> And there won’t be a way to roll back those changes

It's possible to sequester CO2, and here are a couple ways.

1. Use permaculture or regenerative agriculture to aggressively increase SOM (soil organic matter) / carbon content of the soil. Typical degraded farmland is around 1.5% SOM. For every 0.1% increase per acre, roughly 1 ton of carbon is sequestered. Setting an ambitious increase to 10% would take decades but would increase yields along the way. There are billions of acres of farmland, so a lot of carbon can be removed from the biosphere. Additionally, since people naively mimic farmers for home gardening etc., if farmers were part of the solution, then more home growers would be, too. With a couple decades of regenerative ag you can go from 1.5% to 7.5%, but with more time and motivation you can go higher.

2. Research and then put into practice industrial-scale pyrolysis for energy generation. So, instead of burning methane (aka "natural gas") to boil water to spin a turbine, we could pyrolysize organic material to emit and burn syngas to boil water to spin a turbine. The resulting biochar can be co-composted and when finished, used as a soil amendment.

With a different mindset a lot can change, and quickly.

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Koffiepoeder 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In my own veg garden, I have noticed that my soil quality starts degrading around >6% of carbon contents.

It wasn't a problem until recently, but with all the droughts in recent years, too high carbon can make it hydrophobic and lead to water run-off that happens too quick once it has entirely dried out. I.e. it becomes too lose/aereated. This then means that the occasional heat storm no longer replenishes water reserves and you end up a bit wirh the same problem as if you had 1% Carbon.

My soil is still way more resilient at the beginning of the drought (I can easily cover 1mo eithout rain without having to water most crops, except some smaller spices). But in recent times I have stopped mulching for a while.

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anon7000 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not saying you’re wrong, but sequestering CO2 probably isn’t enough. Ecosystems are connected systems and can be resilient in the long term, but a domino can fall that has a huge, negative impact on everything downstream.

For example, coral reefs provide protection and a vibrant home for a lot of sea life. But when the water gets a couple degrees too warm, it can essentially die, and when it does, the rest of the ecosystem disappears too.

Imagine if you were a human and your body temp was even a couple degrees above normal. You’d have a fever.

And these are only tiny examples… life finds away, but it also needs time to grow back.

	▲	Panino 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Not saying you’re wrong, but sequestering CO2 probably isn’t enough. My comment was in response to someone suggesting or implying that nothing can be done, not that the 2 points I made were enough. I agree with you, especially about the ocean. The oceans have absorbed an enormous amount of CO2, increasing ocean acidity and killing ecosystems not even including the heat they've absorbed, also killing ecosystems. Meanwhile commercial fisherman (aqua farmers) are literally bombing coral as a fishing "method." We need an international effort at changing the people who do farming because the people we have are the worst we can get and they do an enormous amount of harm at basically all levels. Besides the ecological harm, they're just so bad at their jobs that despite selling one of only 3 products humans can't live without, they still can't stay in business without bailouts so routine they don't even consciously recognize them as such. We need a lot less naysaying and a lot more concrete plans led by people who have successfully done it. I've already done the 2 things I mentioned (soil carbon, biochar) on the scale that is available to me. Additionally our rooftop solar covers maybe 1/3 of the roof and produces 2-3x our annual usage in an all-electric house. We're freegan. My used EV burns no fossil fuel. We compost aggressively including toilet material and make biochar which we co-compost. We have a xeriscape garden and use an amount of water most people would probably consider impossibly low. This is all with a mindset of continuous improvement, always assuming that more gains are yet to be discovered and put into practice. Anyone can adopt this mindset. If anyone thinks the above is way too much for you, I started it all just by switching the incandescent light bulbs in my house to LEDs. That was the first step, and then I took another, and then another. That's all. And we're saving a ludicrous amount of money but that's not the only reason we're doing it, and wasn't the original motivation.

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downrightmike 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes but the easiest wins are to reduce the main polluters: Richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of humanity

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-...

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Panino 14 hours ago | parent [-]

We need to do everything, no buts.

	▲	thec0d3 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Stop buying personal iPhones, TVs, logoff HN to reduce demand for new servers as they die... Sure we can say the rich peoples businesses make the mess but their efforts are broadly consumed Any day now right HN? Gonna stop spinning up consumer SaaS apps in the cloud propping up demand beyond need for logistics and healthcare research?