Wow - this post is getting a lot of great discussion. We are working on responding to the comments directly. A few key points to add that help frame how we think about the role biotechnology plays in carbon capture and removal.
Similar to how advanced biotechnology was able to help develop covid vaccines in record time, biotechnology can and should be used a tool in our fight against climate change. Living Carbon works on a broad array of biotech projects to help improve the carbon capture and sequestration of carbon underground.
We chose to share our work on photosynthesis-enhancement as an example of one of the biotechnology tools that can be utilized because 1) there is precedent in literature for similar pathways working in other crops and RuBisCO engineering has been worked on for decades 2) many of the solutions to storing carbon underground for longer are metabolically taxing to plants and can benefit from biotechnology.
In response to vague fears around genetic engineering, if Living Carbon’s work resulted in ecosystem destruction we would not have achieved any of the goals we set out to achieve as a company. We have warmed the world so quickly plants do not have the time to evolve to survive in the harsher world we have created.
It would be silly to think that our trees alone could or should stop climate change. We view each pilot project as an opportunity to study trees in different ecosystem and understand any impacts they have on underlying ecosystems.
We’re intentionally planting trees on land that human previously degraded - such as abandoned mine lands. We’re working to restore ecosystems that have already faced the consequences of human intervention, rather than integrating our trees into already-thriving wild forests.
Many of our test pilot projects include the testing of different microbial treatments to help quantify the impact on photosynthesis and the growth rate of trees.
75% of the earth’s land has already been degraded by humans. 60% of plants are struggling to survive because there are fewer animals and arable land to spread their seeds and maintain a meaningful population. Whether it’s through paving over our rivers or our urban sprawl, we’ve been modifying our world for centuries. Evolution, which is essentially sums of averages over, cannot move at the speed that humans have moved to degrade our plant and warm it.
There is not silver bullet to climate change. Many solutions like mineralization, biochar, and DAC can increase their rate of carbon removal using biotechnology and more efficiently remove carbon from the atmosphere. We need to use human technology to help reintegrate ourselves into our ecosystem and understand how carbon farming using many different carbon removal technologies can help remove carbon from our ecosystem.
Similar to how advanced biotechnology was able to help develop covid vaccines in record time, biotechnology can and should be used a tool in our fight against climate change. Living Carbon works on a broad array of biotech projects to help improve the carbon capture and sequestration of carbon underground.
We chose to share our work on photosynthesis-enhancement as an example of one of the biotechnology tools that can be utilized because 1) there is precedent in literature for similar pathways working in other crops and RuBisCO engineering has been worked on for decades 2) many of the solutions to storing carbon underground for longer are metabolically taxing to plants and can benefit from biotechnology.
In response to vague fears around genetic engineering, if Living Carbon’s work resulted in ecosystem destruction we would not have achieved any of the goals we set out to achieve as a company. We have warmed the world so quickly plants do not have the time to evolve to survive in the harsher world we have created.
It would be silly to think that our trees alone could or should stop climate change. We view each pilot project as an opportunity to study trees in different ecosystem and understand any impacts they have on underlying ecosystems.
We’re intentionally planting trees on land that human previously degraded - such as abandoned mine lands. We’re working to restore ecosystems that have already faced the consequences of human intervention, rather than integrating our trees into already-thriving wild forests.
Many of our test pilot projects include the testing of different microbial treatments to help quantify the impact on photosynthesis and the growth rate of trees.
75% of the earth’s land has already been degraded by humans. 60% of plants are struggling to survive because there are fewer animals and arable land to spread their seeds and maintain a meaningful population. Whether it’s through paving over our rivers or our urban sprawl, we’ve been modifying our world for centuries. Evolution, which is essentially sums of averages over, cannot move at the speed that humans have moved to degrade our plant and warm it.
There is not silver bullet to climate change. Many solutions like mineralization, biochar, and DAC can increase their rate of carbon removal using biotechnology and more efficiently remove carbon from the atmosphere. We need to use human technology to help reintegrate ourselves into our ecosystem and understand how carbon farming using many different carbon removal technologies can help remove carbon from our ecosystem.