In an effort to solve the problem of global warming, industrial attempts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, a typical greenhouse gas, and to achieve carbon neutrality are beginning to be made among nations.
I think it is rash to simply assume that the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the biggest cause of global warming, but since carbon dioxide in the atmosphere certainly has a greenhouse effect, I think it is very important to try to reduce it.
In addition to reducing man-made carbon dioxide emissions, something else we need to consider is reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide. There are many possible methods to do this, but I have suggested two. One is the use of green carbon and the other is the use of blue carbon.
Green carbon is the carbon that plants on land fix by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. And blue carbon is the enormous amount of carbon dioxide taken up from the atmosphere by marine organisms. Simply put, it is the carbon that plants on land and in the ocean take up and fix in themselves from the atmosphere, and as long as this process goes on, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will decrease.
After all, the attempt to reduce the enormous amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a difficult problem that cannot be solved by human power. The best way to solve this problem would be to use the power of nature.
Since both green carbon and blue carbon are biological reactions that are inherently provided by Mother Nature, their utilization can be expected to be low-cost. This would be a great advantage. However, since we are dealing with nature, we cannot expect immediacy and certainty.
The application of green carbon is nothing but a greening movement, this needs to be done strategically.
The key to green carbon is carbon fixation of carbon dioxide using plants. I think we can set a secondary goal of obtaining high resource value wood. This is because wood is a can of carbon and will not be converted into carbon dioxide unless it is burned or decomposed. Humans can use wood wisely and permanently as furniture and buildings, so the resource value of wood is extremely high.
Trees that can yield wood with high resource value are selected according to their location, and cultivated and grown like grain in a field. When the trees reach a certain size, they are cut down and processed into lumber. This is not the destruction of nature. Please change your mind. Wood is a can that will continue to fix carbon dioxide as carbon unless it is burned or decomposed. The resulting wood can be sold to the market or kept as a national resource.
Unfortunately, environmental measures do not proceed on an idealistic basis. There is always a business point of view mixed in with the desire to make a profit. If we want to use green carbon to effectively reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, I think it is essential to look at the economic value of obtaining high-quality wood.
Next, let's talk about the utilization of blue carbon.
Since almost all of the plants in the ocean exist in coastal areas, the main source of blue carbon is also coastal areas. The seaweed beds that grow phytoplankton and seaweed in coastal areas are the home of blue carbon. This is because phytoplankton and seaweed fix carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into carbon. Enriching the seaweed beds, which are the cradle of these marine organisms, is the application of blue carbon.
To enrich the seaweed beds, the first measures we need to take are to remove artificial pollution from coastal areas, improve the water quality, and maintain the rivers so that water that has passed through the mountain forests can flow into them.
The most important thing is that the water from the mountain forests is supplied to the seaweed beds. This is because this water is rich in iron, which is essential for the growth of phytoplankton and seaweed. It is not a known fact that iron is a very important chemical that is always in short supply in seawater in nature (If you're interested, Let’s find out Dr. John Martin's iron hypothesis!). However, throwing iron scraps into the ocean is not the answer. What the ocean needs are not iron, but iron ions.
An important fact is that the water supplied to the seaweed bed from the mountain forest contains fulvic acid iron, which is the result of iron combining with fulvic acid in the soil. It is known that fulvic acid iron supplies iron ions in seawater to phytoplankton and seaweed. The mountains and forests supply iron to the ocean and nurture it.
Why does the water from mountain forests contain fulvic acid iron? The reason is that forests have a humus layer on their soil surface. Fulvic acid is produced by the decomposition of fallen leaves of broadleaf trees in the humus layer and combines with iron in the soil to form fulvic acid iron.
In any case, the supply of iron fulvate to coastal areas will lead to the enrichment of seaweed beds, which will increase blue carbon.
In addition, the enrichment of seawoods beds also means the enrichment of the food chain in the marine ecosystem, which will have the benefit of contributing to the conservation of marine organisms.
As I mentioned about green carbon and blue carbon, the problem is not so simple that reducing carbon dioxide will improve global warming.
Recently, there has been an urgent need to reduce methane, another greenhouse gas. The greenhouse effect of methane is tens of times greater than that of carbon dioxide. I believe that we must not only reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but also methane emissions.
The methane released into the atmosphere will disappear naturally in about 10 years, so if we can reduce the amount of methane we produce, we can drastically reduce the greenhouse effect of methane. In the meantime, if we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions, we will be able to eliminate or slow down global warming.
I hope to return to a world where climate problems are merely rare natural disasters.
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