#carbon sequestration

From the article:

A few different ways

1. The biggest one is that I do math. Because renewable energy is growing exponentially

Up until basically 2021 to now, all of the climate change models were based on the idea that our ability to handle climate change will grow linearly. But that's wrong: it's growing exponentially, most of all in the green energy sector. And we're finally starting to see proof of this - and that it's going to keep going.

And many types of climate change mitigation serve as multipliers for other types. Like building a big combo in a video game.

Change has been rapidly accelerating and I genuinely believe that it's going to happen much faster than anyone is currently predicting

2. A lot of the most exciting and groundbreaking things happening around climate change are happening in developing nations, so they're not on most people's radars.

But they will expand, as developing nations are widely undergoing a massive boom in infrastructure, development, and quality of life - and as they collaborate and communicate with each other in doing so

3. Every country, state, city, province, town, nonprofit, community, and movement is basically its own test case

We're going to figure out the best ways to handle things in a remarkably quick amount of time, because everyone is trying out solutions at once. Instead of doing 100 different studies on solutions in order, we get try out 100 (more like 10,000) different versions of different solutions simultaneously, and then figure out which ones worked best and why. The spread of solutions becomes infinitely faster, especially as more and more of the world gets access to the internet and other key infrastructure

4. There's a very real chance that many of the impacts of climate change will be reversible

Yeah, you read that right.

Will it take a while? Yes. But we're mostly talking a few decades to a few centuries, which is NOTHING in geological history terms.

We have more proof than ever of just how resilient nature is. Major rivers are being restored from dried up or dead to thriving ecosystems in under a decade. Life bounces back so fast when we let it.

I know there's a lot of skepticism about carbon capture and carbon removal. That's reasonable, some of those projects are definitely bs (mostly the ones run by gas companies, involving carbon credits, and/or trying to pump CO2 thousands of feet underground)

But there's very real potential for carbon removal through restoring ecosystems and regenerative agriculture

The research into carbon removal has also just exploded in the past three years, so there are almost certainly more and better technologies to come

There's also some promising developments in industrial carbon removal, especially this process of harvesting atmospheric CO2 and other air pollution to make baking soda and other industrially useful chemicals

As we take carbon out of the air in larger amounts, less heat will be trapped in the atmosphere

If less heat is trapped in the atmosphere, then the planet will start to cool down

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1. A universal adapter for solar, batteries, EVs, and microgrids is here

“[… T]he technology could be key to dealing with the torrent of power demand from data centers, factories, and electric-vehicle charging hubs that threatens to overwhelm the grid[.…] Using a DG Matrix solid-state transformer can cost half as much as using the standard mix of multiple technologies to connect the components of a typical on-site microgrid, Inam said. It also makes it a lot simpler to quickly mix and match devices or to change up the configuration of systems[….]”

2. Sniffer dogs may have rediscovered a lost population of Sumatran rhinos

“They’d tried everything to locate any remaining rhinos in Way Kambas[… but a]fter years of searching, it took the dogs, named Yagi and Quinn, just two days to find the [rhino] scat. […] “With fewer than 50 [Sumatran rhinos] in the entire global population, even a single individual is a big deal.” […] He adds that conservation dogs work best finding animals that occur at low densities, are secretive, and dwell in “structurally complex landscapes.””

3. Norway pledges more direct funding to support Indigenous peoples in Brazil

“By 2026, one of [the Norwegian Embassy’s] programs plans to provide 91% of its annual funding directly to Indigenous-led funds and organizations[….] The Norwegian Indigenous Peoples Programme (NIPP), which the embassy has managed since 2002, supports projects in Brazil that primarily focus on capacity building within Indigenous organizations, securing Indigenous rights, and promoting sustainable land management and gender rights.”

4. Researchers bring science into the heart of the forest – forest management developed together with local communities

“The project aims to identify and test forest management practices that optimise both biodiversity and carbon storage while supporting rural livelihoods and climate change adaptation. […] “This will enable land management organisations to better protect our most vulnerable forests and sustainably use our most resilient forests, devising new management strategies that will successfully meet biodiversity and carbon objectives[….]””

5. First baby dormice born in park project milestone

“Hazel dormice are a native rodent to the UK[… but] the dormouse population has declined by 70% nationally since 2000, and the species is now extinct in 20 English counties, according to a 2023 report. […] More than 20 hazel dormice were released at Bradgate Park, near Newtown Linford, over the summer. […] Park staff said 11 baby dormice were found on Monday during inspections of the [open release] cages, along with 19 nests.”

By Andy Corbley-Jul 9, 2025

Some species of fig trees store calcium carbonate in their trunks—essentially turning themselves (partially) into stone.

This ‘auto-petrification’ may offer a strange new way to reduce human carbon emissions, as the mineral created by the trees has a much longer lifespan than organic carbon absorbed and deposited in its root system.

An international team of scientists found that three species of Ficus that grow in Kenya were able to draw carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and store it as calcium carbonate ‘rocks’ in the surrounding soil.

The figs are one of the first fruiting trees shown to have this ability, known as the oxalate carbonate pathway. One species in particular, Ficus wakefieldii, was especially prolific.

All trees use photosynthesis to turn CO2 into organic carbon, which forms their trunk, branches, roots and leaves, but certain trees also use CO2 to create calcium oxalate crystals.

When parts of the tree decay, these calcium oxalate crystals are converted by specialized bacteria or fungi into calcium carbonate—the same mineral as limestone or chalk. This increases the soil pH around the tree, while also increasing the availability of certain nutrients.

The inorganic carbon in calcium carbonate typically has a much longer lifetime in the soil than organic carbon, making it a more effective method of CO2 sequestration.

“We’ve known about the oxalate carbonate pathway for some time, but its potential for sequestering carbon hasn’t been fully considered. If we’re planting trees for agroforestry and their ability to store CO2 as organic carbon while producing food, we could choose trees that provide an additional benefit by sequestering inorganic carbon also, in the form of calcium carbonate,” said Dr. Mike Rowley, a senior lecturer at the University of Zurich (UZH) who presented his study on the subject at the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague.

Rowley and his team identified how far from the tree the calcium carbonate was being formed and identified the microbial communities involved in the process.

“As the calcium carbonate is formed, the soil around the tree becomes more alkaline,” Dr. Rowley said. “The calcium carbonate is formed both on the surface of the tree and within the wood structures, likely as microorganisms decompose crystals on the surface and also, penetrate deeper into the tree. It shows that inorganic carbon is being sequestered more deeply within the wood than we previously realized.”

They are now planning to assess F. wakefieldii’s suitability for agroforestry by quantifying its water requirements and fruit yields and by doing a more detailed analysis of how much CO2 can be sequestered under different conditions.

Most of the research into the oxalate-carbonate pathway has been in tropical habitats and focused on trees that do not produce food. The first tree to be identified as having an active oxalate-carbonate pathway was the Iroko (Milicia excelsa). It can sequester one ton of calcium carbonate in the soil over its lifetime.

Calcium oxalate is one of the most abundant biominerals and the crystals are produced by many plants. The microorganisms that convert calcium oxalate to calcium carbonate are also widespread.

“It’s easier to identify calcium carbonate in drier environments,” explained Dr. Rowley.

Hemp absorbs carbon at a rate of about 10 cubic tones per hectare per year...

We need to capture 20 billion tons of co2 a year to keep co2 levels from going up...

In order to, at a minimum, level warming to where the paris agreement established, we need 2 billion hectares of hemp...

Globally de-desertification programs have set a target of 1.5 billion hectares of greening, for which hemp would be ideal because it has minimal resource requirements, grows fast, the roots go deep, and it scrubs heavy metals and other toxic substances from the substrate in which its grown.....

Archaeological finds indicate that hemp is native to all of Europe, Asia, the Levant, North Africa and the Americas

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Excerpt from this New York Times story:

In 2023 and 2024 the world’s forests absorbed only a quarter of the carbon dioxide they did in the beginning of the 21st century, according to data from the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch.

Those back-to-back years of record-breaking wildfires hampered forests’ ability to tuck away billions of tons of carbon dioxide, curbing some of the global warming caused by emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Those two years also marked the first time wildfires surpassed logging or agriculture-driven deforestation as the biggest factor lowering forests’ carbon-capturing ability. It’s an emerging pattern that’s different from the last big drop, in 2016 and 2017, which was largely the result of increased deforestation for agriculture.

Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, acts as a blanket in the atmosphere, trapping the sun’s heat and warming the environment. In some places, rampant burning and deforestation have tipped the scales, turning forests into a source of carbon dioxide emissions instead of a tool for capturing them.

Removing carbon from the atmosphere is “an unpaid service by trees and forests toward slowing climate change,” said Nancy Harris, research director of both WRI’s Global Forest Watch and Land and Carbon Lab. “When we lose that function, we have to work even harder to cut emissions.”