It’s sad that the effort to do something innovative to solve a problem can easily get dismissed via a zero effort critique by someone who never took the time to learn why it was created.
There is a tree right next to it. LOL so obviously space for trees. The trunks take up less space, its just they require pulling up surrounding sidewalk sometimes, and maintenance crew for trimming and watering in dry spells.
Trees don’t perform nearly as much work as the algae tank in sucking up C02 and outputting 02, require more maintenance, and takes longer to deploy (have to wait for tree to mature).
This whole thread is a great example of why I’m continually disappointed with Lemmy. Half the comments are just some variation of “capitalism bad”. I hate capitalism as much as the next guy, but it sure would be nice if people would stop grinding their axes for a few minutes to talk about the actual subject of the post. Or just not comment at all if they don’t have anything relevant to say.
Cato_the_podasist did. The OP of this thread said that this post has nothing to do with capitalism and that we should therefore stop talking about it here. Cato_the_podasist argued against that saying that pointing out the source of the problem is always relevant, THEREBY IMPLYING that pointing out capitalism is always relevant (because capitalism doesnt have anything to do with this post specifically) so if its relevant here, then were is it not relevant?
(What I meant is: Capitalism is not relevant here. Maybe sometimes it is the root of the problem but not in every case (and certainly not in this one).
It’s expensive and has only the advantage of catching CO2, while trees have more than just that. Produces O2, Cooling the near surroundings, are a save heaven for many species and therefore increases biodiversity, filters the air and soil, also makes the soil more healthy and probably many other reasons.
Humans really are weird. Trying to replace a perfectly fine bio-machinery that developed over Thousands of years with their own steel junk. I dont see why anybody would prefer that gadget over a tree.
I assume they mean how long many old growth forests have been growing (though even then thousands of years is on the younger end), not the time it took for trees to evolve.
Most plants would die because they rely on CO2 for photosynthesis.
Many sea animals would die. Oceans absorb CO2 which forms carbonic acid (H2CO3) in water. Oceans are slightly alkaline due to dissolved salts (bicarbonate and carbonate) and the carbonic acid from the absorption helps to create a stable pH. Many sea animals are highly adapted to a specific pH and would die if the ocean got either too acidic or too alkaline, so they are pretty doomed in either case.
Many humans would die because agriculture would collapse. Also breathing pure oxygen over a long period of time would be very bad because of oxygen toxicity. Yeah, pure oxygen is toxic for humans lol
Land animals, I’m not so sure, but I assume most of them would die too.
Your question isn’t entirely a hypothetical - this happened at the dawn of time, when photosynthetic life forms first evolved. First, it won’t ever happen again, no matter how good we get at scooping CO2 from the atmosphere. Second, the result is theoretically catastrophic for aerobic life forms, but it’s also a negative feedback loop, meaning it self corrects.
It’s expensive and has only the advantage of catching CO2
It doesn’t even do that well. Algae have short lifespans and when they decompose, the CO2 will go right back into the atmosphere. It’s the same reason you can’t reasonably capture CO2 with small plants like grasses, nor does the carbon inside you count as captured. The reason trees “capture CO2” is because trees live for a long time and wood decomposes very slowly, and therefore keep its carbon locked in the wood for a long time. The point of capturing carbon is you take it out of circulation for as long as possible.
There are ways to have algae capture carbon, but they are fairly involved (read: very expensive) processes whose scalability is still uncertain. Certainly not a tank in the street.
I was always under the impression that plants chemically convert CO2 and some other stuff to glucose (C6-H12-O6), right? In that case, the algae would still help, wouldnt they?
It helps if and only if the glucose stays as glucose and is not metabolized. Wood is a good application of this, as its cellulose fibers are made of glucose, in a form that is very stable and can stay locked away for a long time (especially if the tree is alive as it does not metabolize the glucose in its own wood and has anti-predation adaptations that actively guard it against other organisms). However, if the glucose decomposes, i.e. is metabolized, it is converted either directly to CO2 or into other compounds that eventually end up as CO2, essentially returning the captured carbon back to the atmosphere.
Humans really are weird. Trying to replace a perfectly fine bio-machinery that developed over Thousands of years with their own steel junk. I dont see why anybody would prefer that gadget over a tree.
Can you plant a tree capable of capturing the same amount of CO2 as those algae in that small a space? How about “refilling” the tree if it happens to die?
Society doesn’t have to lock itself to a single solution for countless varied problems. If we’re talking about a long, empty walkway, or a park, then trees are a great solution. If we’re talking about a small space that must be kept free of obstructions, such as a bus stop, then a sack or box of phytoplankton is much better suited.
Is the European Union not a thing anymore? Does being a part of that not make you European? What does European mean if not for people who live in Europe?
To be fair America has 50 different states and a lot of them have totally different cultures. Texas compared to new york for example. Would that not make your statement equally as dumb?
The European Union is a union and not a country, the EU is pretty irrelevant here since there are lots of Europeans that don’t live in a member country. There are lots of cultural differences and languages.
Of course everyone in Europe is European but generalising Europeans that really doesn’t have that much in common (except living in Europe) is most often pretty stupid. Europe is very diverse in culture, climate, economy, politics, etc.
The main argument is that we are in a system of people who are way more powerful than us, and have largely taken away our options until we agree. We’re facing widespread protests and international strikes right now because we don’t like the options they’ve given us, and we’re trying to change the system.
Just because somebody takes away your options until you agree, doesn’t mean they aren’t forcing you. Just because you happen to be satisfied with what you have, doesn’t mean that something better is not being denied from you, even though it is possible for you to have it.
Then you are extremely lucky, as am I. I have enough money saved up that I took a break.
However, something like 40% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and just don’t have that option. The threat of poverty is constantly chasing them. When you’re in that situation, you will take the best option available even if it’s garbage or next to garbage.
Sometimes true but not always. I’ve had coworkers from the UK all the way to the middle east who were always happy to buy drinks and were more generous, I suspect many from across the commonwealth, and greco roman world tend to take gifts of food more fairly.
Much of China having gone through multiple famines tends to have a different food culture though which probably makes people come off rude to each other
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