The importance of this advance should not be eclipsed by the fact that the article blithely ignores: if you’re turning CO2 into fuel in order to then burn it again, you are not, in the long term, reducing atmospheric CO2.
Originally shared by CM Stewart
https://futurism.com/new-breakthrough-work-finally-lets-us-trigger-artificial-photosynthesis/
You are reducing it relative to the alternative of using coal or oil for your fuel. Using wind, solar, or nuclear doesn’t “reduce atmospheric CO2” either, except in the same sense.
At this point the idea of cooling the planet is off the table. The best we can hope for is slowing or perhaps stopping the warming. And technology like this might help.
You are not increasing it, but you are not reducing it relative to baseline, which is what the article seems to assume.
Yes, this is (potentially) good technology, but let’s not imagine it’s doing something it’s not.
Well.. do we know whether the byproduct of burning CO2 is CO2? If so, it is a zero sum gain (assuming the photosynthesis portion of the process removes atmospheric CO2), which is still better than releasing new CO2, which has the additive effect we are presumably well-adviced to be concerned about.
Nobilis Reed – and if you could cool it, what temperature would you cool it too, and how would you guarantee that you didn’t overshoot?
More generally, why do you assume that we are above the optimal temperature. If anything, current temperature is on the low side, in terms of geological history–we have ice at the poles, which Earth mostly hasn’t had.
The whole AGW argument shows a striking conservative bias, an implicit assumption that change is bad.
Eduardo Suastegui The question is moot. Aside from large-scale geoengineering, it’s just not possible at this time to cool the planet.
David Friedman Because we’re now warmer than we’ve ever been in recorded history, creating effects on the oceans and the atmosphere are detrimental to human civilization.
More droughts, more hurricanes, more blizzards, and rising sea levels. About the only country on the planet that is likely to do better rather than worse in a warmer climate is Russia. They’ll get longer growing seasons, and very few of their major cities are on vulnerable coastlines.
Which is probably why they use their propaganda machine to support climate change denial.
On a more serious note, this article shows we’ve had weather warm enough to melt ice as recently as 1922 (recorded history, I think), Nobilis Reed:
Nobilis Reed Why is “in recorded history” the relevant benchmark? Through most of recorded history the civilizations we have records of existed in only a small area of the globe, so temperatures elsewhere were mostly irrelevant to them. And those civilizations were very different from ours. And we have no evidence that those civilizations would not have prospered at a higher temperature.
Insofar as there is a relevant benchmark, it should be temperatures at which living creatures, in particular mammals, did well. By that benchmark we are on the cool side, not the warm side.
Temperatures good for mammals aren’t necessarily good for crops or cities.
Nobilis Reed – who is to say we can’t grow different crops or modify our cities? In an ever-changing world (“change is the only constant”), static arguments seldom hold water. A “progressive” mindset would embrace change as a challenge where adaptation rather than regression to some ill-defined golden ideal (a.k.a, “the right temperature”) is part of the solution space.
Certainly, we’re going to need drought-resistant crops and storm-resistant cities, just to deal with the climate change we’ve already inflicted on ourselves.
And hey, if the only people you care about are rich white people, then have at! Everything’s good. I’m sure rich white people will continue to be in good shape whatever happens.
But where do you think the rest of the world is going to do, when the places they live become less habitable? They’re not going to simply, conveniently, die and reduce the surplus population. They’re going to migrate, they’re going to invade, and the world’s going to become a more chaotic place as a result.
Places like New Orleans and Miami are already finding that the consequences of the climate change we already have are creating more problems than they have the resources to deal with. If we don’t do something about carbon, that’s going to spread.
Nobilis Reed “Certainly, we’re going to need drought-resistant crops and storm-resistant cities, just to deal with the climate change we’ve already inflicted on ourselves.”
You are aware that, as per the most recent IPCC report, there is no good evidence for an increase in either storms or drought so far as a result of climate change? The previous report claimed increasing drought, the most recent one retracted that claim.
“Places like New Orleans and Miami “
New Orleans has been below sea level, a disaster waiting to happen, for more than a century, so its problems have little to do with SLR due to AGW. I can’t speak to whether things are worse in Miami than in the past. SLR so far has been pretty tiny, less than a foot, although it may get substantial in the future.
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