Can growing flora on a grand scale remove all the excess CO2 from the atmosphere?

Question

Since most of the surface of Earth is not producing any biomass at this time why not do whatever is reqired to help plants grow? If 1/3 of the surface was producing boimass there would be no CO2 problem.

Answer 1

Good point, how often do you see subdivisions built in to an area, deforestation for those places and nothing to replace the lost plant and wildlife. It should be a requirement to plant trees and plant life in a certain percentage on your property.

Answer 2

Yes, but not at this point. The amount CO2 is too much to be removed by plants. CO2 emission rate is faster than the rate of which plants can absorb CO2, so it wouldnt be too much of a help in the short term. It will take a long time to absorb all that CO2 that's in the atmosphere. However, we should always grow as much greens as possible because it doesnt hurt to have more trees and plants on this planet.

Answer 3

um, CO2 problem? What CO2 problem? there needs to be CO2 in the air so plants can grow. The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have been constant for 10000 years.
And 1/3 of the surface? there is no more room to grow plants, the land is being used, or unusable.
Also, small plants really don't lower C02 levels, it takes trees decades to take in more than they put out. So a rose bush here and there won't do much guarenteed for 10 years (it may even hurt), and little after that.

Answer 4

Not if we keep releasing more C02 every year. If we were able to replant the amazon basin and planted millions of trees where they were growing in the early 1800's we would have spots of low co2. We might slow the acid rain going into Canada by a small bit. But our cities are putting out so much junk in the air, we would be hard pressed to make any headway at all. That doesn't begin to clean up the air in China.
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Answer 5

Beucase plants are a temporary fixt to the CO2 problem, or atleast this is how it was explained to me.

Plants use CO2 when they are growing and actually release it when they are decaying. If you grow a massive amount of plants they will reduce the carbon untill they start to decay than they will actually contribute carbon to the atmosphere.

I've heard a couple times from different sources it takes trees several decades to become carbon positive, most plants don't have a life span of decades.

Answer 6

planting trees is better than smaller plants or grasses as they are more effective in uptake of CO2 and they also cool the earth's surface with shade but they annual increase of fossil fuel burning is so great that it would be impossible to plant enough of them remove the excess.

up until the population increases and deforestation hat began several thousand years ago with the advent of agriculture, human activity was pretty much in balance with the rest of the planet but that has changed. with the burning of coal to power the machinery of the industrial age, this activity has vastly outstripped the ability of vegetation to remove CO2 and is rapidly making it harder fr the oceans - the biggest carbon sink on earth - to do so also.

don't stop planting trees. just try to drive and consume less in order to fight the problem of climate change from both ends...

Answer 7

Plants and trees produce water vapor which is actually a warming factor. Only rain forests seem to help with global warming (I don't remember why exactly), so it is best to promote the regrowth of rain forests. Growing trees in temperate regions like north america do not help much, and it might even be detrimental.

Answer 8

maybe so, but i doubt it will repair the o zone.