Carbon Capture
THE SITUATION
People have changed the earth, causing an overall rise in temperature that will have massive and painful impacts. Sea levels are rising, storms are getting more frequent and more powerful and many species struggle with these impacts.
World leaders have agreed to make changes, but they are too little, and every year they get pushed back further. COP 27 in Egypt is about the call to action, but so was COP 26 last year.
Discussion is getting more direct, but change at that level is slow and must fight those whose beliefs and interests lie in the status quo.
“How will we answer when ‘Baby 8 Billion’ is old enough to ask: What did you do for our world – and for our planet — when you had the chance?… Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible…Human activity is the cause of the climate problem. So human action must be the solution.” UN Sec General, António Guterres
The agreement is that we have to change the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Government and industry leaders are debating massive initiatives that will take years to implement, if they get traction at all.
OUR APPROACH
While governments and corporations debate and kick the can down the road, our approach is that we can each help make small changes now, and together they will have a large impact. That’s the “Butterfly Effect.” We work to capture carbon in a straightforward way: “Plant trees, change our Earth.” Reclaiming rainforest will lock in huge amounts of carbon, produce oxygen, provide habitat for hundreds of species and begin to repair some of the damage.
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DEEPER DIVE
Historically the atmospheric temperature of the earth has been directly linked to solar irradiance. That is, as the sunlight energy varies over time, so does the temperature of the atmosphere. Extensive time series studies have shown that the two are coupled. However, in the recent past, since about 1980, the temperature of the atmosphere has been decoupled from the solar irradiance.
This decoupling has been correlated with an increase in the global warming of the atmosphere not associated with a commensurate change in solar irradiance. This decoupling is the result of consumption of fossil fuels, primarily, oil and coal by humans.
Carbon dioxide is the major source of global warming; however, methane (a fossil fuel remnant) and nitrous oxide, N2O, mostly from soils, as well as some industrial gases, notably the chlorofluorocarbons, also play a role. The question that PRFRP will focus on is converting pastureland to secondary
rainforest in Costa Rica for the purpose of capturing and sequestering CO2 and thus reducing atmospheric concentrations.
The first scientific paper has been written and submitted for publication, “Carbon Storage Estimation in Secondary Tropical Forest at CIEE Sustainability Center Monteverde, Costa Rica,” authored by A. Paniagua-Ramirez, O. Krupinska, V. Jagdeo,
W. J. Cooper. This paper will serve as a model for additional studies to be conducted on issues of reforestation in Costa Rica in Sarapiquí, Heredia Provence and carbon neutrality calculations for estimating the carbon footprint of establishments.
Our science team is also working on multiple papers on various topics related to our work including carbon sequestration and measurement. We are currently exploring the integration of terrestrial and orbital technology and data products to our traditional measures and mappings.
This dovetails into our Education Programs and we plan to deliver a good deal of course content on the process of determining the amount of carbon captured to engage students from high school through graduate levels.
