Could Dr. Suess be the answer to global warming?

Submitted by Smart_Aide_3795 t3_11codtc in Futurology

Remember the movie The Lorax? In the film, a company builds artificial trees that purify the air. What if that is the technology we need to rapidly pull emissions and carbon from the atmosphere? They will never stop cutting down trees until there are none left to cut. They will keep polluting the oceans because let's face it, no one gives a f about whales and dolphins unless they are at Seaworld.

How else can we save the planet? Tree planting can not save us in time. We need something faster, and I think Dr. Suess had the answer.

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chriscov t1_ja4mluv wrote

You have well and truly missed the core point which the story of the Lorax is trying to make. This is quite an achievement, as both my children grasped it by age 3 or 4.

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LaylaTheMeower t1_ja44pn9 wrote

> a company builds artificial trees that purify the air

Wrong, that's not what the movie shows, what Dr. Seuss himself suggested, and the company sold air by killing trees. The artificial trees were unrelated.

And real trees will be much more efficient.

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ChalupaCabre t1_ja4ytht wrote

I speak for the trees when I say the movie The Lorax was not about replacing trees with mechanical trees.

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SeneInSPAAACE t1_ja4fv1c wrote

No method of carbon capture will do more than mitigate what's coming.

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Fun fact, a while back I calculated how many trees we would require to stop INCREASING CO2 in the atmosphere - not reduce, just get to not increasing - and it was around 3 trillion trees.
This is 3000 billion.

Bu comparison, the pledges to plant trees are like, 3 billion in EU by 2030, or 2 billion trees in Canada.

Let's assume canada-size investment for every country in the world, including Luxembourg and Vatican, and we still only get to 390 billion, which is 2610 billion short. Based on the numbers the year I did that math, which was probably 2021, so 3 trillion probably wouldn't even be enough in the first place.

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Chroderos t1_ja5sbz9 wrote

Probably going to need to supplement with technologies like iron seeding in the ocean, carbon capture plants, and the like.

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dragonthedagan t1_ja4gpqq wrote

did you watch the movie? Cmon I think you missed the point

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BernieEcclestoned t1_ja45l5k wrote

Regenerative agriculture and aquaculture are probably a better bet

Kelp is really fast growing, sequesters co2 and can be planted on shellfish lines

https://www.globalseafood.org/advocate/pilot-project-cultivating-kelp-on-shellfish-leases-demonstrates-extraordinary-first-year-growth/

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Ailerath t1_ja48hm3 wrote

What do you do with the kelp though? Rebury it?

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BernieEcclestoned t1_ja4b7lw wrote

Replant it for carbon credits I guess

Carbon price went over 100 euro per ton for the first time recently

Edit. Found this as well

>Kelp is used to make many products: toothpastes, shampoos, salad dressings, puddings, cakes, dairy products, frozen foods, and even pharmaceuticals

>Algin, an emulsifying and bonding agent, is extracted from kelp and used in these products. Kelp is also used as food on mollusk farms

So, used to grow more shellfish

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/pplkelp.html

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N42Frost t1_ja5y014 wrote

Have you read the Lorax? I think you may have misinterpreted.

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madeaprofile2saythis t1_ja6ie6d wrote

Hey our house is on fire but calling the fire department will take some time so why don't we dig a well and then fill a swimming pool full of water so we can throw bucket-fulls at the burning house instead...

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reasonandmadness t1_ja46j8x wrote

>What if that is the technology we need to rapidly pull emissions and carbon from the atmosphere?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210310-the-trillion-dollar-plan-to-capture-co2

There are a bunch of different plans in the works but amusingly enough the only example we need to follow is the city infrastructure plan that Singapore has.

https://www.greenplan.gov.sg/

If we followed that, our cities would be infinitely more beautiful, sizably better for everyone involved, and would cost far less overall than our current infrastructure plans.

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nebojssha t1_ja7ip6y wrote

Well, I say, start with delivering certain hot cocktail to everyone in top 1%, maybe top 5%, and lets not forget about politicians either, then we can redefine whole socio/economic system, redistribute public budget more towards education, environment, infrastructure etc. instead of military.

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pete_68 t1_ja5f6kc wrote

We're not going to make it because, as a species, we don't use forward thinking. We've known about climate change since at least the 70s, at least. A large percentage of the population refused to believe it was a reality. Many still do. In all that time, we've done, effectively nothing. I mean, we've done some stuff, but the impact has been little more than to kick the can down the road a few years.

We live as if we have unlimited clean energy with the general thinking being, "we'll get it eventually," and maybe we will, but maybe we won't. In the meantime the planet is turning into a shithole. Look at all the plastic in the oceans, all the garbage in the rivers. You're not supposed to eat more than 2 servings of albacore tuna a week because of the mercury levels. How long until you can't eat any fish (assuming we don't completely wipe them all out)?

We sit around and breed out of control and fight over resources instead of using our brains, and keeping our population at a reasonable size that would allow everyone to have plenty of resources and for the world to be able to recover from the damage we do.

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MrZeeMan79 t1_ja5jke3 wrote

I belive trees already do (carbon to oxygen)this so rather then make a tree just plant one.

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