The average atmospheric CO2 in September 2022 was 416 ppm, per the Mauna Loa observatory. That’s up from the year before and the year before and the year before. That’s up from about 280 ppm in 1750, almost 50%. And that doesn’t capture high global warming potential atmospheric methane increases, up about 30% since 1983 when it started being measured. This article focuses on the overhyped and overly hoped for silver bullets vs. the realities of what will actually work to start reducing the CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere.
As always where there is a Gordian Knot, there are people desperate to believe that there is an Alexander who will come along with a sword and cut it, removing the necessity for them to do anything. And where there is desperation, there are people and organizations happy to exploit that for a variety of reasons, from perpetuation of their business models, VC funding, or simply more research grants (the last of which I don’t begrudge in any way shape or form).
And so, on to the sexy nonsense and realistic solutions to carbon and methane atmospheric reduction. These discussions always start in the sexy and practical quadrant, the most hopeful one that gets the most attention and hopefully the most funding. It’s a feel good place to start. Sadly, there isn’t much in that quadrant, just a few things with legs in it.
Let’s start with voluntarily planting a tree. That’s a feel-good story that people around the world can get behind. Some communities have annual events, and it’s nice. Yeah, if everybody planted a tree, things would be fine! Well, no. Not that there’s anything wrong with planting a tree, but everybody would need to plant a lot of trees to make a temporary dent in the problem.
There are already about 3 trillion trees on the planet, per a 2015 study, Mapping tree density at a global scale, published in the journal Nature with overlapping authors. We’ve cut down 3 trillion since we started reshaping the environment to our preferences. It would take a trillion trees to balance out