| Could this endeavour be detrimental to the environment?
(Please read my whole reasoning before calling me a Climate Change Denier or something like that) I understand that humans are changing the Earth's environment, but with this we need to acknowledge that other organisms are doing it too. In particular plants have been taking CO2 from the atmosphere for ages and continue to do so. If you look at CO2 concentrations for long periods of time, you'll find that the levels of today are not very different from what has happened cyclically for hundreds of thousands of years. The difference may be on the fact that now we are adding an extra influx of CO2 to the atmosphere, but in doing so we may be balancing greater concentrations of water vapour, which is a much more efficient greenhouse gas.
If doubling the concentration of CO2 increases the temperature of the atmosphere, in say one degree, to gain another degree you'll need to double the concentration of CO2 again, so the effect of concentration of CO2 on temperature is logarithmic. Water vapour is much more efficient and by decreasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere we may increase the amount of water. This is because of how photosynthesis (and agriculture) works. A plant breathes air in through small pores on their leaves called stomata. Doing so allows water to evaporate through those same pores. If the concentration of CO2 in the air is low, the plant will need to evaporate more water to absorb the same amount of CO2. On the other hand, if the plant doesn't have enough water to evaporate, it will close its stomata and the result will be lower growth and poor yield, simply because of the lack of carbon. Since nowadays many agricultural plots are using water from aquifers and other underground sources, we are actually putting into the environment much more water than would have been without agriculture. If we decrease the amount of CO2 we may push even further the plant's need for water and produce more water vapour, pushing even further the warming, since water is much more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. We may be fighting against the wrong enemy. And in doing so punishing unfairly the poorest of the world, who rely on fossil fuel for energy and those who will be the most affected when crop yields start falling and the water available becomes insufficient. I haven't been able to find a global warming model that incorporates this effect, but if someone made it this far into this comment and knows of any model that does, I'll be very grateful to hear from it. If someone related to this project reads this, please discuss it. It may be a mute point because some reason that I don't know, but it may very well be an important one. |