Guest Post by Ira Glickstein.
When Lord Monckton told Congress “CO2 is plant food”, the Global Warming activists went crazy because … well, because they know he spoke an inconvenient truth. Monckton’s statement was ridiculed in many blog posts and You Tube videos, but no one directly contradicted his claim because it is clearly correct. Instead, they changed the subject to the supposed effects of rising Carbon Dioxide: too little AND too much precipitation (drought/flood), unusually high AND low temperatures (burn/freeze), and other contradictory consequences.
But, no one can deny the truth. Plants live on CO2. They are made of carbohydrates (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen). They get their carbon from the CO2 in the atmosphere. It is a fact that the best food crop yields occur when plants are grown in atmospheres that are triple or quadruple current CO2 levels. That proves current CO2 levels are way below most of the period of plant life evolution and adaptation on Earth.
This posting is about a concept that unites two technologies I predict will gain prominence in coming decades: Underground Coal Gasification and Elevated CO2 Farming, and how they may be united to provide a sustainable ENERGY and FOOD supply for the coming century.
See Clean Coal (Say WATT?) for an introduction to the concept of clean coal as a critical part of our energy future.
Also download this narrated PowerPoint Show for an animated version of this posting, complete with audio description and more detailed graphics than posted here.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND FOOD CONCEPT
The concept illustrated in the graphic is based on using underground gasified coal (or coal to liquid as an alternative) to generate both electrical POWER and provide CO2 as a plant food in an elevated CO2 greenhouse that produces FOOD as a byproduct, with biomass feedback to generate biogas as additional fuel for power generation.
As indicated, there are three steps to the process:
- Underground Coal Gasification, Burning the Coalgas to POWER the generation of electricity, and Capture of the resultant CO2 (the plant food).
- Growing FOOD in an elevated CO2 greenhouse where, using the captured CO2 and the energy of the Sun, yields are greatly improved.
- Recycling the cellulose and other non-edible biowaste into biogas (methane, etc.) that may be fed back into the fuel supply system for electrical power generation.
WHY COAL?
Coal is currently the most used fuel for generating electrical power in the US, and it is the centerpiece of this concept because it is the most plentiful here and in many other countries. As indicated in the graphic, fossil fuels, namely coal, natural gas, and oil, constitute about 70% of electrical generation in the US. These fuels create CO2 when burned. CO2 has been depicted as a poison, with James Hansen calling coal trains “death trains” and coal-fired electric plants “factories of death”. There are proposals to capture the CO2 and re-sequester it by pumping it into old oil wells, perhaps extracting additional oil by doing so. It seems to me it would be smarter to use the CO2 for the purpose Nature intended, as plant food!
The remaining 30% of US electric generation may be considered “green”. Of that, most is nuclear. We should have done a better job using nuclear, as France did, but we were scared away from it by the dangers of release of radiation and radioactive waste. There is a resurgence of interest in nuclear and we may see more new plants built at some time in the future, but the regulatory environment is daunting.
The “renewable” component of “green” energy makes up about 11.5% of the US total, and consists mostly of water (hydroelectric) with some wind and other sources such as direct solar electric. These pure forms of “green” will probably grow, under the umbrella of government subsidies, but they are unlikely to provide much more than 20% of our electricity for decades, if ever.
MORE DETAIL ON THE SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND FOOD CONCEPT
The chemistry of the concept is diagrammed in the graphic.
1) Gasified Coal-Fired Power Plant with CO2 Capture
(a) Underground Gasified Coal.
Coalgas (also called synthetic gas or syngas) may be generated within a coal mine. This is done almost completely underground to reduce transport costs and pollution. Safety is improved because there are no personnel required within the mine itself. This technique is especially suitable for very deep mines, where traditional methods would be more expensive, or for low-quality or depleted mines. Newly developed technology makes possible robots that operate in harsh environments as well as remotely-controlled sensors and actuators that permit the highest possible level of control of the gasification process.
Gasification works by first igniting the coal within the coal seam and then pumping in air and water in quantities that are just sufficient to maintain incomplete combustion, such that combustible Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide are generated. The chemistry is as follows:
6C {carbon from coal} + 2H2O {water} + 2O2 {Oxygen from air} ==> Coalgas: 4H {hydrogen} + 6CO {Carbon Monoxide}
Description of formula: Coal is almost completely carbon. Six Carbon atoms (6C) are combined with two water molecules (2H2O) and two Oxygen molecules (2O2) to produce Coalgas that consists of four hydrogen atoms (4H) and six Carbon Monoxide molecules (6CO).
Coalgas may be further processed to yield liquid from coal, or it may be used directly as fuel in an electrical power plant.
(b) Burning the Coalgas and Capturing the CO2.
The coalgas is piped to the power plant where it is burned to heat the boiler and generate steam to run the generators. Electrical POWER is transmitted to customers via the grid.
The chemistry is as follows:
Coalgas: 4H {Hydrogen} + 6CO {Carbon Monoxide} + 4O2 {Oxygen from air} ==> POWER + 6CO2 {Carbon Dioxide} + 2H2O {Water}
Description of formula: Coalgas, consisting of four Hydrogen atoms (4H) and the six Carbon Monoxide molecules (6CO), when burned in the powerplant, yield POWER to drive generation of electricity plus six Carbon Dioxide molecules (6CO2) and two water molecules (2H2O).
CO2 has been wrongly depicted as a poison. There are projects underway to re-sequester the carbon by pumping it into abandoned oil wells and so on, possibly recovering additional oil in the process. However, since CO2 is plant food, I think it makes far more sense to capture and utilize this valuable product to grow food!
The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 390 ppm (parts per million). Doubling or tripling that level in a CO2 greenhouse can greatly increase the yield of many crops. It turns out that 1000 to 1400 ppm is ideal for increasing production of tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce by from 20% to 50%; grains such as rice, wheat, barley, oats, and rye by from 25% to 64%; roots such as potatoes, yams, and cassava by from 18% to 75%, and legumes such as peas, beans, and soybeans by 28% to 46%! It is likely that genetic engineering could develop new food crops that would thrive in CO2 levels of 2000 ppm or even higher, greatly increasing yields.
CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight to produce carbohydrates – the material of which their roots, body, and fruits consist. Increasing CO2 level reduces the time needed by plants to mature. CO2 enters the plant through microscopic pores that are mainly located on the underside of the leaf. This enables plants to combine CO2 and water, with the aid of light energy, to form sugar. Nutrients and water uptake usually increase with higher levels of CO2 and plants develop larger, more extensive root systems that allow them to exploit additional pockets of water and nutrients, and spend less metabolic energy to capture vital nutrients. The chemistry is as follows:
6CO2 {Carbon Dioxide) + 2H2O {water} + 4H2O (added water) + SOLAR ENERGY ==> C6H12O6 (sugar} + 6O2 {Oxygen}
Description of formula: The combustion process produced six Carbon Dioxide molecules (i.e. PLANT FOOD) plus 2 water molecules. To these we add four molecules of water plus the ENERGY from the Sun. This yields FOOD in the form of a sugar molecule as well as six molecules of Oxygen, released into the atmosphere to partially compensate for some of the Oxygen used during the combustion process.
3) Recycling Cellulose to Biogas. Parts of the plant that are inedible, such as cellulose (chemical formula C6H10O6), are biowaste that may be fermented to form biogas, such as methane, which may be pumped back into the combustion process described in step (1).
CONCLUSIONS
The sustainable ENERGY and FOOD concept outlined here has the potential to provide necessary electricity along with foods in the form of vegetables, grains, roots, and legumes in a most efficient manner with minimum release of CO2 to the atmosphere. The concept makes use of coal, which is plentiful in the US and many other countries.
It will be many decades, if ever, before renewable energy sources, such as wind, water, and solar can provide levels of electricity needed for the human population. Nuclear energy, currently around 30% in the US, is probably the best alternative, as France, with over 70%, and other countries have demonstrated. However, despite growing acceptance of nuclear in the US, it remains fraught with regulatory paralysis and “not in my backyard” parochialism.
Clean coal, which even President Obama has said he will defend, is the best answer for the coming several decades at least. There are two aspects to clean coal: (a) Prior to combustion: Reducing release of pollutants onto land or into water or the atmosphere, and (b) After combustion: Capturing and re-sequestering the CO2 and other products of combustion. Underground coal gasification (or the alternative, coal to liquid) is the answer to (a). However, the idea that the answer to (b) should be sequestering CO2 by pumping into old oil wells strikes me as a waste of a valuable plant food resource.
I’m just a systems engineer, but I’m quick on the uptake and have the ability to absorb a little bit about a lot of things – just enough to come up with innovative concepts that may or may not be practical (and, even if practical, are bound to have some sticking points that need lots of detailed study, science, and engineering :^). I love to work with domain experts who know how to dig deep in their area of specialization. I’d appreciate comments on this proposal by WUWT readers who have, I am sure, far more detailed and specific knowledge of the science and technology involved in this concept.
If you are going to buy the argument that CO2 needs to be cleaned from the atmosphere then could you also buy the argument that it is well mixed and therefore does not need any contraption to be distributed to CO2 cleaning plants but can simply and economically be released to the open air? Thanks.
hey, that was my idea ira! I just didn’t bother to write it up.
Well, less likely Anthony would have noticed if I’d sent it in. No letters next to my name see.
This is more a reason why the top international money changer family rothschild initiated the AGW meme back in the 1980s, for carbon capture.
To answer Pamela Gray’s fair point,
I don’t think gaining control in the grain crop market is the idea.
Today commercial greenhouses, which pump up the air CO2 to 1000-2000ppm, for perishables like lettuce, are economically viable. With the threat of a new relatively long ice-age glacial period on us, it’s fair to say greenhouses will become more economic in future than they are now.
So it’s just the old control game that international money changers have played –
control the food and you control the people – henry kissinger
Thanks Tim for your comments. What I have in mind could be different from standard greenhouses that are primarily for temperature control. Perhaps my scheme would take the form of trailer-truck sized hydroponic containers that would be loaded with plantlets in a factory-type set up and then trucked outside where they would be hooked up to an enhanced-CO2 air system and a fertilizer-water system. A transparent plastic cap (or sheet) would be put in place to seal the container. When the mature plants are ready for harvest, the cap would be removed and the container would be trucked into the factory for unloading and processing of the food crop, and reloading of plantlets. Perhaps this would make the scheme economical.
You are right, pollutants would have to be filtered out as part of the function of the enhanced-CO2 air system and fertilizer-water system. I would not expect any workers to have to be within the sealed containers.
What I had in mind was that my scheme was like Nature’s way where growing plants produce Oxygen for animals to breathe and animals return CO2 for plants to consume. In my scheme, the Oxygen removed from the air during the combustion process is partially returned ot the air during the plant growing process. Of course, the carbon from the coalgas would end up in the atmosphere.
Overall, however, I think my scheme will transfer less CO2 into the atmosphere. Normal coal-fired electricity generation releases previously-sequestered carbon and produces CO2, so whatever electricity my scheme produces will reduce that needed from conventional generators. Normal farming grows crops that are eaten by people or animals and thus produce CO2, so whatever food my scheme produces will reduce that needed from conventional farming. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
The way coal is burned right now is perfectly fine. Electrostatic precipitators are required, so fly-ash is no problem. CO2 is plant-food. Even sulfur is demonized unnecessarily, as any farmer that needs more acidic soil knows. Remember the “acid rain” scare? And then the EPA(!) did an extensive study on acid-rain in the early 80s showing acid-rain wasn’t a problem except perhaps some localized streams & ponds in the NE US (and that could easily be combated with lime-addition). The study was even shown by the neo-marxist TV program 60 Minutes, but was ignored completely. No reason to derail all the money/effort that was currently in place to force SO2-scrubbers on most coal-plants.
I remember reading somewhere the plants dinosaurs ate had to be significantly more nutritious than they are today. This seems to go hand in hand with the amount of co2 at the time being significantly higher than it is today.
Since I’d like to prove this, where do I apply for the multi-million dollar grant? I promise to spend more than enough money to settle this part of the debate over the next 30 years!
The article says: 3) Recycling Cellulose to Bio-gas. Parts of the plant that are inedible, such as cellulose (chemical formula C6H10O6), are bio waste that may be fermented to form bio-gas, such as methane, which may be pumped back into the combustion process described in step (1).
Inedible to who? Humans Bovines must be provided for too!
It’s reminds me of what going on with the whole issue with say corn to fuel issue!
Seems to me there is more that one issue to “balance” here!
Besides, If I had my choice I would use the “dry ice” to “carpet bomb” the forest fires that tend to arise at times . . . . instead of dumping it in old mine shafts!
LazyTeenager says:
January 7, 2011 at 2:40 am
No it has NOT been depicted as a poison. It has been depicted as being dangerous by overheating, if too much is put into the atmosphere.
This is playing semantic tricks. Is a truck poisonous if you get run over by one?
———————————-
Well, CO2 has been classified as ‘pollution’ in the US.
And anyway, why the obsession with road traffic accidents?
In addition to the issues others brought up, with difficulty and expense of building and maintaining the vast greenhouses to hold the high CO2 atmosphere and the pollution risks both from in-ground coal gasification and from capturing and scrubbing combustion gases for the CO2, I’ve got another unaddressed item.
Increased growth requires increased nutrients. I’m assuming to avoid soil depletion in these high CO2 greenhouses additional fertilizer would be required. It’s also my understanding that producing many types of fertilizer is a high energy process.
Roughly how much extra power is required to take advantage of this power plant + greenhouse cogeneration scheme?
petrossa says:
January 7, 2011 at 12:32 am
The Netherlands is a big exporter of vegetables,flowers and fruit. The total is about 30 billion euro per year, or a quarter of total export.
This is mostly due to its extensive use of greenhouses since the largest part of the scarce aerable land is used for livestock. At the moment multi-floor greenhouses are being built with co2 at 1000 ppm. The yield per m2 is doubled already due to the multi-floor and again doubled due to the high co2 concetration.
All this in a country with a rather cold climate. I’d say Zero is right on the mark.
In part of the Netherlands there is already a CO2 pipeline from the Pernis area where there is a lot of petrochemical industries. That is where these greenhouses get their extra Co2 from.
Thanks to ALL who have left comments in this thread so far. The positive ones are great -THANKS- but I know I have a lot to learn in this area and I learn the most from those who raise well-informed and well-considered objections to the underground coal gasification and/or elevated CO2 farming schemes. Please continue this thread.
Underground coal gasification. Several commenters have raised valid questions about the economics, government permitting, the difficulty of remotely controlling the incomplete combustion process, subsidence of the covering land, the possibility of polluting ground water, and the danger of coal seam fires that cannot be extinguished. None of these are trivial issues.
Underground gasification cannot be applied to all coal mines, or even to most of them. However, as I wrote “This technique is especially suitable for very deep mines, where traditional methods would be more expensive, or for low-quality or depleted mines.
A very deep deposit is more expensive to mine using conventional methods, so underground gasification may be the least costly method. It may also be safer with respect to water quality. The possibility of uncontrolled underground fires is eliminated if the coal seam is so far underground that it has no access to free air. Ground subsidence is also unlikely if the mine is far underground. Many depleted or low-quality mines are already permitted, so extending the permit to allow underground gasification may be easier. Safety concerns may be addressed by use of robots and remote sensors rather than personnel underground. Advances in computer-control make this type of remote operation far more affordable and capable than ever before. As for economics, well, I am not suggesting that every current or future coal mine be converted to gasification, only those where it may make sense economically, now or in the future.
Elevated CO2 farming. Again, several commenters have raised valid questions about the economics and usefulness of this kind of scheme. I am not a farmer, but my neighbors (during the decades I lived in upstate New York) were dairy farmers. I had 88 acres of land, and, with the kind advice of nearby farmers who took pity on my wife and I, college grads who were inexperienced about farming, but eager to learn, we did raise hay, had a couple dozen sheep, and a couple of Angus beef as a hobby.
Several commenters mentioned the extensive use of greenhouse farming in a number of countries, so it is apparently economical in some places and for some crops. Perhaps the extension of the growing season and better control of growing conditions, plant diseases, and pests balance out the higher costs?
Ask yourself this question: Say there is a coal-fired powerplant that is considering CO2 sequestration to meet some government mandate. (Yes, I know the mandate is ka-ka-poo-poo, but the government has been known to do silly things. I, myself, collected a government subsidy for the wool sheared off my sheep, apparently because, sometime during the civil war, they ran out of domestically-produced wool for sleeping bags and they wanted to prevent that from ever happening again :^) OK, the powerplant is about to capture and compress their CO2 and pipe or truck it to some abandoned oilfield, when someone notices that there is farmland surrounding the plant and -guess what- some farm industry is building a humongous greenhouse and they plan to burn fossil fuel to raise CO2 levels in the greenhouse to get greater yields. Would it not make sense for the powerplant to pipe their CO2 over to the farm operation? (I am not saying the government would allow it, just that it would be a good idea. :^)
Now, hold that thought in you mind and imagine economies of scale and use of a factory approach to loading plantlets into trailer-truck-sized containers (rather than conventional greenhouses) and harvesting the crop in an automated way, and so on, and perhaps genetic engineering of very high CO2 loving plants with extremely high yields, etc. I am not proposing putting millions of acres of wheatland under glass (at least not immediately :^), just floating an idea that may be pregnant. Think about it!
Yum yum! For more resources on CO2 = plant food see CO2 Science
http://co2science.org/
Especially the Plant Growth Database
Summary tables:
Plant Dry Weight (Biomass) Responses to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment
Plant Photosynthesis (Net CO2 Exchange Rate) Responses to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment
Does anybody know if there is any evidence of localised crop yield increase downwind of power stations?
Just a thought……..
Many pooh pooh the idea and there is always room for pooh poohing when a presenter uses broad brush strokes. But there are always a majority that say such things as an airplane could never fly – even scientists who proved an airplane could never fly.
Bulletin for Ira and you naysayers – Greenhouse growing (using CO2 and waste heat) is already a big deal – but outside of US. Did you know that waste heat from Nat Gas pipeline booster blowers is used in colder places like Canada to heat greenhouses and grow cukes, tomatoes etc even in the winter? Did you know that there are only 500 commercial hectares of greenhouses in US, 1000 ha in Canada and 11,0000ha in Netherlands? Here is Ira’s idea in the Netherlands:
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=pipeline%20waste%20heat%20greenhouses&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
“WarmCO2 will be redistributing up to 84MW of residual heat and 70,000 tons of purified CO2 per year. The CO2 is used by growers to enrich the greenhouse atmosphere and encourage crop growth. Normally they would use a natural gas fired boiler to produce both CO2 and heat throughout the growing season, or a combined heat and power installation that supplies heat, CO2 and electricity, which is then fed back to the national grid.
As a result of the Terneuzen greenhouse project the redistribution of heat and CO2 from Yara (a fertilizer plant) via WarmCO2 will save some 52 million m3 of natural gas, which translates into a 90% reduction in fossil fuel consumption. This makes Terneuzen one of the most sustainable commercial greenhouse developments in the Netherlands.”
Right on Ira. You have forecast what we will see in USA in a decade or so.
Pamela Gray says:
January 6, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Pamela: Your farmers and ranchers at the Lostine tavern will laugh like goosed hyenas tonight but will be applying for grants to do this tomorrow
Since we’re talking “CO2 is plant food”, maybe someone knows the numbers to do a calculation I’ve often wanted to perform.
Assuming humans never existed on the planet (never burned fuel), what would the atmospheric CO2 concentration be?
Given that plants are great at sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, I was wonder if they would have gotten down to the 150 ppm at which point photosynthesis stops working? Maybe, rather than being the bringers of global destruction, humans have saved life on the planet…
Oh one other thing, Ira. Coal based C is not only plant food, the coal itself was former actual plants. Even the so-called horrid toxins in it like sulphur! I think we will come out of all this okay.
How is it that planet grow better if CO2 levels are higher? This simple fact speaks volumes. Plants would have evolved over time to optimize their growth to match their environment.
If plants grow faster with CO2 it means that they have evolved in an atmosphere that typically had more CO2 than at present. Otherwise, those species that grow better with less CO2 would have out-competed those species that require more CO2 and taken over the land.
The argument that current CO2 levels are somehow “optimum” is not supported by the facts.
It would be interesting to see a study that determines the optimum level of CO2 for plant production. If plant production continues to increase as CO2 increases, without limit this would suggest their is no evolutionary connection. If however there is an optimum this would suggest it is evolutionary.
John T says: Assuming humans never existed on the planet (never burned fuel), what would the atmospheric CO2 concentration be?
There would have to have been CO2 or there would be very little plant life to begin with . . . I assert that in order for just about any “population” to thrive there must be the resources available to begin with . . .
I think significantly higher O2 levels would of greater danger to life that higher CO2 levels . . . . It’s the old light a match experiment in higher and higher O2 levels and you would understand the significance if it were world wide . . .
The phenomenon (of higher O2 levels on a still day) is also why forest are invigorating and why they can burn to a confligeration so quickly . . . (I like the fire tri-angle too)
A Very good way of understanding the concept.
Pamela Gray, I strongly suggest that you check out organic farming and organic produce. You will be surprised to find that it is high tech and quality, nothing to do with your Grandmothers times. The nurturing and feeding of soils and good farming practice ensures quality crops with real nutritional value.
Crops grown on dead soils and fed only chemicals are virtually bereft of any food value and researchers are stunned to find that accepted food quality and nutrient levels are not being found in modern factory crops.
One reason why the obese in America are suffering malnutrition.
As has been pointed out (Pamela Gray) the area of land required to yield our cereal crops are enormous. Even if it was somehow possible to cover several square kilometres under a greenhouse, the presence of supporting structures would greatly encumber the free travel of combine harvesters.
There is absolutely no need to jump through hoops – underground coal gas extraction with all the horrific risks of toxic pollution, piping coal gas to power plants, piping of co2 to greenhouses of unimaginable size – just to raise the co2 to levels where crop yields are improved. No, it is much simpler, much, much cheaper to simply burn the coal to generate electricity, and release the excellent gas to work its magic for the benefit of the whole biosphere.
Gary Pearce,
“Bulletin for Ira and you naysayers – Greenhouse growing (using CO2 and waste heat) is already a big deal – but outside of US. ”
This is true, but only high value crops are grown in co2 enhanced greenhouses. A single tomatoe bush can yield several kg of tomatoes with a market value of £10. The amount yielded from a hectare must be enormous. But the staple crops have far lower economic yields and it is not economic to put them under greenhouses. I would go so far as to say that it would take most of the worlds economic resources to do so – most of the worlds resources used up just to grow the crops which can currenly be grown for a relative pittance! Another point is that even where co2 is pumped into greenhouses, this is no route that comes from underground coal gas generation, which is the crux of Ira’s proposal.
I fully expect to see a continuation in the trend to pump co2 into greenhouses, but we are talking about an evolution rather than a revolution.
You also say:
“Pamela: Your farmers and ranchers at the Lostine tavern will laugh like goosed hyenas tonight but will be applying for grants to do this tomorrow.”
And I say, yes, and that’s precisely why it is so worrying.
Grey Lensman says:
January 7, 2011 at 10:09 am
“The nurturing and feeding of soils and good farming practice ensures quality crops with real nutritional value.”
True, so true . . . good soil is “alive” . . . . as opposed to almost dead desert sands.
And I like your term “nurturing”. It indicates that you assume you can not “Control”.
It’s like explaining the difference between “controlling” a tractor and “controlling” a horse.
From 2007, a concept to integrate power plants with greenhouses for waste heat and CO2 consumption. http://web.mit.edu/alamaro/www/GreenhouseConcept.pdf
Not viable then, not viable now either. Pamela Gray has it right.
Tom Mills says: January 7, 2011 at 3:05 am
At the end of the day the CO2 produced by fossil fuels is just returning to the atmosphere that which they absorbed when they were plants.
True — if when you say “day” you mean “tens of millions of years”. 🙂
pwl says: January 7, 2011 at 4:58 am
CO2 is GREEN PLANT FOOD. More Co2 = More Green Food on Planet Earth = More Food for Humans and other animals. Anti-CO2 is Anti-Life!
True — to the same extent that “SODIUM is BRAIN FOOD. Low Sodium = lethargy and confusion = low productivity and death from accidents and . Anti-SODIUM is Anti-Life!” But of course, we know that too much sodium leads to other problems, which are ALSO not healthy.
Painting ANY chemical as either good or bad is oversimplifying and doesn’t really add much to the discussion.
Gaia screwed up, all the co2 was getting locked up. She experimented with low carbon grasses but still the co2 declined. The planet was heading for extinction. Oh what to do. So she invented humans, gave them the brains to unlock the carbon And low and behold the planet began to green again.
INTERESTING!
But suppose the opposite is true …
Gaia was incredibly wise. The sun was gradually warming up. Left unchecked, the world would become too hot to support life. The planet was headed for extinction. So she took massive amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere by burying tons and tons of uneaten, undecayed plants deep in the ground. And lo and behold the planet began to cool and thrive again.
And then along came man ….
So hard to know what Gaia might have had in mind!