If you look at a city from above, you see the main attraction is rooftops -- mostly gray, desolate expanses of metal and concrete. What a waste. Especially when you consider all the things that could be there.
A well-kept green roof could be considered an oasis in the desert of a city. A safe spot for birds and insects to flock to and feed in, a place for them to nest, even a place for humans to frequent. And of course there are the carbon-absorption advantages of planting plants. The "green" part isn't all literal, though -- a normal, dark-colored roof absorbs quite a lot of energy, heating both the building and the atmosphere. "Cool roofs" are rooftops made of a reflective or white material, which helps to reflect the solar energy back into space. This is beneficial to the building too; you don't have to spend as much energy cooling it down.
All the ideas listed so far have been somewhat dependent on photosynthesis; a process that handily keeps carbon locked away in the cells of plants. But what if we didn't rely on photosynthesis? How could we capture CO2 ourselves? A method of capturing CO2 directly from the air has been invented, aptly called "direct air capture."
Excerpt from DRAWDOWN: "Ambient air passes over a solid or liquid substance and its CO2 binds with chemicals in the substance that are selectively "sticky"... Once those capture chemicals become fully saturated with CO2, energy is used to release the molecules in a purified form. Releasing the CO2 restores the chemicals' ability to filter it out. So the cycle repeats over and over again."
Carbon sequestration is one of many ideas championed as a "solution" to global warming, but in reality there is no one solution, no single best idea that can fix the greenhouse effect. We have many ideas, and we need to use as many as we can to stop the greenhouse effect. We need to cut our CO2 emissions. We need to switch to renewable energy like solar, geothermal and wind. Mostly we need to not give up until Earth's temperature is back within the safe zone. Carbon sequestration is one of the best ways of making this happen, so I decided to highlight it in this website.
CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) -- a greenhouse gas. Too much of this has been put into the atmosphere through industrial processes like burning coal and gas, causing global warming.
SEQUESTERING -- the process of trapping carbon (in the earth, in trees, etc)
THE AMAZON RAINFOREST -- the world's largest tropical forest. Currently under threat by forest fires.
PLANKTON -- microscopic plants and animals that live in the ocean.