The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Carbon Dioxide emmissions

  • Trees are Here to Help

    Trees are Here to Help

    How planting trees can serve as one branch of a climate action plan

    In the face of climate change, all scales of society, from government to corporations to individuals, are looking for ways to emit less and sink more carbon. The internet latched onto the tree-planting solution, but it’s important the right trees are planted in the right place at the right time.

    The climate crisis is the dominant issue of this decade. According to Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala, who wrote the article “A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check” in 2006, the world must avoid emitting about 200 billion tons of carbon over the next 50 years.

    To make the problem manageable, Socolow and Pacala turned the required reduction into one-billion-ton “wedges.” The paper contained strategies that could be scaled up by 2050 to reduce carbon emissions by one million tons per year. For example, a wedge would be achieved if the number of miles traveled by the world’s cars was cut in half or if global deforestation was halted within 50 years.

    Tree planting has become one of the most popular solutions in popular culture. Ecosia and Team Trees are two internet campaigns working to plant millions of trees.

    A consistent goal in climate science is net zero emissions. In other words, the volume of greenhouse gasses going into the atmosphere needs to equal the volume coming out. With a record 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted in 2018, that’s a daunting task. To achieve this goal, society needs to emit less carbon and increase nature’s carbon sinking, or the natural process of turning carbon dioxide gas into solid matter.

    Top minds of the world are putting their heads together to come up with solutions, ranging from modernized public transportation to alternative energy technology to lifestyle changes toward less consumption. Beyond that, policy makers and scientists are working closely with everyday people to educate, inspire and solve the crisis.

    Locally, Humboldt State University, the City of Arcata and Humboldt County have prepared climate action plans. In the spring of 2019, five public workshops were hosted by the county to get ideas from community members on an action plan. The primary goal of these plans is to reduce emissions to pre-1990 levels by 2030.

    2030 is the nearest milestone in climate policy. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Global Warming, global emissions will need to fall 45% from 2010 levels by then to be on track for the net zero emissions goal for 2050. This ideal timeline would limit global warming to the best-case 1.5 degree Celsius increase in average temperature, a goal which still brings with it real climate change.

    • Trees in Patrick’s Point State Park in Trinidad, CA on March 16, 2017. | Photo by Collin Slavey

    Tree planting has become one of the most popular solutions in popular culture. Ecosia and Team Trees are two internet campaigns working to plant millions of trees. A number of science-based YouTubers have published videos explaining the project, including SmarterEveryDay, Mr.Beast and Aspect Science.

    Trees are a valuable ally in the battle against climate change because they sequester carbon. A tree’s bark is made out of carbon. During photosynthesis, plants turn sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into glucose. The glucose molecule, along with other essential nutrients, turns into plant matter like leaves, branches and roots, effectively storing carbon in a solid state.

    For this ordeal to be successful, it’s essential the people planting trees understand the silvics of those trees. Silvics is the study of the life history and characteristics of forest trees, and without understanding it, the newly-planted trees are more likely to die.

    With the Earth at a critical time in its life history, the top minds of the world are opting for some deep breaths, planning and deliberate, well-informed environmental action.

  • The health of the ocean is in our hands

    The health of the ocean is in our hands

    Waves with mist trailing off of their crests, sea gulls crying, fishing boats on the horizon, the rewards of enjoying life by the sea are vast. But along with the rewards comes danger. There is a threat to sea life that can change all of our lives, ocean acidification.

    Ocean acidification will either cause adaptation or extinction for most marine life.

    Stephen Palumbi, a professor in marine sciences from the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, says that we have gone from an overabundance of marine life 100 years ago to there being no marine life 100 years from now.

    Robert Matthews, a criminology major at Humboldt State, had never heard of ocean acidification and learning about it shocked him.

    “Ocean acidification is a big problem, it’s bad enough there is a trash vortex,” Matthews said.

    Carbon dioxide absorbed into the ocean helps reduce greenhouse gases in the environment, but this results in ocean acidification.

    Ocean acidification is when the carbon dioxide levels in the ocean change the chemistry of the seawater. Fossil fuel carbon emissions are also changing the chemistry of the ocean.

    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the oceans have absorbed 25 percent of the carbon dioxide produced since the beginning of the industrial revolution and humankind’s industrial and agricultural activities.

    Biochemistry professor at HSU Jenny Cappuccio has been involved in a project with University of California, Berkeley by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the ground.

    “I never expected to be involved in rocks, it wasn’t in my background. It’s great to learn new things,” Cappuccio said.

    Cappuccio’s work on the project had to do with bacterial microbes converting carbon dioxide gas to carbon dioxide solid.

    “Ocean acidified seawater has shifted [seawater] equilibrium to dissolve marine calcifying organisms, shells and corals, rather than build them,” Cappuccio said.

    “Calcifying organisms like shells sequester carbon dioxide,” O’Shea said.

    Oceanography professor Danny O’Shea has hope that we will be able to turn it around.

    “Things are getting better faster than they are getting worse,” O’Shea said. “People like us are going to school and making positive changes out there.”

    At HSU, students, staff and faculty are working to combat ocean acidification. HSU marine lab technician and student Kindle Murie has put her education and future into ocean acidification research.

    “Lab work is paying off,” Murie said.

    Murie is looking forward to a new research project on the effects of ocean acidification in kelp forests, both in the ocean and in the marine lab.

    HSU has grown with knowledge and funding for ocean programs enabling students and faculty to do more research.

    “Water gets more acidic the further you go down,” oceanographer Hal Greer said. “It is getting harder on the ocean and its organisms to buffer the affects of carbon dioxide.”

    At the HSU marine lab, undergraduate and graduate students work together with professors making new research discoveries.

    According to Grant Eberle, the HSU marine lab equipment technician, ocean acidification is currently a “hot topic.”

    “We have a unique upwelling of reduced pH ocean acidic seawater in Trinidad,” Eberle said.

    This unique setting gives students a good opportunity to research ocean acidification.

    The oceans absorb more carbon dioxide and heat from the atmosphere every day. The importance of this research demands our attention.