Forums → WEPR → Environmentalism

Now take all those trees who would burn in a huge forest fire,

they do respire, but it is oxygen, not much carbon though. Some carbon, but how much I don't know.

Anyway, what i was asking, though I am sorry I didn't put it clearly, is if we can make a fast-growing large plant, like bamboo, and combine other plant DNA. Some type of plant that has the most carbon absorption production, also make it so that it produces seeds, but in a manner that it is easily harvested and doesn't take over the world, in the rapid seedlings and suckers kind of way. So maybe some type of fruit that has many seeds, but don't germinate well on their own, but do well if they are planted by humans.

Any suggestions?

~krill11

plant cells have mitochondria just like animal cells, and they do perform cellular respiration and put out carbon, so I am just wondering, wouldn't that mean that planting more plants wouldn't help much because they would just put the carbon back in the air as carbon dioxide. If this is true, I guess it might be possible to alleviate by putting the plants under lights, but that would just use more electricity putting more carbon in the air.

Plants also have mitochondria, to produce energy of course. But in total, plants still consume CO2; they need it for the energy and building up the structure.

It may be somehow possible to raise their efficiency genetically, but again, I don't think it would be much, and difficult to control; also, we don't want monocultures of 'filtering' plants since that would also have an impact on the fauna. What we want is intact original ecosystems, some may be better at binding CO2 than others, but that doesn't matter. We should first concentrate on preserving and restoring the vegetation, and through that also the fauna.

The idea about lighting them, might increase slightly their photosynthetic efficiency too, but apart from the necessary energy, all these light sources would heat up unnecessarily, thus pretty much killing the purpose.

Plants also have mitochondria, to produce energy of course. But in total, plants still consume CO2; they need it for the energy and building up the structure.

all these light sources would heat up unnecessarily, thus pretty much killing the purpose.

I wasn't sure which they used more, but someone answered on yahoo answers that plants use mitochondria all day.

Don't LED's give out less heat than fluorescent light bulbs. Also, you want blue light because that is more of what is absorbed.

But the plant assimilates/stores carbon.

True. But you still have to built all those lights, which isn't climate neutral, and you need the electricity for it too.

Why would we need to build lights when we already have one with so much power we don't know how to deal with it completely? plants have been surviving well for who-knows-how-long. (not looking for an answer on how long plants have been on the earth)

Wouldn't creating plants in a gigantic, multilevel, greenhouse be more efficient than creating a machine? It would help keep the plants from spawning and going beyond boundaries. Having the seed's in a fruit form would also keep it easier to control, right?

I think we should also give some credit to the Earth about its adaptive powers. Personally I think we are underestimating the adaptive powers of the Earth. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't take care of her, but that we should do our best without going insane about every new fad that comes around.

The sense as seen by,
~krill11

MUH FREE MARKET

What we need to do is get big oil out of our government. They have too much influence on government and are wiping out any competition. Currently, big energy companies like Koch Industries, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell all have huge investments in solar and wind energy and get huge subsidies for it. This shouldn't be. We need to make oil less profitable by encouraging small businesses to get into the energy business and compete with big oil.

Solyndra was promising, but, as always, the government got involved and it went bankrupt. We need more competition and less government intervention. We have the demand and the supply, we just need to allocate the resources efficiently, which the free market is very good at doing.

Koch Industries, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell all have huge investments in solar and wind energy

It's true that big companies like that have too much influence; they need more concurrence.

Also, stopping rainforest cuts, I don't see that helping much with green house gases. A rainforest is about equal to a grassy field with a few bushes, just because of how little light penetrates. what we need is more of the temperate forests.

your saying they should be shut down because they are investing in green energy, that makes no sense.

A rainforest is about equal to a grassy field with a few bushes, just because of how little light penetrates.

I'd just like to say that about 20% of the Earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon Rainforest.

lol holy **** who taught you science?

I don't think anyone taught you how oxygen is produced by plants. Even a freshman would know that.