Why are we not solving the problem of Climate Change on our planet?
We are highly intelligent beings who try to find a means to exist taking into account our surroundings and registering what is best in order to survive, we are survivalists, selfish survivalists ostensibly.
The critical factor is that increased CO2 level in the Earth’s atmosphere does not register with any of our 5 main senses that we use to alert us to danger. We can’t see it most importantly, but we also can’t feel it, hear it, taste it or smell it to raise alarm.
We have also accepted on mass the usefulness of fossil fuel. It has powered our development since its discovery. Even those in charge of this material, although the most powerful and wealthy group of humanity, require the planet’s life supporting mechanisms to function and survive for their continuance also.
It is in the interest of ALL human beings, the weakest and poorest, even up to the strongest and most powerful, to ensure we do not destabilise the Earth’s life supporting mechanisms. It is even to the benefit of ‘Big Oil’ to solve the Climate Crisis, even though their industry has greatly been responsible for creating it.
In order to solve the Climate Conundrum, human unity is the most critical factor above all. So how, given all the divisions in humanity, can we unite to save ourselves? Only by viewing the Climate Chaos threat with as much urgency as we would for an aggressive, attempting to conquer, extra-terrestrial lifeforce. How would such a lifeforce go about that most efficiently. It would do it without resource use or expense by ensuring that we eliminate ourselves by letting us destroy the life supporting mechanism of our planet. To conquer the Earth any envious extra-terrestrial lifeforce would simply stand by and watch us doing exactly what it is we are doing to our Earth right now!
To survive, (all of us), means we need to recognise the hidden, (to our senses), threat we have created and change our ways so that we return our supportive atmosphere to its safe CO2 level and so its safe temperature ranged equilibrium. Like any poison, the CO2 that is poisoning our atmospheric mechanism shows up its damage to the balancing equilibrium with symptoms. Changes, greater variation in temperature, are the symptoms of that poisoning.
We need to recognise the CO2 increase and work out how to reduce it across the planet, all joining in, by a simple natural mechanism. That answer is to use historically proven means to balance the temperature of the planet over time. The regulation of CO2 in the atmosphere by natural means and free, is plants. Plants capture carbon dioxide and use it to build their structure. Cellulose is the most abundant molecule on the surface of the Earth. Plants are our regulator. We need to return the Earth to its former green glory! We need to learn to care for our green plants and let them thrive naturally.
However, we have an immediate, planet threatening problem. We have reached a point whereby our destabilisation of the CO2 in the air is causing even greater destruction of the green plants we need. Drought, flood, forest and bush fires, human desire for land to house and feed us, all contribute to a rapidly decreasing green plant covered planet.
We are fast approaching a critical tipping point; the point of no return. The hotter we make the planet the greater the green plant destruction. There is now only one plant left on the planet that can safely save us all in time. It is DUCKWEED. Why? It is because unlike, bacteria, algae, and fungi, it is very specific in its growing habitat so that it can be controlled.
Why is it important that it is controlled? If we develop algae, bacteria or fungi to start ‘mopping up’ lots of CO2 we can go too far and reduce the CO2 level to below the scientifically accepted equilibrium level of 350ppm CO2 in our planet’s gaseous atmosphere. We need controlled carbon
sequestration and the word ‘controlled’ is very important. Bacteria, fungi and algae are all relatively uncontrollable compared to DUCKWEED.
Why are these three and duckweed (an angiosperm plant) the means to CO2 effective rapid reduction in the atmosphere? It is because they are all capable of exponential growth. For carbon capture from the air there is an equation. It is Mass x Time x Surface Area.
DUCKWEED is the only plant that is capable of reducing CO2 in a human controlled way in the time that we have left available to do so. It is the only plant that we can effectively allow to exponentially expand in a safe controlled manner. It is also the only plant we can, by our direct intervention, create extra surfaces of the Earth for.
Duckweed requires a still, non-salty, mineral rich (especially nitrates), fresh-water medium to grow on. It floats and needs only the surface and a small depth of approximately 1cm to grow on and its tiny root to grow in. Duckweed comes in various varieties and have many valuable uses for humanity, such as human food, animal feed, biofuel and fertilizer recycling and water purification. The best variety for carbon capture is the smallest variety. The wolffia micro variety, because of its small size, means that when it is harvested it dries in air within an hour, without allowing time to rot. It desicates before it rots and this is critical because any green plant that rots releases its captured carbon back into the air. The micro version of Duckweed does not, so it keeps the carbon captured and is of such a form that it can be compressed and shaped, much in the same way that pulped cardboard can.
This is also an important feature because it means we can manipulate it into as many shapes and sizes we want. We need to keep this captured carbon solid. It must not be allowed to rot nor to burn. There will also be a lot of it! Billions of tons of it to capture enough carbon. We can create man-made peat bogs in disused quarries to keep it or ‘hide’ it in plain view by using it as packaging or in the construction industry or as decorative sculpture. Duckweed is the rapid short-term solution we need. The long-term solution requires better management and care of our green plants, such as trees and seagrass.
DUCKWEED along with reducing fossil fuel usage IS THE SOLUTION to the Climate Crisis we have created, we just need to recognise it in time and thus create the means to correct our error and to return the Earth to the life supporting planet it naturally was. If we don’t do this it is extinction time for us and most of the life we know and love on this amazing, yet fragile planet of ours.