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Paninoyesterday at 10:22 PM2 repliesview on HN

> And there won’t be a way to roll back those changes

It's possible to sequester CO2, and here are a couple ways.

1. Use permaculture or regenerative agriculture to aggressively increase SOM (soil organic matter) / carbon content of the soil. Typical degraded farmland is around 1.5% SOM. For every 0.1% increase per acre, roughly 1 ton of carbon is sequestered. Setting an ambitious increase to 10% would take decades but would increase yields along the way. There are billions of acres of farmland, so a lot of carbon can be removed from the biosphere. Additionally, since people naively mimic farmers for home gardening etc., if farmers were part of the solution, then more home growers would be, too. With a couple decades of regenerative ag you can go from 1.5% to 7.5%, but with more time and motivation you can go higher.

2. Research and then put into practice industrial-scale pyrolysis for energy generation. So, instead of burning methane (aka "natural gas") to boil water to spin a turbine, we could pyrolysize organic material to emit and burn syngas to boil water to spin a turbine. The resulting biochar can be co-composted and when finished, used as a soil amendment.

With a different mindset a lot can change, and quickly.


Replies

anon7000yesterday at 11:27 PM

Not saying you’re wrong, but sequestering CO2 probably isn’t enough. Ecosystems are connected systems and can be resilient in the long term, but a domino can fall that has a huge, negative impact on everything downstream.

For example, coral reefs provide protection and a vibrant home for a lot of sea life. But when the water gets a couple degrees too warm, it can essentially die, and when it does, the rest of the ecosystem disappears too.

Imagine if you were a human and your body temp was even a couple degrees above normal. You’d have a fever.

And these are only tiny examples… life finds away, but it also needs time to grow back.

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downrightmikeyesterday at 10:44 PM

Yes but the easiest wins are to reduce the main polluters: Richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of humanity

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-...

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