Ctrl + Alt + Del: Editing the Carbon Away
That is, gene editing.
I’m sure you’ve heard of this thing called climate change.
I’m also pretty sure you don’t totally understand how it works.
Let’s suppose a typical conversation ensued:
Person 1: Climate change.
Person 2: …Yeah, what about it?
Person 1: Why’s it bad?
Person 2:
Doesn’t seem quite so chock-full of understanding, now does it?
Let’s get to the root of the c̶a̶r̶b̶o̶n̶ problem.
See what I did there? The root of the carbon…The root of the problem. No?
What’s all the fuss about?
Carbon dioxide is a gas that is naturally present in the earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere is the layer of gasses surrounding the planet. It’s important because it protects us. From a lot of things.
It shelters us from the vacuum in space, from certain dangerous electromagnetic rays emitted from the Sun and objects flying through space, like meteoroids.
It also traps heat from the Sun, making the earth a habitable temperature for human beings. The more carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere, the thicker the layer of gasses gets and the hotter the earth gets.
This is called the greenhouse effect.
Greenhouses are made of glass. They allow the Sun’s rays in to feed the plants, but the glass is somewhat analogous to a one-way door; it allows the rays in but doesn’t allow the heat to escape at night.
Similarly, the layer of gasses creating our atmosphere acts as the glass does for the greenhouse. The atmosphere traps heat inside by letting the Sun’s rays in but saving the heat.
If carbon helps us have a safe temperature, why is it a bad thing to emit carbon into the atmosphere?
Humans enjoy tampering.
We are constantly interfering with the biological cycle of natural carbon circulation by burning fossil fuels. These have high concentrations of carbon.
When we burn these — the combustion mixes carbon and oxygen and creates even more carbon dioxide than what would normally be in the atmosphere.
As soon as we exceed “normally” we have an issue.
The thicker the layer of gasses gets, the stronger it gets. This means that we’ve abetted the atmosphere to trap more heat. This causes global warming — the increase of the earth’s temperature.
I don’t think it’s made awfully clear just what happens and will continue to happen when the earth’s temperature rises.
Even if we have heard the apocalyptic sounding consequences, we don’t all have an understanding of how they are related to an increase in global temperature. What does a degree here or there really matter?
Well, before I go any further, I’ll offer some perspective. Just 5°C of a global temperature change separates the modern world from the last ice age.
Now, we are combating a climate change of 2°C.
So, you see, a degree here or there does really matter.
Let’s revisit some of those apocalyptic sounding consequences now, shall we?
Ocean Acidification
Like plants, the ocean absorbs extra carbon dioxide from the air; however, the increased CO2 in the ocean makes the water more acidic. This harms many types of sea life, including shellfish and coral.
Coral bleaching is a huge consequence of warming oceans. Coral reefs are an ecosystem composed of groups of rocks on the ocean floor with small organisms attached to them called corals.
When these coral reefs are subject to stress, like warming oceans, they eject the layer of algae that is attached to them and turn white, causing them to be more susceptible to death.
A lot is riding on coral reefs. Currently, 25% of marine life depends on the habitat they provide and more than 500 million people rely on reefs for food, tourism, employment etc.
Rising Sea Levels
Global warming contributes to rises in sea levels in two ways.
The first is thermal expansion. The warmer temperature causes seawater to expand, which causes it to take up more room in the ocean basin. Warm seawater has a greater volume than cold seawater.
The second way is the melting of land-based ice. These are things like glaciers and ice sheets on top of land or mountains that don’t already contribute to the ocean basin. As they melt, they add to the volume.
The effects of rising sea levels are quite scary. They pose serious threats to coastal habitats, for both humans and animals alike, and cause other issues like destructive erosion, agricultural soil contamination, contaminated drinking water etc.
This article details a few of the more significant ways that rising sea levels can have destructive impacts.
Vector-Borne Diseases
These are diseases that are transmitted between another organism (insects, animals etc.) and humans. Some popular examples include Lyme disease and Malaria.
How are these connected to a rise in climate?
Well, increases in temperature affect rain patterns. This means that even if the disease is eradicated in a certain region, the weather changes will cause the migration of vector-borne diseases to new regions.
For example, malaria is carried by mosquitoes — a higher temperature results in increased adaptability for them in more places.
The big takeaway so far should be that increased carbon is bad because it causes global warming and corresponding devastating effects.
Logically speaking, if carbon emissions are the source of so many of these problems — the solution must involve reducing how much carbon we put into the atmosphere, right?
Removing carbon from the atmosphere is called carbon sequestration. One of the ways that carbon can be sequestered is by storing it in carbon sinks. Carbon sinks are natural reservoirs, things like forests or oceans, that store carbon-containing chemical compounds.
Remember how I said the ocean absorbs excess CO2? If there is too much excess carbon, logic again calls for the fact that we need more carbon sinks because not having enough causes secondary issues like ocean acidification.
What if we could boost the carbon-capture capacity of these carbon sinks? Enter: Gene Editing.
We currently add about 9 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere annually.
An issue of Bioscience predicted that if we began growing plants and trees that were optimized for carbon sequestration, we could offset between 5 and 8 gigatons of the carbon we emit by 2050.
Plants store carbon in their biomass — it can stay in leaves, stems and branches above ground for decades. If allocated to an underground root system, the carbon is transferred to the soil, sequestered for millennia.
That sounds pretty good, right about now.
When plants grow roots, deep roots, they store carbon in complex carbohydrates that aren’t easily broken down by soil microbes. By ensuring plants store carbon in the molecule called suberin, which is like a cork, we limit the amount of carbon going back into the atmosphere.
“The idea is not to store more carbon but to store carbon in parts of the soil where the carbon is more stable…change the biochemistry, increase the stability.”
- Wolfgang Busch, Salk Institute
With what I’ve mentioned so far, the definition of an ideal plant would be one that produces a lot of above ground biomass and has an extensive root system — both things that could be enhanced using gene editing.
A realistic measure to enhance biomass yield would be to tamper with photosynthesis. The more promising half of this ideal plant, however, is the root system.
To edit a difference in root systems, we must first differentiate between perennial and annual plants, for they have different root systems. A perennial plant lives for more than two years while annual/biennial plants live for just one or two years.
Rationally, perennials are better at hiding carbon underground because annuals spend energy on producing seeds, leaves etc. rather than on building their root systems which don’t require the strength as those of perennials.
Perennial root systems need to be complex because they are dormant for part of the year, before having to grow again from their roots.
Researchers found a gene called EXOCYST70A3 determines how deep the roots of a given Thale cress plant, a perennial, grow into the soil. They also found that all plants contain the same gene — or one like it — that can be altered for deeper root growth.
Another way to genetically edit plants for more carbon sequestration could be to extend their resiliency to things like drought or salt (their salinity) — these are called abiotic stresses.
We can engineer abiotic stress tolerance to temperature, heavy metals etc. Maybe, we could even alter crops to thrive on brine water, seawater or industrial wastewater. This would preserve freshwater reserves.
There is so much science to be done and so much promise to be fulfilled.
Gene editing may not be the cure-all of global warming and climate change, but tackling it, literally from the root up (haha), is sure to be a huge combating factor against carbon emissions.
TLDR;
- Increased carbon in the atmosphere creates a stronger trapper of heat
- Increased global temperature has many detrimental consequences — ones that affect our food supplies, employment and health
- By gene editing carbon sinks, plants, in particular, we can improve their carbon-capture concentration, thus removing more excess carbon from the atmosphere.
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