94
Meet ‘Chonkus,’ the Algae Trying to End the Climate Crisis
(www.popularmechanics.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
94 points (98.0% liked)
Mildly Interesting
17592 readers
3 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
There is a world where some lab finally "solves" the rubisco "issue", and an algae escapes containment only to gobble up all the CO2 on the planet in a matter of decades and throw us into an ice-ball planet scenario, reminiscent of Cats Cradle (see the cat? see the cradle?).
I think in this case the idea is that it needs the high temperature and toxic environment reminiscent of sulfur vents and it already is in the wild.
Sure. But as soon as some research group develops a work-around for competitive inhibition, well then, we might all be well and truly fucked. It would be an adaptation like the development of woody tissue before the advent of wood decomposing organisms. Basically, plants evolved to become trees, and CO2 went "I guess I'll be heading out", which was the time period where basically ALL fossil coal was laid down.
So while this finding seems interesting on its own merit, its not going to start an ice-age.
You say that like it's going to happen.