I just got a CO2 meter and checked the levels in my house and went down a rabbit hole trying to address the issue. Apparently it would take 249 areca palms to offset the carbon RESPIRATION of one adult.

So okay 249 trees just for me to breathe, not to mention the rest of the bad things we all do.

So how can this math ever balance? 249 trees just to break even seems like an impossible number. Then all the flights I have been on, miles driven, etc.

I feel like that’s… Way too many trees. Is it hopeless or am I missing something?

  • @dustyData
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    31 year ago

    Ammonia!

    You see, a lot of the agricultural impact on CO2 concentrations on the atmosphere comes from industrial made fertilizers. Which is basically ammonia with a bunch of other things in smaller quantities. Despite being a natural product created by a ton of bacteria and organic processes, today almost all of the ammonia used by agriculture is produced by a chemical process that uses fossil fuels. Specifically extracting hydrogen from fossil fuel to then recombine it into ammonia. It also uses a lot of heat that comes from burning the fossil fuel. The thing is, we don’t technically have to burn fossil fuels to make ammonia, there are other ways. But they require a lot of energy. However, if you have a lot of excess cheap electricity during low demand periods from nuclear power, for example, you can make cheaper ammonia and hydrogen. It’s also cheaper and more efficient to keep a nuclear power plant rolling than to wind it up and down every day. So you can use the excess electricity to power or supplement other power hungry industrial processes like desalinization, hydrogen production, powering water reservoir replenishment pumping, etc.

    This also offsets livestock production because a lot of livestock pollution is feed agricultural production. Almost half of agricultural production is for stock feed.

    So, it would’ve helped, a lot, to have a non-fossil fuel energy source to feed a non-fossil fuel process path to fertilizers.