#carbon sequestration

[reasonsforhope]

hey, how do you cope with people saying we only have a small amount of time left to stop the worst effects of climate change? no matter how hopeful and ok i am, that always sends me back into a spiral :(

A few different ways

1. The biggest one is that I do math. Because renewable energy is growing exponentially

Up until basically 2021 to now, all of the climate change models were based on the idea that our ability to handle climate change will grow linearly. But that's wrong: it's growing exponentially, most of all in the green energy sector. And we're finally starting to see proof of this - and that it's going to keep going.

And many types of climate change mitigation serve as multipliers for other types. Like building a big combo in a video game.

Change has been rapidly accelerating and I genuinely believe that it's going to happen much faster than anyone is currently predicting

2. A lot of the most exciting and groundbreaking things happening around climate change are happening in developing nations, so they're not on most people's radars.

But they will expand, as developing nations are widely undergoing a massive boom in infrastructure, development, and quality of life - and as they collaborate and communicate with each other in doing so

3. Every country, state, city, province, town, nonprofit, community, and movement is basically its own test case

We're going to figure out the best ways to handle things in a remarkably quick amount of time, because everyone is trying out solutions at once. Instead of doing 100 different studies on solutions in order, we get try out 100 (more like 10,000) different versions of different solutions simultaneously, and then figure out which ones worked best and why. The spread of solutions becomes infinitely faster, especially as more and more of the world gets access to the internet and other key infrastructure

4. There's a very real chance that many of the impacts of climate change will be reversible

Yeah, you read that right.

Will it take a while? Yes. But we're mostly talking a few decades to a few centuries, which is NOTHING in geological history terms.

We have more proof than ever of just how resilient nature is. Major rivers are being restored from dried up or dead to thriving ecosystems in under a decade. Life bounces back so fast when we let it.

I know there's a lot of skepticism about carbon capture and carbon removal. That's reasonable, some of those projects are definitely bs (mostly the ones run by gas companies, involving carbon credits, and/or trying to pump CO2 thousands of feet underground)

But there's very real potential for carbon removal through restoring ecosystems and regenerative agriculture

The research into carbon removal has also just exploded in the past three years, so there are almost certainly more and better technologies to come

There's also some promising developments in industrial carbon removal, especially this process of harvesting atmospheric CO2 and other air pollution to make baking soda and other industrially useful chemicals

As we take carbon out of the air in larger amounts, less heat will be trapped in the atmosphere

If less heat is trapped in the atmosphere, then the planet will start to cool down

If the planet starts to cool down, a lot of things will stabilize again. And they'll probably start to stabilize pretty quickly

#Anonymous #ask #me #carbon removal #carbon sequestration #carbon emissions #air pollution #forests #afforestation #wetlands #regenerative farming #regenerative agriculture #agriculture #renewable energy #renewable electricity #solar power #wind power #climate change #climate anxiety #climate resilience #good news #hope #hope posting

[wachinyeya]

#good news #environmentalism #science #environment #nature #carbon removal #carbon sinks #carbon sequestration #singapore #ocean carbon #ocean acidification

[appalachianfuturism]

“So I was pleasantly surprised when I met the leaders of Running Tide earlier this month. Far from having a hippie-dippie-ish enthusiasm about kelp, they spoke like engineers, aware of the immense scale of carbon removal that stands before them. While much of Running Tide's science remains unvetted, the researchers seem to be thinking about all the right problems in all the right ways—approaching carbon removal as an organization-level problem rather than a one-off process.

At its core, carbon removal is “a mass-transfer problem,” Marty Odlin, Running Tide’s CEO, told me. The key issue is how to move the hundreds of gigatons of carbon emitted by fossil fuels from the “fast cycle,” where carbon flits from fossil fuels to the air to plant matter, back to the “slow cycle,” where they remain locked away in geological storage for millennia. “How do you move that?” Odlin said. “What’s the most efficient way possible to accomplish that mass transfer?” The question is really, really important. The United Nations recently said that carbon removal is “essential” to remedying climate change, but so far, we don’t have the technology to do it cheaply and at scale.

Odlin, who comes from a Maine fishing family and went to college for robotics, founded Running Tide in 2017 on the theory that the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the planet’s surface, would be essential to carbon removal. At least for now, the key aspect of Running Tide’s system is its buoys. Each buoy is made of reclaimed waste wood, limestone, and kelp seedlings, materials that are meant to address the climate problem in some way: The wood represents forest carbon that would otherwise be thrown out or incinerated, the limestone helps reverse ocean acidification, and, most important, the kelp grows ultrafast, absorbing carbon from the land and sea. Eventually, the buoy is meant to break down, with the limestone dissolving and the wood and kelp drifting to the bottom of the seafloor…”

#climate change #climate crisis #carbon removal #solarpunk #carbon sequestration #ocean warming #kelp #ocean acidification #ocean ecology #carbon cycle

[probablyasocialecologist]

The vast majority of the environmental projects most frequently used to offset greenhouse gas emissions appear to have fundamental failings suggesting they cannot be relied upon to cut planet-heating emissions, according to a new analysis.

[...]

Overall, $1.16bn (£937m) of carbon credits have been traded so far from the projects classified by the investigation as likely junk or worthless; a further $400m of credits bought and sold were potentially junk.

[...]

“The ramifications of this analysis are huge, as it points to systemic failings of the voluntary market, providing additional evidence that junk carbon credits pervade the market,” said Anuradha Mittal, director of the Oakland Institute thinktank. “We cannot afford to waste any more time on false solutions. The issues are far-reaching and pervasive, extending well beyond specific verifiers. The [voluntary carbon market] is actively exacerbating the climate emergency.”

#climate change #carbon credits #carbon offset #carbon sequestration #carbon market

[wastelesscrafts]

I have a gardening tip for your followers! I love to garden but it is so expensive to get started. I repurpose old boxes and disposable/fast food cups as planters (just poke holes in the bottom for drainage and set them on top of a towel) and I made a small watering can out of a bottle with holes poked in the top. It works great because I don't need a massive watering can in my apartment. Gardening at home can be super cheap and easy!

[ID: a cardboard box that has been turned into a planter containing soil and seedlings. A plastic water bottle stands beside it and has holes poked in the top to serve as a watering can.]

Gardening and makeshift planters

Thank you for the tip! Gardening can seem quite daunting if you've never done it before, so asks like these are nice ways to show people it doesn't have to be all that complicated.

I wholeheartedly support DIY containers! Is that a cardboard box in your picture? Doesn't it get soggy? Or did you put in some kind of lining? Love your bottle watering can!

Gardening options:

Most people imagine a vegetable plot with annual plants and crop rotations when they think about gardening. This type of garden definitely has its merits, but it's not the only option. A garden can be as complex or as simple and as big or as small as you choose to make it.

[ID: a white bowl filled with small woodland strawberries. The bowl sits on a gray stone pathway next to a patch of wild strawberry plants.]

Backyard:

If you've got the luxury of having a garden in which you can do whatever you want without landlords watching over your shoulder, you're super lucky! There's so much good you could do!

Your garden can be a massive boon to your local biodiversity and wildlife. Even just planting native wildflowers or adding some wildlife garden elements will help. Make sure to look up local resources when planning a garden like this!

Your garden can also help to make your surroundings more comfortable. For example, trees and bushes will cool down their surroundings and can improve air quality. Gardening can even be used as a tool for carbon sequestration. And who doesn't like watching flowers bloom?

You could also try your hand at growing your own food. You could start a plot with kitchen herbs, grow a few vegetables or edible flowers, put in a few fruit bushes, and trade excesses with friends. Don't be fooled by Pinterest though, your chances of being able to live off your own produce are minimal.

Combine these different functions, if you can. For example: I've planted a wild strawberry patch in my garden. It functions as a ground cover and keeps my soil moist, provides me with the occasional snack, offers pollen to bees, and whatever berries I don't pick serve as food for the wildlife in my garden.

Keep things safe and easy:

Start out small! Don't get overwhelmed.

Figure out how much sun your plot gets before planting anything.

Use perennial plants instead of annuals if you have limited energy.

Trade seeds and seedlings with fellow gardeners, or learn how to propagate plants to keep costs down.

Look into lasagna gardening if you're unable to dig, or raised beds if you struggle with mobility.

Mulch your plots to save on water and weeding time.

Use localised information when planning your garden.

Avoid pesticides, especially if you plan to eat what you're growing.

Get your tetanus shots up to date, watch out for ticks, leave wild animals alone, and be careful if you have allergies.

Don't eat plants unless you're a 110% certain of what they are. Foraging can be fun, but you really don't want to mistake lilly of the valley for wild garlic.

Be mindful of your neighbours and housemates. Living near an allergen sucks, and certain plants can be dangerous to small children and pets.

Mint. Don't do it. It's a trap. It'll take over both your garden and your nightmares. Put it in a container if you really want to grow some.

If you've got a lot of space, you could look into permaculture or agroforestry.

Community plot:

Don't have a yard? Check if your neighbourhood has a community garden, or start one yourself. Shared gardens are a great way to get to know your neighbours.

Container garden:

If you don't have a lot of space, you could try container gardening. You can use pretty much anything to grow plants in as long as it's water tight, non-toxic, has drainage holes at the bottom, and is large enough for the type of plant you want to put in it. If you lack surface space, vertical gardens are also an option.

Note that container plants need more frequent watering and rely on you for nutrients.

The size of your garden project won't effect just how meaningful it can be. A native plant on a balcony can be an important spot for local birds or butterflies. The flowers in your vertical wall garden might be the only available pollen source in your neighbourhood. That potted basil on your window sill will give you a well-deserved sense of pride over keeping it alive every time you pick a few leaves for your pasta.

#wasteless crafts #ask #gardening #planter #diy planter #container gardening #thanks for this ask! #I've been meaning to write a post about gardening so this is the perfect excuse #container garden #wildlife garden #permaculture #agroforestry #ecology #wildlife #nature #gardening for beginners #vertical gardening #community garden #carbon sequestration #mulch #lasagna gardening #raised beds

[neverlookatexplosions]

planting trees is great n all, but it's not the be all end all of carbon capture. grasslands, wetlands and mangroves tend to sequester more carbon than forests do. we need all of them together to make this work. but most of all, carbon capture machines need to be as ubiquitous as winmills. maybe even paired with them or other renewables to power them. rewilding absolutely does good for the planet, but in the short term it's not gonna help as much as we need it to. we need to be doing both, at a much larger scale than we are now. and most importantly, we need to make the companies who are poluting pay for it with carbon taxes. because if it comes down to companies doing it, they will just resell the captured carbon for reuse and call it carbon neutral, even though it's definitely not. it has to be done by impartial nonprofit organizations. this can be done.

#carbon sequestration #climate change

[soilthesimpletruth]

Please take time to notice the littlest details in life because these deep details are a simple part of who we are.

#deep carbon cycling #carbon sequestration #leaves #compost #atlanta urban ag #food security #food access #permaculture #bio char #soil biodiversity #biodynamics #soil #food systems #soil food web #soil creation #worms #polyculture #food justice #vermicomposting #food sovereignty #maurice small

[wewantclimateactionnow]

"To avoid integrity issues, the world will need robust regulations on how carbon removal is conducted. This includes:

agreed standards to measure carbon removal in ways that rule out dodgy or temporary carbon removal

more advanced carbon removal technologies that bring down the cost and reduce land and energy requirements

more sophisticated ways of aligning carbon removal with social justice so that sovereignty and humanity rights are prioritised over carbon markets

a system of incentives to encourage carbon removal. States, companies and other actors should be rewarded for their climate restoration work, but these efforts must be additional to actual emissions reduction.

Of course, the best thing to do is to stop emitting carbon. However, preserving a safe climate will likely require us to go further. It’s time to start a democratic discussion about carbon removal."

#climate science #jail climate criminals #climate change #climate crisis #climate action #carbon storage #carbon sequestration #carbon sinks #trees and forests #klimawandel #klimakatastrophe #quihou bian hoy #qihou bianhua #cambio climático #changement climatique #cop27

[jcmarchi]

A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets, MIT study finds

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/a-carbon-lite-atmosphere-could-be-a-sign-of-water-and-life-on-other-terrestrial-planets-mit-study-finds/

A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets, MIT study finds

Scientists at MIT, the University of Birmingham, and elsewhere say that astronomers’ best chance of finding liquid water, and even life on other planets, is to look for the absence, rather than the presence, of a chemical feature in their atmospheres.

The researchers propose that if a terrestrial planet has substantially less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere compared to other planets in the same system, it could be a sign of liquid water — and possibly life — on that planet’s surface.

What’s more, this new signature is within the sights of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). While scientists have proposed other signs of habitability, those features are challenging if not impossible to measure with current technologies. The team says this new signature, of relatively depleted carbon dioxide, is the only sign of habitability that is detectable now.

“The Holy Grail in exoplanet science is to look for habitable worlds, and the presence of life, but all the features that have been talked about so far have been beyond the reach of the newest observatories,” says Julien de Wit, assistant professor of planetary sciences at MIT. “Now we have a way to find out if there’s liquid water on another planet. And it’s something we can get to in the next few years.”

The team’s findings appear today in Nature Astronomy. De Wit co-led the study with Amaury Triaud of the University of Birmingham in the UK. Their MIT co-authors include Benjamin Rackham, Prajwal Niraula, Ana Glidden Oliver Jagoutz, Matej Peč, Janusz Petkowski, and Sara Seager, along with Frieder Klein at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Martin Turbet of Ècole Polytechnique in France, and Franck Selsis of the Laboratoire d’astrophysique de Bordeaux.

Beyond a glimmer

Astronomers have so far detected more than 5,200 worlds beyond our solar system. With current telescopes, astronomers can directly measure a planet’s distance to its star and the time it takes it to complete an orbit. Those measurements can help scientists infer whether a planet is within a habitable zone. But there’s been no way to directly confirm whether a planet is indeed habitable, meaning that liquid water exists on its surface.

Across our own solar system, scientists can detect the presence of liquid oceans by observing “glints” — flashes of sunlight that reflect off liquid surfaces. These glints, or specular reflections, have been observed, for instance, on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which helped to confirm the moon’s large lakes.

Detecting a similar glimmer in far-off planets, however, is out of reach with current technologies. But de Wit and his colleagues realized there’s another habitable feature close to home that could be detectable in distant worlds.

“An idea came to us, by looking at what’s going on with the terrestrial planets in our own system,” Triaud says.

Venus, Earth, and Mars share similarities, in that all three are rocky and inhabit a relatively temperate region with respect to the sun. Earth is the only planet among the trio that currently hosts liquid water. And the team noted another obvious distinction: Earth has significantly less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.

“We assume that these planets were created in a similar fashion, and if we see one planet with much less carbon now, it must have gone somewhere,” Triaud says. “The only process that could remove that much carbon from an atmosphere is a strong water cycle involving oceans of liquid water.”

Indeed, the Earth’s oceans have played a major and sustained role in absorbing carbon dioxide. Over hundreds of millions of years, the oceans have taken up a huge amount of carbon dioxide, nearly equal to the amount that persists in Venus’ atmosphere today. This planetary-scale effect has left Earth’s atmosphere significantly depleted of carbon dioxide  compared to its planetary neighbors.

“On Earth, much of the atmospheric carbon dioxide has been sequestered in seawater and solid rock over geological timescales, which has helped to regulate climate and habitability for billions of years,” says study co-author Frieder Klein.

The team reasoned that if a similar depletion of carbon dioxide were detected in a far-off planet, relative to its neighbors, this would be a reliable signal of liquid oceans and life on its surface.

“After reviewing extensively the literature of many fields from biology, to chemistry, and even carbon sequestration in the context of climate change, we believe that indeed if we detect carbon depletion, it has a good chance of being a strong sign of liquid water and/or life,” de Wit says.

A roadmap to life

In their study, the team lays out a strategy for detecting habitable planets by searching for a signature of depleted carbon dioxide. Such a search would work best for “peas-in-a-pod” systems, in which multiple terrestrial planets, all about the same size, orbit relatively close to each other, similar to our own solar system. The first step the team proposes is to confirm that the planets have atmospheres, by simply looking for the presence of carbon dioxide, which is expected to dominate most planetary atmospheres.

“Carbon dioxide is a very strong absorber in the infrared, and can be easily detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets,” de Wit explains. “A signal of carbon dioxide can then reveal the presence of exoplanet atmospheres.”

Once astronomers determine that multiple planets in a system host atmospheres, they can move on to measure their carbon dioxide content, to see whether one planet has significantly less than the others. If so, the planet is likely habitable, meaning that it hosts significant bodies of liquid water on its surface.

But habitable conditions doesn’t necessarily mean that a planet is inhabited. To see whether life might actually exist, the team proposes that astronomers look for another feature in a planet’s atmosphere: ozone.

On Earth, the researchers note that plants and some microbes contribute to drawing carbon dioxide, although not nearly as much as the oceans. Nevertheless, as part of this process, the lifeforms emit oxygen, which reacts with the sun’s photons to transform into ozone — a molecule that is far easier to detect than oxygen itself.

The researchers say that if a planet’s atmosphere shows signs of both ozone and depleted carbon dioxide, it likely is a habitable, and inhabited world.

“If we see ozone, chances are pretty high that it’s connected to carbon dioxide being consumed by life,” Triaud says. “And if it’s life, it’s glorious life. It would not be just a few bacteria. It would be a planetary-scale biomass that’s able to process a huge amount of carbon, and interact with it.”

The team estimates that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope would be able to measure carbon dioxide, and possibly ozone, in nearby, multiplanet systems such as TRAPPIST-1 — a seven-planet system that orbits a bright star, just 40 light years from Earth.

“TRAPPIST-1 is one of only a handful of systems where we could do terrestrial atmospheric studies with JWST,” de Wit says. “Now we have a roadmap for finding habitable planets. If we all work together, paradigm-shifting discoveries could be done within the next few years.”

#Astronomy #Astrophysics #atmosphere #Bacteria #Biology #biomass #carbon #Carbon dioxide #Carbon materials #Carbon sequestration #change #chemical #chemistry #climate #climate change #Discoveries #EAPS #earth #Earth and atmospheric sciences #exoplanet #Exoplanets #Features #France #indeed #it #James Webb Space Telescope #jwst #Kavli Institute #Lakes #LED

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

When you think of plastic pollution, you might imagine ocean “garbage patches” swirling with tens of millions of plastic bottles and shopping bags. But unfolding alongside the “macroplastic” pollution crisis is another threat caused by much smaller particles: microplastics.

Microplastics — tiny plastic fragments that are less than 5 millimeters in diameter, a little less than one-third the size of a dime — have become ubiquitous in the environment. They form when larger plastic items like water bottles, grocery bags, and food wrappers are exposed to the elements, chipping into smaller and smaller pieces as they degrade. Smaller plastic fragments can get down into the nano territory, spanning just 0.000001 millimeter — a tiny fraction of the width of a human hair.

These plastic particles do many of the same bad things that larger plastic items do: mar the land and sea, leach toxic chemicals into the food chain. But scientists are increasingly worried about their potential impact on the global climate system. Not only do microplastics release potent greenhouse gases as they break down, but they also may be inhibiting one of the world’s most important carbon sinks, preventing planet-warming carbon molecules from being locked away in the seafloor.

Matt Simon, a science journalist for Wired, details the danger in his forthcoming book on microplastics, A Poison Like No Other. He told Grist that it’s still early days for some of this research but that the problem could be “hugely important going forward.”

#plastics #carbon sequestration #climate change #microplastics

[ghostoffuturespast]

Look, I know thinking about climate change and the daunting task of saving the planet can be depressing and soul crushing. How could such miniscule efforts change anything? But it's not about trying to get a few to do everything, it's about inspiring everyone to do a little. Change is often a slow and gentle thing that needs tending.

If you're able to do more, and want to do more, get involved with a local environmental restoration project.

Also, grass is cool. 😎

#nature #climate change #prairie restoration #restoration projects #shortgrass prairie #colorado #science #carbon sequestration #little ghost on the prairie

[reasonsforhope]

"Marginal improvements to agricultural soils around the world would store enough carbon to keep the world within 1.5C of global heating, new research suggests.

Farming techniques that improve long-term fertility and yields can also help to store more carbon in soils but are often ignored in favor of intensive techniques using large amounts of artificial fertilizer, much of it wasted, that can increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Using better farming techniques to store 1 percent more carbon in about half of the world’s agricultural soils would be enough to absorb about 31 gigatons of carbon dioxide a year, according to new data. That amount is not far off the 32 gigaton gap between current planned emissions reduction globally per year and the amount of carbon that must be cut by 2030 to stay within 1.5C.

The estimates were carried out by Jacqueline McGlade, the former chief scientist at the UN environment program and former executive director of the European Environment Agency. She found that storing more carbon in the top 30 centimeters of agricultural soils would be feasible in many regions where soils are currently degraded.

McGlade now leads a commercial organization that sells soil data to farmers. Downforce Technologies uses publicly available global data, satellite images, and lidar to assess in detail how much carbon is stored in soils, which can now be done down to the level of individual fields.

“Outside the farming sector, people do not understand how important soils are to the climate,” said McGlade. “Changing farming could make soils carbon negative, making them absorb carbon, and reducing the cost of farming.”

She said farmers could face a short-term cost while they changed their methods, away from the overuse of artificial fertilizer, but after a transition period of two to three years their yields would improve and their soils would be much healthier...

Arable farmers could sequester more carbon within their soils by changing their crop rotation, planting cover crops such as clover, or using direct drilling, which allows crops to be planted without the need for ploughing. Livestock farmers could improve their soils by growing more native grasses.

Hedgerows also help to sequester carbon in the soil, because they have large underground networks of mycorrhizal fungi and microbes that can extend meters into the field. Farmers have spent decades removing hedgerows to make intensive farming easier, but restoring them, and maintaining existing hedgerows, would improve biodiversity, reduce the erosion of topsoil, and help to stop harmful agricultural runoff, which is a key polluter of rivers."

-via The Grist, July 8, 2023

#agriculture #sustainable agriculture #sustainability #carbon emissions #carbon sequestration #livestock #farming #regenerative farming #native plants #ecosystems #global warming #climate change #good news #hope

[wachinyeya]

#science #good news #co2 #carbon capture #carbon emissions #carbon sequestration #climate change #global climate change #usa

[kp777]

#plastic pollution #climate change #microplastics #carbon sequestration

[probablyasocialecologist]

So we need to ask: Is there a form of massive carbon removal that could be put towards socially just ends, pulling carbon out of the atmosphere as a form of collective social good? Can it work as an outgrowth of energy democracy? For if such a collection of technologies, practices, and institutions can exist, we should try to build it. Notably, carbon removal at what I’ll call climate-significant scale should not be thought of as a magic wand to wipe carbon away either. For one thing, it will not compensate exactly for emissions. The ocean, for example, currently takes up close to half of the carbon humans emit, and it’s possible that if carbon was removed at large scale from the atmosphere, the oceans would then give off carbon, perhaps replacing half of the carbon that had been removed. The prospect of carbon removal is fraught with complexity, and even peril—all of which we have to talk about.

#climate change #geoengineering #carbon dioxide removal #direct air capture #carbon sequestration

[man-and-atom]

“Project Salt Vault” was supposed to store fission-product wastes safely and permanently in the American Midwest, but was abandoned after only a few years because the Atomic Energy Commission did not feel it could reach the appropriate level of certainty that the respository was completely secure.

Burning a tonne of coal releases something like 22 MJ of heat, and produces something like 3500 kg of CO₂ ― a chemically active gas, known for dissolving in water to produce an acid which eats away rock. The same quantity of nuclear heat results in about 250 milligrams of fission products, which can readily be captured in a glass matrix. Even if exposed directly to flowing water, that glass releases very little of its radioactive burden, during the roughly 300 years it takes for the radiotoxicity of the fission products to die away.

Which of these presents the easier problem?

#nuclear waste #carbon capture #carbon sequestration #greenwashing #atomic power to the people #quantitative reasoning #green fraud is still fraud