this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Science Memes

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We happy? Yeah, we happy. (startrek.website)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] themeatbridge 40 points 9 months ago (4 children)

We have that. They're called "plants." If we just stop cutting down all the trees and poisoning the seas, plants will capture the carbon in the air and return it to the ground when they die. Or it will become part of the natural food chain.

So don't worry, either we will stop destroying all of the ecosystems, or the plants can fix the planet after we're all gone.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Cutting the trees down is fine (well the ones we plant for the purpose I mean) - turn them into books and then store the books. As an added benefit you get books!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Then conservatives get elected, burn all the books and we are back to where we started

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

damn! didn;t think of that

[–] GlendatheGayWitch 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm not a scientist by any stretch, but would disposing of plastics with these mushrooms in a terrarium of sorts help? They would have to be big and numerous.

The mushrooms would break down the plastics into CO2 and water and the plants would absorb the CO2 and water. As the plastics start to go away, we could add more of our excess plastic to keep the cycle going.

If this works, it also keeps the plastic eating mushrooms contained and away from all the essential plastics we have today.

[–] themeatbridge 1 points 9 months ago

Sounds like a good plan. I don't know. Considering the rate at which we produce plastic, I doubt we could ever grow enough mushrooms to keep up, but it would be worth funding the research.

[–] School_Lunch 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I've always wondered how big an impact burying all grass clippings would have... I assume very little since I've never heard it mentioned before.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You would have to bury them really deep to prevent them from being converted fully back to CO2, or worse methane, by other organisms.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Not to mention, all the nutrients that would normally be returned by their decomposition will never return back into the ecosystem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

We have a simple biologocial solution for all of that. Peatlands. They transfer the carbon into more and more stable chemical compounds that end up being sequestered. All the coal that is extracted now used to be peat some hundred million years ago.

[–] themeatbridge 4 points 9 months ago

Just leaving them on the ground allows them to decompose naturally. A better option is to not cut your grass, or have a native groundcover lawn.