eat less than 1% of that incoming sunlight, and it’s often mostly carbohydrates when what we really want is more protein.
But now scientists use solar panels to get 20% of the sunlight, and split water at about 80% efficiency for hydrogen so now we’re at 16% of that sunlight. Then they feed that hydrogen directly to hydrogen-eating bacteria, and with a little water and a few mineral fertilisers, it can produce all the proteins and fats we want. It’s such an efficient and direct means of brewing up food that the implications are completely revolutionary!
“Brave Robot” are already selling Precision Fermentation ice cream, and there are PF cream cheeses and Palm Oils! It’s food from tiny factories - not farms. It’s reliable, mostly immune from the droughts and floods and plagues and pandemics of nature. Soon we’ll have white protein for chicken nuggets, darker proteins for burgers, and even strips of stuff like bacon. It will destroy the modern cattle and livestock industries and even some crops like palm oil and vegetable oils. This will return so much land to nature that we can let 3 TRILLION TREES regrow, solving climate change! Watch George Monbiot’s 6 minute summary. ua-cam.com/video/6eaTIe_TBZA/v-deo.html
Read his article - and google it. It’s amazing!
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/24/green-technology-precision-fermentation-farming
They just play possum and deny a problem around them until the same problem hits them just as much or maybe even worse than us who did enter this new era with open eyes. We have a perfectly fitting meme for those people. The ostrich stuffing his head in the sand.
My parents tried that in the late 70's along with a lot of others. It seems nice but does shit for stopping the polluters.
good practice. Get a head start and beat the crowds
@@erdelegy Capitalism sucks balls and we are overbreeding.
I'm in the "Garden Hose to The Sky" camp. I was so taken with it when I read SUPERFREAKINOMICS. So simple, so elegant. And as of this year we are super closer to a space elevator. We can run the siphon hose up the elevator housing. ... Anyway...
Thank you Dave, another lovely insight from yours. We are doomed, but it's a consolation to be in such good company.
Climate change is real, but we are not doomed.
If you look at the science, the last 100 years have been, by far, the best years of human existence.
We are living longer, with more relaxation time, travelling further, and falling global poverty rates.
Yes. Climate change is a problem. But we are not doomed.
I'm not convinced we're doomed.
However, I do concede that it will take a lot of humans doing whatever they can to personally reduce their use of fossil fuels use, to
move us anywhere close to where we need to be.
I'm trying to do my part
I hope others will join me and do something, anything, it all helps.
2023 update - We're still bingeing like pigs and found out that diet pills don't work -
Thank you for making such complex issues comprehensible to non-scientists like me. Please keep doing it.
He’s not a scientist
Love your videos, they are like Candy to a techy. The solution might not be so much based on new technologies but on changing our paradigm. It takes about 15 years for new technologies to be implemented. Example: when power came from steam engines and water wheels, machinery was put in a line to tap power off of a common shaft. When electric motors came along, it took years before machines were arranged in more functional configurations. In the same way, we are trying to use electric cars like ICE cars, but it would make a lot more sense to use them as smaller, NEV (neighborhood electric vehicles) and use mass transit options between urban centers. In every area there are existing simple solutions that are not adopted due to inertia. As a species, we tend to stay in our comfort zone until there is a crisis.
Yet again, you have done an excellent job of succinctly wringing out the details on our climate dilemma. Thank you. I lament that humans have demonstrated so clearly that acquiring personal wealth today is more important than quickly moving to establish sustainable and sensible energy systems for our great grandchildren tomorrow. That those great grandchildren will look back on all of us with distain for the hell-on-earth we have left them, is sadly understandable; and shamefully tragic. Pray for a miracle.
So well explained and with such manner and appropriate tone of voice. Always a pleasure to watch your channel, keep up the good work! Thank you!
You hit the nail on the head exactly! I have been researching this topic from the biomass to syngas through gasification for about 20 years. It dawned on me at the time that instead of putting a wood gasifier in a truck bed, have a stationary gasifier and make methanol to put in the tank. The woodgas people I guess couldn't grasp the concept that if you can produce methane, you can produce methanol. It is a holy grail I have been passionately pursuing.
I have studied about Mobil Oils MTG (methanol to gas) using the zsm-5 catalyst they accidently discovered.
I have read about the oil companies pumping hydrogen into the underground CO2 storage caverns. Over time it produces methane (natural gas) and water, to be later pumped out and turned into gasoline and other hydrocarbons.
SO, in conclusion. It smells like a big con job. Tax credits and great PR for investing in carbon capture, maybe some federal taxpayer money to boot.
Meantime they squeeze every last penny out of petroleum until they are regulated out of that business. Wow, neverending big corporate (centralized) money machine.
THAT'S why I search for the holy grail (catalyst) to decentralize the stranglehold.
Methanol generation may potentially reduce the need for burning new fossil fuels but it does not remove carbon for the air for very long - only as long as you keep it in your tank. And oil/gas companies will continue to drill and sell new fossil fuels for as long it is profitable. Methanol might actually delay the switch to electric or hydrogen which we will ultimately need to kick the fossil fuel habit.
I'm sure big business wouldn't profit from taxpayers money during a pandemic (pfizer) or a war in Ukraine (weapon manufacturers) or an energy crisis (oil corps) either.
It already exists. Use atmospheric varbon to make methanol, powered by carbon-free nuclear power.
The most hopeful approaches imho are Climate Restoration, using simple technologies such as:
1) Sprinkling tiny amounts of iron particles on iron-deficient areas of the ocean to stimulate plankton growth which in turn creates food for marine life while absorbing carbon;
2) Using beaucoup mirrors to reflect sunlight away from the ocean as being proposed by MEER. The immediate need is to reduce temperatures, especially ocean temperatures, to avoid a crescendo of extinctions of marine life, as well as terrestrial life.
At the same time it is essential to rein in the astonishingly high and steady rate of decline in insect life and the similar rate of decline of bird populations.
The emphasis tends to be on co2, but methane is 2 orders of magnitude more potent as a greenhouse gas. Tap the dumps!
Methane accounts for 20% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. CO2 accounts for 76%.
@@redensign9975is that by volume or effect?
@@LMsModels effect and volume, CO2 is leading. You can check any tracker and they will tell you that Methane is tracked by parts per billions, while CO2 is by parts per million, meaning the metric of the two is already leagues apart.
If I remember correctly, methane is around 2000ppb last I checked. Or 2ppm.
CO2 is 420 ppm. Even by the highest estimate of greenhouse gas effect for methane, which is like 80x stronger than CO2, it is still only 160ppm worth of CO2 gas.
There are more nuance to be had about how fast each increases and how fast methane can be removed from the atmosphere, but going by pure volume or effect CO2>CH4
@@LMsModels Trace gases in the atmosphere, not including H2O, accounts for approximately 0.04 percent buy volume, including the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. CO2 is 76% of just the greenhouse gases by volume. Methane is 20%. Methane traps 25x more heat then CO2 but methane stays in the atmosphere for 12 years, CO2 has an atmospheric lifespan of 1,000 years.
@@redensign9975 And CO2 is removed in the atmosphere largely by the ocean… which is currently saturating quickly with carbonic acid. So how does that impact the ability of the ocean to absorb more CO2? Hmm. Probably not a relevant question in practice, though.
Possibly one of the most useful and informative videos on UA-cam. And possible one of the most depressing.
It isn't just school children that fear for the future.
So sad, that so many people, so much of the time, don't think about the climate crisis....
Or don't even believe it exists in the first place.
People are actively trying to discredit the entire notion. 99% of my colleagues at work hide behind "net zero is a big scam to get more money out of us" that's the limit of their investigation.
@@debbiehenri345 Unfortunately when the media constantly gives voice to the most extreme doomsdayers that set dates the world will end that come and go, when the greta Thunbergs of this world deal with these situations by deleting tweets of such dates when they realise they haven't come true, it becomes a lot easier to realise why people start to disbelieve the narrative. The people screaming the loudest are the worst people for supplying the message as they create an us vs them narrative which is always going to result in the them pulling further away as that's how Humans react. There seems to be this massive push to make the west carbon neutral with little concern for the developing nations that will completely offset anything the west does as they continue to grow. I've seen charts presented to show rises in this that and the other from certain dates to show evidence of climate change, only to then see an argument against where the whole chart is shown of the decades before, showing particular dates were cherry picked to create a narrative. Once people lie like that, it doesn't matter if the message is true, people will just see the lie and their minds are made up. It's hard to blame people for not believing when the evidence is repeatedly so poorly presented or misrepresented by people like Greta Thunberg who are the most damaging people for getting the skeptics to believe.
Because smooth talking politicians and fossil fuel industry lie to them for their own short turn gains.
The opposite is also true, that many people, too much of their time, think about the climate crisis. Children should be able to see a decent future for themselves and not a climate catastrophe that they won’t be able to do anything about until it’s too late, when they grow up.
Excellent video. Thanks Dave! Calling it like it is.
So a transition to plant based diets (70% of agricultural land is used to feed animals that people eat) would vastly increase land that could be reverted to wilderness and thus capture carbon.
Capitalism seems to be having a very difficult time delivering the kind of change we need. What about enacting political measures that prioritize nature’s and humanity’s survival rather than making some people rich?
The issue with real change is that the problem of "how to get people to agree on obviously true things" may well be harder to solve than climate change, cancer, hunger, and Riemann Hypothesis all combined.
just last week in the netherlands a right-wing party that started as a farmers' protest movement and campaigned on opposing government policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions won really big in the national elections :(
@@pizdamatii5001 I saw that. Very disheartening…
Capitalism has caused much of this but knowing what truly impressive disasters communism and fascism has caused would a totalitarian regime really bring the change we need. Giving political power in a crisis like this is when both of these extremes flourish. You may find that the new powers given to an entity then completely ignores the crisis at hand.
> What about enacting political measures
Who is going to enact them? The politicians are mostly owned by large companies, including fossil fuel companies. Eventually average people will see enough damage to start putting serious pressure on politicians, but that eventuality is well beyond the breaking point. It will be too little too late.
What we need to work on convincing the people first so that they will understand the need for political pressure before its too late. We are not yet in a position where we can rely on politicians to take the initiative themselves.
As ever a thoroughly researched piece of information. Very much appreciated. We have to unleash consumer power. Stop buying, stop flying
Absolutely true. I'm going to be temporarily adding carbon to my house too
I've already got solar panels, and want some more, assuming I get planning permission. I'm going to replace my electric shower with a mixer shower. That will use gas
The rationale is that ultimately, I'll be using electricity from my solar panels and a heat pump.
I could also heat the water "on site" essentially without gas. My aim is to insulate the house as best as possible, making sure that the house is air tight yet ventilated etc.. Essentially following PassivHaus principles
Then and only then will I have a heat pump, and move over my cooker to an induction one. In the interim, even though I've temporarily added gas back into the house, I am actually reducing my usage of gas by insulating a lot, going beyond what the government deems to be sufficient.
A set back environmentally for now, but long term it should be better.
If you tell the people how calamitously they're screwing everything up, they will either scorn you or crucify you. I've been trying to educate people about the horrorof human overshoot, they replied with everything up to crucifixion. I've given up on everything but acceptance.
Dave - please cover Precision Fermentation and the implications. This is how I see it. “Precision Fermentation” can be thought of as a clever way to get more efficient than photosynthesis. It uses solar panels to split water for hydrogen, which is what photosynthesis does to combine that hydrogen with carbon from the air and nutrients from the soil to make our food. But plants only get 6% of the sunlight. The crop must grow and maintain itself, and we only eat part of that crop. Sometimes we eat less than 1% of that incoming sunlight, and it’s often mostly carbohydrates when what we really want is more protein.
But now scientists use solar panels to get 20% of the sunlight, and split water at about 80% efficiency for hydrogen so now we’re at 16% of that sunlight. Then they feed that hydrogen directly to hydrogen-eating bacteria, and with a little water and a few mineral fertilisers, it can produce all the proteins and fats we want. It’s such an efficient and direct means of brewing up food that the implications are completely revolutionary!
“Brave Robot” are already selling Precision Fermentation ice cream, and there are PF cream cheeses and Palm Oils! It’s food from tiny factories - not farms. It’s reliable, mostly immune from the droughts and floods and plagues and pandemics of nature. Soon we’ll have white protein for chicken nuggets, darker proteins for burgers, and even strips of stuff like bacon. It will destroy the modern cattle and livestock industries and even some crops like palm oil and vegetable oils. This will return so much land to nature that we can let 3 TRILLION TREES regrow, solving climate change! Watch George Monbiot’s 6 minute summary. ua-cam.com/video/6eaTIe_TBZA/v-deo.html
Read his article - and google it. It’s amazing!
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/24/green-technology-precision-fermentation-farming
More on 3 TRILLION TREES. We have lost a third of our forests to both crops and grazing - 2 billion hectares. It took 9,000 years to lose the first billion hectares - an area the size of the United States. Then in the last 100 years we cut down the next billion hectares! 2 Billion hectares of forest are gone - a third of the world's forests - largely to grow crops and graze cattle.
If we eat Precision Fermentation 'meats' instead of animals or fish, we can let those forests regrow and the oceans recover. We only eat just over half the crops we grow - we feed a third to animals and more to industry for jokes like ethanol. When we stop eating meat, we can stop growing a third of our crops - and let that return to forest or grasslands. When we stop the farce that is ethanol crops and use EV's instead - we can return the industrial croplands to forest or grassland.
Regrowing the third of our forests lost to agriculture will solve climate change. The maths is simple. At an average of 1,600 trees per hectare multiplied by the 2 billion hectares of forest to be regrown that's 3.2 TRILLION trees. We know just 1 TRILLION trees would sequester a third of our historical carbon emissions. Therefore 3.2 TRILLION trees would sequester it all! Precision Fermentation could solve climate change! (We haven't even calculated how much carbon will be trapped as the ocean ecosystems recover as we stop overfishing, nor have we calculated what happens if we let grasslands recover to natural levels of soil carbon.)
And it's in a factory, protected from the whims of nature like droughts and floods and locust plagues and diseases and even pandemics from wet-markets in China. It prevents animal cruelty. It regrows various forest ecosystems, providing a home for precious bugs and birds and animals and critters, solving the biodiversity crisis. It ensures we have ample timber for building the CLT wooden ecocities of the future. Surely PF is the most hopeful technology since the energy transition?
**STATISTICS:**
**FOREST LOSS:** "Two billion hectares of forest - an area twice the size of the United States - has been cleared to grow crops, raise livestock, and use for fuelwood."
ourworldindata.org/deforestation#the-world-has-lost-one-third-of-its-forests-but-an-end-of-deforestation-is-possible
**AVERAGE TREES** of 1,600 trees per hectare
nhsforest.org/how-many-trees-can-be-planted-hectare/
**1 TRILLION trees** = 1/3 historical emissions
www.plant-for-the-planet.org/trillion-trees/
**CROP USE:** "Just 55 percent of the world's crop calories are actually eaten directly by people. Another 36 percent is used for animal feed. And the remaining 9 percent goes toward biofuels and other industrial uses."
www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed
American maths show the USA could be carbon-neutral.
www.rethinkx.com/food-and-agriculture-executive-summary
Tony Seba thinks that PF is going to be huge, and he has a pretty good track record.
We all need to start adopting UNEP's current stategy to focus on the triple planetary crisis of climate, biodiversity, and pollution/waste. And climate is not an umbrella but sibling, overlapping crisis. Some of these carbon dioxide removal approaches like BECCS, afforestation, soil carbon capture will damage already strained biodiversity and ecosystems and byproducts in a non-circular economy will exacerbate pollution.
Simply, we need more nature-based solutions (NbS), consumption pattern and production process change, and not geoengineered or tech solutions. NbS may not be sexy or fast but in long run rebalances the Earth System. We need to restore degraded ecosystems in the current UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration not more land use changes that have fragmented and destroyed natural habitats. Biodiversity also has its tipping points, positive feedbacks, and accelerating extinction rate trajectory. Let's not be razor focused on climate but on totality of our nature crises! Let's bring back Just Have Another Think and get Dave to wear and think more green!
:-)
Many thanks for your continuous effort to keep us informed 👋🏽👋🏽👋🏽
No problem 👍
I have just gotten involved with a carbon capture technology company that turn CO2 + H2 to feed a certain bacteria to produce proteins for human food and animal feed. I will share the progress with you as l learn more. I think it's one of most interesting way to turn CO2 into a useful product. Instead of a purely expenditure to capture and store it, it can pay for itself and turn into proteins (useful products) in doing so.
You need nitrogen for protein. Where is that coming from? The air or ammonia?
@@sallyredfern8129 Bacterial digestion.
Mechanical Carbon Removal on a LARGE GLOBAL scale is just impossible. It would require more energy to run than what we produce. Plus the ridiculously massive amount of raw material needed to built such infrastructures. Not enough sand not enough copper etc etc. Just impossible.
This is why carbon capture is literally the only "solution" to the climate crisis promoted by the fossil fuel industry. All that carbon capture would require lots of energy, powered by - you guessed it - the burning of even more fossil fuels. Thus, whether carbon capture does or doesn't do anything for the planet in the real world, it, for sure, allows the fossil fuel industry to sell more of its products and earn more profit for their shareholders, so them being in favor of it is hardly a surprise.
Agreed, that is why coaxing trillions of ocean phytoplankton to live longer and thereby significantly improve the massive job they already do sequestering atmospheric carbon, is, with substantial testing and development, a possible, engineeringly feasible solution. You read it here first.
Excellent presentation on the subject of carbon capture. Straightened out a lot of my questions
Okay, you’ve got me convinced. The earth is going to hell in a handbasket, and we need to change our ways. I’m doing all I personally can: bought an electric car, installed solar panels, dumped my gas furnace for a heat pump, bought more efficient appliances, sealed up my home, etc., etc., etc.
However, even before all of that, my personal carbon footprint was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Even if I were to go completely carbon free, it wouldn’t make any difference at all. How can I do more?
I think that it comes down to the fact that, as an “average” person, I have very little influence and affluence. However, there are thousands of billionaires on the planet, each with orders of magnitude more influence and affluence than I have, and presumably a much bigger carbon footprint too. Convincing even one of them to go carbon neutral would be a big deal, the equivalent of convincing thousands of “average” people to do so. What if, for instance, Jezz Bezos went carbon neutral? Covering the roof of every Amazon warehouse with solar panels would help too. Doing so would even make him money in the long run. Maybe to make up for past behavior he could also buy a few square miles of damaged Amazon rain forest, protecting it and allowing it to recover and become a carbon sink again. It would make a very small dent in his personal fortune, probably less than he loses on a bad day on the stock market.
However, you don’t need to be a billionaire to make a difference. Going carbon neutral isn’t that expensive anymore. How about getting the influential “one percent” involved? What if, for instance, Barack Obama, Taylor Swift, Drake, Graham Norton, Jimmy Fallon, Tom Brady, the Kardashians, etc., etc., etc. went carbon neutral, and told all of their millions of Twitter followers about it? How many millions of them are there, each with lots of money, lots of influence and an out-sized carbon footprint? Even getting a small fraction of them on board would be a tremendous boost to the carbon-free industry.
So, how do I do it? How does the average person like me convince billionaires, multi-millionaires, politicians, etc., etc., that something needs to be done NOW, and THEY need to start doing their part?
I think it is possible to have a ramp up to five orders of magnitude, but I don't think that would be possible without a huge governmental role. Like the New Deal in the USA or massive infrastructure projects in the USSR. If the government sets a goal and then directs resources toward reaching that goal, I do think it is possible. The issue is, as with most of this, whether there is the political will to do it.
Great video, even though it paints an unpleasant picture, but one that we need more people to face up to. The problem is always that people won't change until their life is severely impacted (when it will be too late). Thank you for your excellent research and for keeping me better educated on so many topics :) I agree completely that CDR is essential, but I can't see it happening...
You would have thought WW2 severley impacted people to have no more wars ...oh ...
didn't the plannedemic scam paint a unpleasant picture already? this new info just confirms it even more..
We do need better education. And critical thinking. Water vapor is the #1 Greenhouse gas. It does 3/4s of the heating according to GHG theory.
If you can believe the theory.
If the theory is correct water vapor alone will destroy the planet. There is on average 50 times as much water vapor in the atmosphere as CO2.
America could start today, at almost zero cost, by changing farm policy from chemical to natural, and cancelling corn ethanol into fuel. At 1 ton of CO2 capture per acre with hemp cultivation and cover crops replacing most corn & soy, globally, that could easily become a billion tons per year absorbed from a billion acres of farmland. Hemp produces much more protein per acre, and the ethanol corn wasn't eaten. The byproducts of hemp oil & heart production is seed cakes, which is better feed for cattle than corn is. Farmers could make more money, building up soil. That's the research we need from our ag universities. Instead, they're owned by Monsanto & Bayer, who want more (fossil fuel based) fertilizer & more (oil based) chemicals.
Net zero carbon isn’t going to happen in China or India. Unless you overthrow Chairman Xi and the governments of the poor, you are wasting time with this green propaganda.
Great video. You bummed me out in the nicest possible way. Thanks!?
As always excellent content !
Love the just have a think series, would be good to have one on one with the good climate sceptics on UA-cam that make great arguments that nobody is disputing……
Brilliant summary and well presented as normal. One of the things I wish my (Australian) gov't would do would be to sponsor some carbon capture and reduction plants for our Pacific island neighbours, e.g. wind-turbine powered enclosed duckweed plants (wind power to run LED night lights, rollers and dehydration etc.) so the duckweed can be used as organic matter for soil productivity, bio-gas, biofuel and perhaps pyrolysis to carbon stock for export; and some 24x7 enclosed giant bamboo farms to act as wood substitute for local construction and export. Both of which can also be feed the exhaust of their electric generators etc. as a carbon source to help accelerate the duckweed and bamboo growth.
The Australian government doesn’t perceive climate change a war so will never spend “Real” money to combat it. But say China is a threat (which it ain’t) and they open the purse for 100s of billion dollars. Go figure!
Creating ecosystems to produce economic output is entirely a great idea. - Any carbon based waste streams can be flash converted to graphene for the circular graphene economy of the future (reinforced materials for all and every purpose.. Way to go.
Senseless wastes of money to appease the climate gods, on the other hand - may be feel good but totally "senseless" and ineffective.
(I don't wish to live in a; polluted, toxic, trashed dystopia at all.)
plants wont grow at all without carbon dioxide and when they stop growing they die and take away our only source for oxygen '' you have been living upside down for way too long and all the blood has ran to your head causing your insanity move some where on the north side of the planet where you can get back on feet and think things over
I’m so glad you changed your screen composition a couple of months ago. The triptych symmetry made you look like a talking Greek Orthodox Icon, which I found difficult not to worship. 😊
Thank you for publishing this.
No worries:-)
Iron fertilization of the oceans is the only realistic way to go and has a lot of upsides (reversible, more fish etc..) but eco-cultists judged it as bad because of "reasons"
Realistic yes. However there are significant downsides, just ask the residents of Florida when the Red Tide hits later this year.
@JZ's BFF Well you tell me. Iron doesn t stay in solution for long (hence most of the oceans are deserts) so so in the worst case it doesnt work then we stop it and everything back to normal in less than a year.
(Next time work the subject before commenting)
@@johndanzer8181 This is actually quite different, the algal bloom is due to excess nitrates in areas already favorable for algae growth near coastal lines. Most of the oceans are relatively desertic due to iron deficiency (iron doesn t stay in solution for long), test have shown that it creates fast phytoplankton growth by up to a limit because nitrates become the limiting factor.
This method can sequester carbon in the form of organic matter more than 10 000 times the iron addition by mass.
@JZ's BFF No we are there because of morons like you who wanted the latest hummer because it was so cool.
If you want to help , do not try to think about it because you do not have the required hardware.
Brilliantly presented, as usual Dave!! Well done, please keep going !!!!
I Really Enjoyed Today's Video And I Definitely Learned Something About This Video
Always wondered why ocean fertilisation didn’t catch on. By all accounts the test off Canadas west coast was a success. A nice side effect was an increase in fish population.
I’ve often wondered whether, by the very fact that most plastics take many years to degrade and contain a lot of carbon, that waste plastics sealed as bales and buried, could be an effective method of carbon capture?
Plastic made from oil? How does that help anyone
The problem with plastics, even if composed from atmospheric carbon, still degrade. These micro/nano-plastics are getting into everything and it isnt looking good.
You are right. But of course it's better to leave it in the ground. Personally I think CO2 is plant food.
25 or so years ago, if we bet on nuclear and gas instead of wind and solar, we would be in a much more comfortable situation now. And we can still do it, we do have the time, and then we can wait for breakthrough techs.
Yes, the anti-nuclear-fission is has been so devoid of sense, and so human.
Thank you for this.
This year is the turning point, i believe that 90% of us all will be on the same page after 2023, even those who are able to forcefully explain it to the remaining 10%, with what ever power that will take.
Only problem, i have been saying for years now that it's to late to prevent the change, it's still our best chance to try and minimise the damage, but we will have all of the sea level rise, and there will be a lot of starvation, and a lot of lost property, especially in big coastal cities, but also entire countries, even in Europe.
I live in Denmark, wich is mostly gravel, and located in the estuary of the Baltic sea, higher sea level, and extreme storms will make it swift and painless, first we will not be able to insure our homes, then they will be unsellable, and then they will be gone.
Just have a Thank!
Dave, you are a gem. 🙂
Wow, thanks! :-)
He deals in clickbait, by exaggerating the effect of global warming.
Note he never talks about nuclear.
...apart from in the MULTIPLE videos I have made about nuclear power, that you can easily find on my channel page.
There is no functioning carbon capture facility today, every single one is actually burning more carbon than they store. Not saying it will never possible to store carbon big scale but it makes no economic sense
I like the way you present these issues. Calm, thoughtful, no hype. That said, I am more convinced than ever, that we continue to fail to really see the larger picture regarding this earth's climate and live-ability. Until we do so, we are really going down the wrong track.....obsessing over too much heat, and too much CO2....both essential for our survival, is silly. We are likely heading into a major ice age in less than a 1000 years and are now slowly sliding there now. Let's have a real think...we will really need more heat and more CO2.
Thank You for the information.
It would be good for you to review some of the other scientists who have look at CO2 in a very different way. They see it as a benefit to our planet, not a pollutant we have to get rid of and that’s causing climate change.
Thanks for your videos.
No _serious_ scientist has believed that for 30 or more years. I don't know if you're a shill or just fooled by shills, but that is straight up nonsense. I'm sure there's still the odd less-than-serious scientist paid by the fossil fuel industry to tell you that -smoking is healt- CO2 is fine though.
Well yeah it is good for the planet but not too little or too much of it :)
There was a paper recently on the effect of the ash from the Australian black summer on the carbon capture capacity of the ocean where it fell. Apparently it was a great demonstration of ocean fertilisation for carbon capture. Can you look into it please?
You’re such a legend cheers great episode
Well done!
Thank you, Dave!
I would be thinking 'Big Nature' will be doing her best to 'carbon capture' with growth of plantlife like the new seaweed that is just about to hit the Florida coast (it is getting a lot of press). Also 'sea snot' around the Turkish holiday resorts are an indication of where things are heading right across the globe. The downside being the current animal order will have to change, and there are greenhouse gases involved.
Alaska is getting marshier with beavers taking up residence. Iceland will green up.
I think we don't have to control the uptake of carbon, it will happen as a natural order, but the problems will come with weather or not humans and current life will be able to stay healthy and functioning as societies.
There is almost no indication in my small farming district that anyone other than me is interested in putting in the proven sustainable and regenerative land management techniques that could help direct the carbon uptake in a win win direction...even though our government zoning laws etc support and promote that positive direction.
I see general population as one of the biggest hurdles, not just useless government.
My (mostly really lovely people, I really like) rural neighbourhood are actively damaging the air, land, soil and water right now, even though it is designated to be conservation. The governing bodies have sweet people working for them, but are non functional in the face of current society.
Keep doing the regen thing and I will too. Soon we’ll be the cool kids!
If nature could keep up to our carbon emissions, then atmospheric carbon levels would not be rising. So we cannot actually count on nature reversing our damage - at least not before nature finda a way to take us out first so we stop emitting.
As usual a mixed approach is likely best. Reduced consumption, better farming, improved process, electrification of transportation, green generation, more recycling, and stop harming nature so natural processes can actually help.
@@5353Jumper i don't think my comment disagreed with your response to it, although my experience in a small farming district has been that there is not only not the response required, but in general, an active move away from it. Most of the planet is too far along in land degradation to have a measured response.
In terms of my comment about Natures use of carbon capture, it was more in a broader sense eg. The added heat in atmosphere will generate life in a form suited to the new conditions. I am not saying they are suited to us, and no doubt we will have more moulds, bacteria or unusual illnesses that will cause new problems.
I have seen this on our farmland. After 3 very wet years, the makeup of the pastures is quite different to the 2 drought years prior, but there is always something wanting to live, weather it just be the crickets that are hanging out in the cracked clay ground, now that we have dried out again. They are carbon based matter, as are our pastures, cows and even us.
I have no hope that we will turn our self destructive situation around, but I do believe the only hope we have will be a curve ball miracle that will come solely from 'Big Nature' if we can stand back far enough (and not poison everything meantime) to let it occur.
@@em945
we are carbon based matter
which is why removing CO₂ from the atmosphere will reduce the amount of life that can exist on the planet
Too TRUE!
Well, this is a sad and unexpected bit of news. No easy technological fixes here.
It's scary to think we are dependent on the fossil industry to ramp up Carbon Removal technology.
There's no avoiding the fact that we need a tremendous amount of political will. Honestly, we have a pretty good idea of what it'll take to solve the problem, but just need to cobble together the will.
"unexpected" you must be young
@@kevinrusch3627 The "will" that exists right now is the will to subjugate ordinary citizens under a system of authoritarian control using Central Bank Digital Currency and Digital IDs. We're well on the way. The New York Fed is running a test. Once this is implemented, it's game over for freedom and democracy.
This will return so much land to nature that we can let 3 TRILLION TREES regrow, solving climate change! Watch George Monbiot’s 6 minute summary. ua-cam.com/video/6eaTIe_TBZA/v-deo.html
@@DSAK55or not. We have for the last 10 years, at least, talked a lot about climate change in the schools. Basically it seams only the children knows how bad it is, and worry about the future.
It’s always going to take more energy to put a puzzle together than to take it apart.
carbon sequester in wood is only a temporary storage... like the bogs in the arctic, they will eventually release whether in through rot, burning and such.
Methanol from the atmosphere, powered by carbon-free nuclear.
Thanks for another great episode Dave, the solutions by big corporations on this topic has been called out as BS for a long time. We all need to get our heads out of our armpits and vote for politicians who are actually committed to saving our planet.
The problem with that is identifying which politicians, business leader, and others are really serious, and which are selling us a line to get themselves elected, more money, or other goals.
This is something that's REALLY hard to gauge.
We simply have no clue what these people really think.
I've watched many politicians and business people sell snake oil over the last 40 years.
Frankly I don't have much faith in our leaders.
I believe our only real hope is ourselves.
We can do whatever we can to reduce our personal use of fossil fuels.
We can't control others, but we can control ourselves.
So I do what I can and encourage others to do so too.
I do know that if a significant number of 8 billion people all did just a little bit, that would amount to a huge reduction.
You're a little delusional on how current politics work. No surprise here though, all mainstream media and educations systems actually promote that delusional concept. Voting is not much more then a circus for us average citizens (voters). Distraction and an illusion of participation.
Forget it. The politicians are owned.
I love these regular ramblings! Keep up the good work! 😊
Thank you! Will do!
@@JustHaveaThink I've just watched "Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet" with Sir David Attenborough. He and the main scientist in the film were of course sounding the alarm about the climate tipping points we are crossing over and the urgent need to reverse course. Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that the film came out almost 2 years ago and we are much worse off now than we were back then. Argh! Are we truly doomed??? 😞
You mention how carbon removal by natural means (reforestation mostly) uses a lot of land. I have heard that restoration of wetlands was much more effective than reforestation, allowing for the same amount of carbon removal with a fraction of the land use. Peat-forming wetlands seem to be surprisingly effective at carbon removal because dead plant material does not decay in the same way as a dead tree in a forest would. Instead, the dead plants sink, get cut off from oxygen, and create layers of peat.
We have drained a lot of wetlands, but the process is easily reversed. Also, there is the added benefit of the wetlands as buffers for flood water and refuge for a variety of rare species.
Here's a simple way to see if CDR will work: give oil & gas companies the freedom to continue to operate as long as they remove a ton of CO2 for every ton of CO2(e) which their production processes and products end up releasing into the atmosphere. Easy-peasy.
(I know I'm in fantasy land where companies actually clean up after themselves but sometimes you need to visit if only for a little while. Thanks Dave for another great video.)
Cheers Tom.
Your video on Carbotura was amazing and seems very scalable. I would like to build Agrivoltaics Microgrids paired with those hemp biomass biochar bioremediation systems and possibly replace existing fossil fuel feedstocks with syngas from the gasifiers. Love all your videos and appreciate your dedication. We can do this! The Airminers Boot up free online course and Frontier Climate are excellent resources. The Agrivoltaics solar farm summit 2023 in Chicago was amazing. Really, we can do this.
I also believe the space industry will be hugely instrumental in catalyzing the decarbonization of the economy/ CDR. The methane rocket fuel must be made carbon neutral and we must start sending all carbon negative materials into space for offworld habitats and mining operations. Space based carbon removal will likely never exceed a tiny fraction of the total CDR needed but they can advance the industry immensely with the technology needed to fully draw down CO2 on earth. It is a terra forming conundrum we are in.
Nuclear
Yeah, it's a little worrying that the only reason DAC is developing is for assisting fossil fuels extraction. But I should remind everyone that fossil fuel companies were helpful in getting solar PV off the ground in the second half of the 20th century with installing panels on offshore drilling rigs, onshore storage tanks, and other equipment and wellheads for remote, microgrid support of critical functions.
We'll probably see a lot of maturation here with DAC in the next decade due to those companies. At face value I think this is a bad thing, but the global energy transition will take time. So, while fossil fuel companies will have to search harder and harder for oil and natural gas, trying to prolong the realization that they're sitting on soon-to-be stranded assets, we as a society will get a CDR platform/technology that could be incorporated in many other applications over time.
Five years..well done Dave.
As you said, pretty much everything we do emits GHG, so if you ask me, we need to rationalise our economy to cut back unnecessary consumption and scale down related industries, redesign products so that they last longer and can be effectively recycled, invest in public transport, redesign our cities and homes and shorten supply chains as much as possible.
I think you are finally getting it. We do not want to change at the risk of our current lifestyles.
Why should we? Cheap, clean, safe nuclear power. Make methanol from atmospheric CO2 to power cars.
Carbon-free and carbon-neutral.
DAC is like frantically entering cheat codes on the game over screen.
What drives me up the wall right now is massive tree plantings that aren't taking into account the environmental changes that the trees will have to deal with to survive. It's all fine and dandy to a diverse population of native trees (which they often don't even do) but it's pointless if none of them can actually survive the environment that the local area is heading towards.
What a happy picture you've painted Dave. Mankind really is ahead of the game. For example, not only do we know we are doomed, but we pretty much know when that will occur. Time to pray to some deity given we have failed in every endeavour so far.
Looks like it's time to start making sacrifices to the climate gods. I suggest starting with the fossil fuels executives, and follow with the anti-climate change politicians. 👍
The tipping point has already been reached, we must stop breeding humans quickly, otherwise this planet will no longer be populated by 2100.
@@acmefixer1 Well said.
Humanity will be fine. If Earth can't support 8 billion humans then there won't be 8 billion humans on earth. If rising temperatures make the equatorial regions too hot for mass habitation, then they will cease to be habitated. This is no more of an existential threat than the fact that the arctic regions have been previously unsuitable for habitation.
In 50 or 100 years, we'll have the technology to live a completely zero carbon lifestyle, and by then, we'll have moved on to the next existential crisis.
Stop worrying.
The answer is obvious. Nuclear. Clean, safe, carbon-free.
Coal power plants are still running.
Well, it depends on which country you are in. I just looked at the electricity generation breakdown for the UK today ... 0% coal ... and yesterday 0% coal ... Yes we can do without coal generation if we decide that's what is needed.
Sadly interesting. Thank you for your informative and nicely presented work. 🙏
Thanks Povl
Finally, soil storage is mentioned. If all agricultural land was managed organically, the CO2 would go back into the ground in the form of organic matter...residue of foliage and roots. Let's fund organic farmers instead of toxic agro business!!!
I agree, although, to be fair, Dave has already published three videos on regenerative agriculture.
Thank you
The collective epiphany you speak of is the only chance we have. Even with that, we'll probably mess up.
It would take the entire world agreeing to do everything physically possible, no matter the cost.
In desert states/cities should line the sides of there roads with native plants and cactus to reduce flooding heat wind and air noise and ground pollution co2 as well.
Ps cactus can grow straight up not just out but lining a road bolth sides for 1 mile can reduce 60 to 120 tons of co2 every year.
Oh ya give them 8 feet of soil plant in middle and don't fill in the sides let it be dirt along the whole block giving the cactus 4 feet of soil between them and the road and people walking past on the sidewalk.
Ps mulch around the cactus to help with health and reduce flooding yes flooding and increase groundwater levels too.
They should plant some trichocereus.
@@mr.giggles4995 those look cool i have a few in my yard I have a few cardon cactus to basically the biggest cactus in the world they can get up to 60 feet tall and have a few dozen arms that can weigh as much or more then a car each.
Oh ya they dont have spines on them either they loos em after the new growth gets older.
And there fruits are dam delicious.
Thank you for discussing the fossil fuel industry's involvement and money in the carbon dioxide recapture industry. Not only does their effort in rolling out "carbon neutral" fuels and lobby behind carbon dioxide capture credits underscore their conflict of interest in the field (just more ways to attempt the continuation of the burning of fossil fuels), these plans will never serve biodiversity, people and the earth.
In addition to the need to stop the exploitation of fossils for energy, the current inability to respond to a global crisis reveals the age old fundamental that power in any way should in no way ever be permitted to be concentrated and that decisions must come from the power of the many, and then implemented.
Well made video, if upsetting. Thank you. D
In Australia, the popular press keeps the lid on the information. Everyone pays lip service to the climate crisis but follows with the sentence, "But the reason I have to have a petrol/diesel vehicle is ...". Everyone must take responsibility and not rely on everyone else or governments controlled by the fossil fuel industry.
If the powers that be are serious about carbon removal, then they need to forget trees and start planting bamboo and sea grass which are far more effective at taking in carbon dioxide. As Fraser said in Dad's Army, "we're doomed . . . we're all doomed".
Nope! Nuclear!
@@scottslotterbeck3796
Have fun getting the public agree to it. Fusion tech is 20 years away, every year
Have you seen the book “Drawdown” it’s full of CDR suggestions? Well done on this episode.
Grow vast amounts of algae in floating rigs in an equatorial region in the Pacific ocean. Turn the algae into biochar, pelletize it and drop it into the deep ocean. Process will be self powered by gas produced by pyrolysis. Excess gas can be used to generate electricity and delivered to countries via undersea HVDC lines. Some biochar shipped to be used as soil amendment or as building material. All the expertise for this, and the infrastructure to build it, is already in existence within the fossil fuel industry.
I applaud yr efforts, it makes me want to go out and plant some trees considering Ive reduced my footprint drastically over the last few years.
What else can I do but wait for the movers and shakers to get on board.
There's a great book about that. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Blow_Up_a_Pipeline
Unfortunately, the "movers and shakers" are working to bring about a worldwide calamity that will very likely precede any widespread climate catastrophe. It's the complete control of financial transactions globally via CBDC and digital IDs. If that takes root we become slaves and they become masters in a global technocratic totalitarian system.
Sabotage fossil fuel infrastructure. Make it too costly to operate or insure.
Hi everyone, thanks for the great content Dave.
Just in case.. we need an international law to help us fight the fossil fuel industry, which clearly will not stop of it's own accord.
#stopecocide stop ecocide foundation.
Please lend your support.
Don't be so naïve. Hypocrites like yourself would be among the first to start whining about your quality of life without fossil fuels.
PBS just rebroadcast a show called "Serengeti Rules". It is how Keystone Species are critical to nature and how their reintroduction can cause natural areas to recover. This causes the same size area to become reforested and more biodiverse. Of course this captures more natural carbon. Trees, insects, microbial life along with birds and small animals all return. Seems that adding back wolves and wildebeests is a viable and cheaper option
Definitely part of the solution
@@JustHaveaThink Luckily here in Arkansas ,of all places, some farmers are also changing to no till. More hummus and biomass (critters) in the soil makes for better growth and less manufacturing of fertilizer.
Over at Undecided With Matt Ferrell - discussion about aquaponics - ua-cam.com/video/59kk4OjJCj4/v-deo.html
Thanks Dave. I'm glad I don't have children in all this mess.
Mechanical carbon removal only does one thing - remove carbon from the air and make the owners of such technologies very rich... okay that's two things.
Nature-based solutions, on the other hand, provide multiple benefits to communities & ordinary folk. BTW, the best carbon stores are found in the ocean, mangrove & kelp forests and peatlands, as well as tropical forests. Restoring such ecosystems also provides the following benefits
- mangroves & kelp forests protect the land from the action of the sea, especially during storms
- mangroves & kelp forests also provide nurseries for juvenile fish & other species
- forests stabilize local climates and manage water (as part of the water cycle)
- enhance biodiversity by providing habitat & resources for other plants & animals
- provide food resources for local communities
- provide fiber & materials for construction, clothing, medicines and other sustainable economic activities
- provide amenity & utility for tourism & wellness (people do better mentally & physically in nature)
Trees in urban areas (the right kind of trees) provide shade (keeping cities cool during hot summers), calms traffic, helps clean the air, manages water and enhances wellness (especially for children) and property values.
It's no surprise that governments prefer the former (concentrating wealth to the well connected few) rather than the latter. What could possibly go wrong?
If it only does the first thing, why do we care if someone gets rich from it?
@@mikelong9638 Because the second thing provides more for more people - prosperity is shared not concentrated.
Is it just my cynical nature or are simply going to end life as we know it in the next 100 years or so. I'm so glad I'll only live another 20 years or so and won't have any grandkids.
Actually, people are living longer and healthier than ever. And the trend numbers show continuous improvements.
I'm optimistic that civilization as we know it will end soon. It's been pretty bad all around.
@@TheGeeoff The improvements are mostly coming for people in poorer countries. Developed countries are seeing a slowing down of increases to life expectancy. None of the stats so far can account for the coming impact of climate change...
I very much enjoy your youtube discussions, you do a great job of presenting.....
On the subject of carbon removal, I came across some information quite by accident that answers a few things.....is seems the bean counters have been watching the oil gauge and reckon at present rates of consumption the last drop of oil will have been used up in 46 years time... Of course that does not mean business as usual for 45 years then the fuel stops flowing......no it means oil will get much more expensive to extract forcing change.... things like farming are heavily dependant on oil inputs with small profit margins, so farming will decline.... climate change is demanding we deal with greater weather extremes which generally need more oil inputs, and the opposite is going to occur....at $25 per gallon fuel sales will drop, and supply chains will close down... imagine having to drive 50 miles to buy fuel at $25 per gallon....
I think fossil fuel climate change solves itself by running out because we squandered it doing frivolous things...pretty soon you need to pay the price of being wasteful of what was once a great resource!
I watched Randall Carlson's 94th episode this morning. Eye-opening to say the least.
By the way, congratulations on being a sufficient irritation to the liars to get the coveted 'Context' badge!
Gotta keep the sheep on the narrative.
Most videos mentioning climate change get that
@@DJ1573 You are ruining my victory dance.
@@sean_vikoren To be fair, ruining victory dances was kinda the point of the video
This was a very nice way of saying we are toast. Now IF we can harness fusion or we get help from aliens or another larger pandemic comes around - we have a chance. So live each day to the fullest and be kind ☮
"Now IF we can harness fusion or we get help from aliens or another larger pandemic comes around - we have a chance." Yes, there is one other way. We do what we can, out kids do more, our grand kids even more, in 100 years from now most southercountries have been depopulated and the rest - about 2 billion people huddle together in the north and south where it is still liveable.
I gues our great grand kids will tell us more what worked and whatnot.
The "IF" is too big. Period.
We still let idiots run the entire planet (Putin, Trump, Scholz, Macron, Trudeau, Xi, Ill...), so don´t bother the details, it a waste of energy and air to breathe...literally.
We might need all three...
Fusion would not stop biodiversity loss, we are toast. End of story
@@dalewolver8739 Fusion would help our demise. Then i could live long enough to witness our end.
Great video
It has always been the case, that reaching net zero by the use of renewable energy was only ever going to be half the job, it should have always been clear that we would have to
spend the next 50 years removing all the excess carbon dioxide, we had already put into the atmosphere, the big 3 questions are how is this to be achieved? How energy efficient is the
procedure? And most importantly how will it be paid for?
But first, there is one theory that was very popular 20 years ago, but now seem to have been completely forgotten, even banned, the theory suggested using Iron in a fine powder
form to be sprinkled over the northern oceans, which would invigorate the bottom of the food chain phytoplankton, which in turn would use sun light and Carbon Dioxide in a photosynthesis process to rapidly multiple, and whether they were consumed by higher organisms or decay they would take their converted Carbon Dioxide to the ocean floor, it seemed to be a plausible idea to me, and the oceans are certainly big enough to play their part, so what happened? was there a fatal flaw in the scheme?
The first of my 3 questions how are we to remove Carbon Dioxide out of the atmosphere? Well letting nature take the lead would be a start, it has been doing this much longer than we have, replanting forests and letting green things grow, but as you have already stated there is a limit on land for such projects, because as a species we need that land for housing and food production, there are other options like growing algae on land then burying it underground, just how efficient or cost effective that would be is uncertain.
Then there is the mechanical method, which I believe uses a lot of energy, so there is no point in using a fossil fuel power station to generate the electricity to run such a plant, so we would have to use renewable energy to operate such a plant, but as it stands we are a long way off from having surplus renewable energy for such an enterprise, you can currently criticize what they do with the captured Carbon Dioxide, but I am certain it will eventually be stored in deep abandoned coal mines or similar, and you worry about whether such plants could rapidly be increased, if there is money to be made from it, investment money will not be a problem.
then there is the cost, for now companies are willing to buy Carbon credits, but what happens if by some miracle we actually reach the goal of net zero, somewhere close to 2050and even shipping and jets run on some green fuel, nobody will be buying Carbon credits, and we will be back to the arguments over who should pay and who is responsible for historic Carbon Dioxide emissions.
In my opinion your idea to engage phytoplankton is spot on. The Germans experimented with iron sulfate ocean seeding around the antarctic several years ago with modest success. If I am remembering correctly the main disappointment being the phytoplankton benefiting most from iron seeding had the lowest body weight and therefore after expiring lingered too long in upper water levels which caused their lightweight bodies to dissolve releasing the carbon into the water then back into the atmosphere before reaching lower depths where it could remain fixed and sequestered. There was also some iron seeding experiments in the Pacific NW in Canadian waters designed to improve fish habitat for native fishing communities.
We will use carbon fuels until it is worth it until it is profitable and it does not matter what damage it brings. What I would love to see is an analysis of when it will be unprofitable to extract and sell carbon fuels and what damage we will be in at that moment. I feel that it would be a correct prediction of the future.
Once polluters have to pay for removal, like we are doing for garbage and wastewater, it will no longer be profitable to use fossile fuel.
The answer is to make fossil fuels unprofitable. And there are ways to do that beyond just not buying fossil fuels.
This will return so much land to nature that we can let 3 TRILLION TREES regrow, solving climate change! Watch George Monbiot’s 6 minute summary. ua-cam.com/video/6eaTIe_TBZA/v-deo.html
Also, now that solar and wind with off-river pumped hydro grid storage are CHEAPER than fossil fuels, they are growing exponentially. Solar is doubling every 4 years. Doubling curves seem slow for a long time, then suddenly everything happens at the end. Fossil fuel and oil companies are going to be SHOCKED at how fast renewables grow in this next 10 years. EV's will be coming along behind them - not as fast but still fast enough to make us optimistic.
@@eclipsenow5431 EVs will come pretty fast. CleanTechnica has an article today about all the new lithium discoveries. We are not going to run out of metals.
Just makes be want to have a open source system or DAC to solid CO2. Can at least get more people building then.
The thing is, DAC is worse than restoring native land use and using Biochar. Plus, we aren't just fighting global warming, but also global mass extinction.
The thing about carbon removal that requires electricity, it only makes sense when it is on a grid where no carbon is added to the atmosphere.
And even if it is, then it only makes sense, if there is nothing that can be moved from a carbon burning grid to this carbon free grid.
And in the cases where carbon capture is being used, the carbon is usually used in industrial processes or farming meaning that the carbon goes straight back into the atmosphere.
All in all, currently a good old forest is the best way to sequester carbon, whereas mechanical carbon capture may be cool, but there is no use in scaling it up until such time as the energy grid is completely green.
The ocean is best because it's like a jillion grillion times as big (that's just a good approximation, not Published-Science quality analysis).
I work for a company that as a part of their normal processes sucks in massive amounts of air. They then separate the water and co2 out of that air. They dump that back into the atmosphere. We (and our competitors) do this all day every day. I have no idea why no one has looked into doing something with it.