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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I bought a CO2 meter, and discovered my office had elevated CO2 levels (sometimes going over 1000). Cracking a window solved the problem.

Want to reduce CO2 levels outside? Plant trees. They're solar-powered green machines, turning CO2 into building materials, paper, and fuel.

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Buying a CO2 meter for the office - especially a closed-door small room one - is something almost all indoor workers should invest in. As you noted, it gets over 1000ppm quite easily.

My office is an interior one without a window to the outdoors, so I have to flap the door open here or there along with the exterior door about 100 feet away. HVAC doesn't do much to help.

If I am in the office with the door closed for 2 hours (I share it with one other person), 1000ppm happens regularly.

Some good reading for any passersby on the topic:

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/tags/co2

> Want to reduce CO2 levels outside? Plant trees.

This thread is about indoor air pollution. Trees aren't going to help with that. The best way to reduce it is to open a window.

For outdoor air pollution, planting trees can actually increase it[1]. Even in ideal conditions, planting trees is not nearly enough to stop climate change. The best way to fix the CO2 problem is stop producing it, not to try to clean it up.

1. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200521-planting-trees-d...

> planting trees is not nearly enough to stop climate change

The solution will be a mix of approaches, none of them in isolation doing the whole job.

> For outdoor air pollution, planting trees can actually increase it

Only if by doing so you remove vegetation to plant them.

> Only if by doing so you remove vegetation to plant them.

That is not correct. Read the article I linked that explains it. Biology isn't as simple as "CO2 => biomass".

I read the whole article and I can't find the part that backs up your statement. Not saying it might not be there, but telling people to figure it out on their own isn't super helpful.

In fact most of the article seems to agree that planting trees is a net good for removing CO2 and that the biggest problem is finding enough room to plant all the trees that are needed.

> The best way to fix the CO2 problem is stop producing it, not to try to clean it up.

I'd have to disagree. Stopping the production is important, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just doesn't make it worse. A true fix would always include removing some CO2 from the atmosphere, however that may be done.

I dont think trees do that unless you bury them once they are full grown.

Normal tree life cycle is capture some co2, die, rot and release it all back into the air.

Trees turn CO2 into building materials and paper and fuel. The first two sequester it, and the third doesn't make things worse.

I said the "best" way, not the "only" way.

Multiple approaches are needed, but it's far cheaper and easier to avoid CO2 production than to sequester carbon (even if plants are used to capture it).

If it doesn't solve the problem (which it doesn't! Many glaciers are already gone, there's nothing we can do about it), it's not even a bad way, it is just no way to _solve_ the problem.

It's the best way _to not make it worse_. Carbon Capture doesn't save us from making it worse. It can however undo parts of the damage.

The solution isn't to just freeze the status quo, that's what I'm saying.

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