The US just invested more than $1 billion into carbon removal / The move represents a big step in the effort to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere—and slow down climate change.::undefined

  • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That’s not what that article says. At all.

    As mentioned in the article, moss is pretty good at pulling particulates out of the air and “cleaning” it in that sense.

    But trying to get CO2 out of the air isn’t the same. Trees are very effective at this because they have a lot of mass and density and are largely carbon themselves. When we talk about “carbon sequestering”, we’re generally talking things like trees because that carbon from the air has to go somewhere and having a huge dense chunk of carbon is basically the most efficient natural method.

    Moss is good at removing other particles, but trees are generally still better at carbon sequestering and CO2 removal.

    Semi related: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/187327/how-plants-carbon-affects-their-response/

    TL;DR - if you want to suck up a lot of CO2, you basically want a massive plant. Moss isn’t one of them.