Once you start dipping into the literature on animals and the carbon cycle, it's hard to stop. The relatively new field is packed with eye-popping numbers. A paper published in February notes without drama that “....the total carbon stored in wild mammals and birds is equivalent to roughly eight hours of current anthropogenic fossil fuel …
Wildebeest and Climate Change
Noodling around the growing literature on carbon cycling by animals, I recently came across a startling fact. More than half a century of wildebeest recovery in Africa’s Serengeti has resulted in the sequestration of enough carbon each year to offset all of East Africa’s fossil fuel emissions. Think about that for a minute. More wildebeest …
Catching Carbon: Why ‘Cheap’ Still Comes with a Cost.
A peer-reviewed study published last week revealed that the cost of capturing carbon directly out of the atmosphere may not be as high as initially feared. Canadian firm Carbon Engineering have been running a pilot plant in British Columbia since 2015 capable of capturing a ton of carbon dioxide per day from the ambient air. …
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Fires, Floods, and Falling Carbon
The second half of 2017 must be an uncomfortable time to be a climate change denier. The rapidly growing list of weather records being set in recent weeks must make even the most rabid denialist squirm. The largest amount of rain to fall on the North American continent in a single storm (51 inches from …
Christopher J. Preston 