97% of Climate Scientists agree the sky is blue... (Page 2)

When you burn fossils fuels though, you ARE adding CO2 and almost all of the increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is coming from the burning of fossil fuels (adding C that was previously stored underground) or changes in land use (primarily deforestation - reducing the amouont of C that is removed from the atmosphere by plants).

You are right that mother nature has been absorbing much of the extra CO2 (we've added enough CO2 to increase the concentration from ~280 ppb in pre-industrial times to just about 400 ppb now.  If all the CO2 we've emitted stayed in the atmopshere though the level would be ~500 ppb) but almost all of the additional absorption is being done by the oceans.  What is your source that says absorption is increasing?  Studies I've seen show that at some point the oceans will actually become saturated and their ability to absorb our excess CO2 will drop.  But besides that, using the oceans as a sink for the CO2 we're emitting is causing them to become acidified and has the potential for some pretty severe effects on its own.

If there was a way to ecnomically sequester carbon, I don't think there would be any complaint at all, in fact you'd hear people from everywhere calling for more fossil fuels.  But this belief that we have time to just twiddle our thumbs while we keep doing what we're doing is just extremely poor risk management in an area where the consequences for being wrong could be really severe.  A lot of the research coming in is showing that if anything ,we've been underestimating both the scale of the effects and the quickness with which they can occur and I really am starting to have serious concerns for the world I'm leaving my kids and my kids kids.  I'm not a doomsayer, it won't be the end of the human race or anything, but I think they're going to live in a world that is very different from the one we live in now, and the sad thing is, it's not like we don't know what we're doing.

I can't remember... I have not really looked into things in a while. As with any chemical process, if you increse concentrations, then there is more available for use. You would expect to see an increase in absorbtion. I remember reading that that was indeed happening, but not at a fast enough rate...  I also found what I expected was not true... that plants will not absorb more because the higher temps have a negative effect, and that the oceans will not absorb more because carbonic acid slows calcification.  So I never wanted to make it seem like that was the solution because I understand there are limits.

I also understand what we are adding by unlocking carbon. A trade rag mentioned 9 plants right now operating with CCS, yet everyone I read about was capturing carbon and "using" it, but they were not sequestering it. One plant sold all it's CO2 to a soft drink bottling company. Great that you found a use... but that is not sequestration. So far I am skeptical of current sequestration applications. I don't see how pumping it into the ground is at all a feasable answer. But I certainly think it is a worth while endeavor to find a way. Ecconomics though are always key... it's one thing to make it happen, it's another thing to do it ecconomically on a commercial scale.