Can meaningful amounts of carbon dioxide be removed from the atmosphere?
Yes, possibly an entire Climate Wedge or even more yet considerable scientific and engineering analysis and experimentation remains to be done. From our review of the research, a mature soil crust can sequester 30 grams of atmospheric carbon per square meter per year. Over time, the presence of this crust can enable the establishment of secondary vascular plants such as scattered grasses and shrubs that increase the net primary productivity of carbon sequestration rate above and below ground to approximately 100 grams per square meter per year. If 1 billion hectares of suitable global lands were to be inoculated by air and resulted in similar secondary growth, then by 2050 the combined photosynthetic uptake would drawdown 1 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year. This constitutes 1 Climate Wedge as defined by Socolow et al and thereby represents 1/7th of the total global greenhouse gas problem. What are other benefits to re-establishing global soil crusts? This same appro
