"Humanity has only so much time to limit global warming and minimize the severity of future climate disasters. And with mostly tepid attempts to slash greenhouse gas emissions, researchers are scrambling for realistic ways to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. Flashy, high-tech proposals that promise to vacuum pollutants out of the sky, or to scrub them from smokestacks before they hit the atmosphere, have attracted attention and investmentbut are falling far short of expectations."
"Wood burial, also called wood vaulting or biomass burial, could potentially store more than 12 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year and decrease global warming by more than a third of a degree Celsius (more than half a degree Fahrenheit), according to a recent study in Nature Geoscience. This difference sounds small, but preventing a few tenths of a degree of warming could keep polar ice caps from completely disintegrating, coral reefs from collapsing and other tipping points from triggering."
Rapid climate risk and modest emission cuts are driving search for realistic carbon removal methods. Many engineered carbon-capture ideas have attracted investment but are underperforming. A low‑technology alternative collects logs, branches, wood chips and sawdust and buries them to divert carbon from the fast biological cycle into a much slower geological cycle. Biomass burial could potentially store over 12 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year and lower global warming by more than one‑third of a degree Celsius. Preventing a few tenths of a degree of warming could avert polar ice disintegration, coral reef collapse and other tipping points. New reservoirs on land, in oceans, or geological formations are required to enable large‑scale removal.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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