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"Plankton are more efficient than trees at removing CO2. It takes a 10,000 hectare forest about 20 years to sequester the same amount of carbon that a similar sized 'plankton forest' can remove in just six months," said Coleman.
Madidus_Scientia - I don't mean you to plant where trees don't grow. The experts choose the best place. But I hear you. If we need one forest per person then it will only work if we limit population growth to the number of trees that would be sustainable. That's not a bad idea. How about, people can have as many children as they like provided that they can pay that tree tax?The question is how to impose that tax. The families with more children could greatly outnumber those with a few and - if majority consensus carries, then the more children will eventually get the most say. And my guess is they wont endorse the tree tax. Pretty good argument against democracy I think. And without democracy where would we be? Actually by the same token WITH democracy where are we going? In any event it's not appropriate discussion on a science forum. What is the 'actual trick' to photosynthesis? Maybe Jimbee has a point. Perhaps if we could discover this - some means to strip carbon away from two oxygen atoms - with the use of sunlight and a little bit of water? That's got to be a winning formula. If we could find it.
also, when you increase the reactants in a chemical reaction, the equation shifts to the right, ie. plants make more O2! ShadocI can't understand this? How does the equation shift to the right?
Apologies for a third consequetive post - but I've thought of something else. Who monitors that iron seeding? If the iron falls below a certain level it's not going to do any good. They need to ensure that the iron is fine enough not to sink to the ocean floor.
Actually I've just thought of something. You know how life began in the oceans. Maybe it only left the oceans because of overcrowding. In which case - the early oceans would have had a great deal of iron - being in plentiful supply in the early days of our earth before accreting into various bonded forms. This may have resulted in the teaming fish and ocean life as well as providing surplus oxygen that we have in our atmosphere today - which is now being exploited by land life. Therefore, a re-introduction of iron to the oceans may replicate the early conditions of our earth. The resultant vastly increased plankton blooms will then add to the oxygen - strip away our surplus carbon - and get our oceans, once again, teaming with life. Who knows? It may be the solution. What I do know is that we are also systematically depleting the ocean of it's fish - as well as filling our skies with way too much waste. Perhaps the trick IS to 'fertilise' so to speak - the oceans themselves.
why iron? what made you think of that? theres no way you just thought of it! where did you read it? ShadecIron is the single most plentiful atom - as I understood it? Is that wrong?
Seeding the oceans is a realy bad idea, and it has such an obvious logic flaw, I can't believe people do it at all. It doesn't matter that the oceans "use up" more co2. You can't "use" co2, you can merely transform it into something else, which is probably just going to turn into something that is going to turn right back into co2. For example, plankton grows and transforms co2 into carbon and oxygen, the oxygen floats away, but the carbon turns into building blocks for its body. Whale comes along eats the plankton, bonds the carbon from the planktons body to oxygen, and viola releases it right back into the atmosphere as co2. The fact that the oceans use up more oxygen than land is irrelevant, and coming up with plants that "use up" more co2 is irrelevant. Its not about using co2, its about storing it. If something uses co2 then dies and then releases it back into the atmosphere that is a completely lateral turn of events.