# All this CO2 in the air...is there anything we can practically do with it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 28, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744 "2015-04-28T20:45:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/21 "2015-04-29T02:06:39Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Plant big trees and leave them there One thing you could do is grow the trees, remove them and sequester them… bury them deep underground, weigh them down and let them sink into the deep sea, or if you want short-term sequestration, you can include them in a long-term structure. But for real sequestration on the scale of centuries, burying deep underground or in the sea is the solution. Things kept near the surface will give their carbon back as they decompose. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/22 "2015-04-29T02:13:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Global starvation is not caused by a shortage of food. It’s caused by difficulties, mostly of human doing, in getting the food where it’s needed. Yes, but if you can grow the food where it’s needed that takes the transport problems completely out of the picture. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/23 "2015-04-29T06:45:08Z")
Well, it’s not a transport problem so much as the poor not having sufficient income. > [@jezzaOZ](#): > > CO2 and higher temperatures have one major effect - a huge spike in plant growth. My understanding is that CO2 fertilization will usually have mild effects because lack of CO2 is rarely a given plant’s limiting factor. Do you have a study that suggests otherwise? Here’s my cite. The author found some sizable effects on pine trees, but discussed near the end of the article the reasons why other limiting factors would be expected to kick in. More research necessary, etc. [http://www.environmentalreview.org/archives/vol06/vol6no10.pdf](http://www.environmentalreview.org/archives/vol06/vol6no10.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/24 "2015-04-29T06:59:06Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Well, it’s not a transport problem so much as the poor not having sufficient income. My understanding is that CO2 fertilization will usually have mild effects because lack of CO2 is rarely a given plant’s limiting factor. Do you have a study that suggests otherwise? > > Here’s my cite. The author found some sizable effects on pine trees, but discussed near the end of the article the reasons why other limiting factors would be expected to kick in. More research necessary, etc. [http://www.environmentalreview.org/archives/vol06/vol6no10.pdf](http://www.environmentalreview.org/archives/vol06/vol6no10.pdf) You might note my note on the development of nitrogen and phosphorous fixing bacteria. Actually phosphorous unfixing bacteria and Nitrogen fixing bacteria. Those two nutrients are the main limiting factors on plant growth and both are at the stage where biological supply can easily meet CO2 demands. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/25 "2015-04-29T11:41:01Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Well, it’s not a transport problem so much as the poor not having sufficient income. My understanding is that CO2 fertilization will usually have mild effects because lack of CO2 is rarely a given plant’s limiting factor. Do you have a study that suggests otherwise? What I’ve read is consistent with what you’ve said. [This study](http://imedea.uib-csic.es/master/cambioglobal/Modulo_II_cod101603/Bibliograf%EDa/Oren%20et%20al_2001_Nature.pdf) examines the effect on increased atmospheric CO2 concentration on tree growth. The TL;DR is that it only helped tree plots to which they also added nitrogen fertilizer (and the fertilizer was “used up” over the course of a few years). Considering that most forests don’t have great soil in the first place (land with good soil tends to be used for agriculture), we shouldn’t expect wild forests to benefit very much from higher CO2 levels. We might see a boost to water use efficiency, but increased CO2 levels will go hand in hand with higher temperatures, which will increase the rate of photorespiration (which is (mostly) a wasteful process); it might be a wash. We’re likely to see some benefit in intensive agriculture where farmers can afford to irrigate and fertilize, though. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/26 "2015-04-30T00:58:51Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Well, it’s not a transport problem so much as the poor not having sufficient income. My understanding is that CO2 fertilization will usually have mild effects because lack of CO2 is rarely a given plant’s limiting factor. Definitely: [Crop Yield Response to Warming in California’s Central Valley](http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/agriculture#graphic-16669) > [@](#): > > Plant response to climate change is dictated by complex interactions among carbon dioxide (CO2), temperature, solar radiation, and precipitation. Each crop species has a temperature range for growth, along with an optimum temperature. Plants have specific temperature tolerances, and can only be grown in areas where their temperature thresholds are not exceeded. As temperatures increase over this century, crop production areas may shift to follow the temperature range for optimal growth and yield of grain or fruit. Temperature effects on crop production are only one component; production over years in a given location is more affected by available soil water during the growing season than by temperature, and increased variation in seasonal precipitation, coupled with shifting patterns of precipitation within the season, will create more variation in soil water availability., The use of a model to evaluate the effect of changing temperatures in the absence of changes in water availability reveals that crops in California’s Central Valley will respond differently to projected temperature increases, as illustrated in Figure 6.4. This example demonstrates one of the methods available for studying the potential effects of climate change on agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/27 "2015-04-30T08:49:05Z")
One of the options (which I think is very interesting) is to use renewable energy to [make fuel from CO2](https://www.sciencealert.com/audi-have-successfully-made-diesel-fuel-from-air-and-water). That solves one of the big problems with renewable energy, I think, which is that it’s not constantly and reliably available. Using fuel as an energy storage mechanism could make it much more viable. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/28 "2015-04-30T21:04:42Z")
> [@Dervorin](#): > > One of the options (which I think is very interesting) is to use renewable energy to [make fuel from CO2](https://www.sciencealert.com/audi-have-successfully-made-diesel-fuel-from-air-and-water). That solves one of the big problems with renewable energy, I think, which is that it’s not constantly and reliably available. Using fuel as an energy storage mechanism could make it much more viable. I agree. This probably makes the most sense. The problem lies in that “use renewable energy” part. We need to have enough renewable energy coming in to make this economically viable. I could envision setting up a massive solar plant in the Sahara and to power this sort of fuel plant. That would be awesome, but hugely expensive. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744/29 "2015-04-30T23:37:41Z")
While we can probably make fuel with it, trees long ago figured out what to do with extra CO2 > [@Has science determined an optimum CO2 level?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-science-determined-an-optimum-co2-level/705520/39): > > A long term well done study of trees in Maryland reported hard wood trees are growing two to four times faster now, and it is due to increased CO2 levels. > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/earth/02trees.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/earth/02trees.html?_r=0) > > It’s one reason experts think the missing sink (where all the CO2 is going) might just be the forests. Pro hint: plants evolved in an atmosphere much higher in CO2 than current values, which are very low from a plants POV Plants still love high CO2 levels. All plants. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-this-co2-in-the-air-is-there-anything-we-can-practically-do-with-it/718744.md?page=1)