We stopped high sulfur when we realized it was causing acid rain. CO2 is also acidifying the oceans, so there aren't a lot of things we can pump into the atmosphere without consequence. Best to avoid doing that altogether.
And, because of entropy, reducing CO2 already in the atmosphere is a non-starter. For one thing, one can reasonably assume that would at minimum require doubling human energy output (because unmixing costs a lot more energy than mixing)
I mean if you put the belief behind the whole CO2 reduction in words, it's like this: if we slightly reduce CO2 output (not stop, reduce by single digit percent), we won't have to adapt. And if you put it like that it becomes easy to see: "no way in hell that's going to be true".
So there's not much of a choice: geoengineering it is. Next question: which method?
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-dont-we-just-plant-lot-t...
Trees quickly reach equilibrium at which point CO2 out equals CO2 in. While they can sequester some CO2 while growing, they also generally cause an albedo increase (forests trap heat). So, for arguments sake, the opposite would actually help more: destroying forests reduces albedo reducing the planet's heat uptake, while not releasing most of the CO2 in the atmosphere, in fact, that causes it to get flushed into the ocean and it won't come back for millenia at least. Despite appearances, forest fires actually help against global warming. But not much.
In other words: right now to merely pause global warming we'd have to stop 99.7% of CO2 usage. If every square meter of the planet was covered in forests, merely to stop global warming from getting worse every year we'd have to stop ... 99.7% of CO2 usage (maybe 98% would do for 2-3 years while the trees are growing). And that's disregarding the massive albedo increase.
Also, global warming is causing massive forest expansion worldwide ... and that's making global warming worse, not better. If countries started destroying the many forests that have grown since 1900, that would help.
You want a suggestion that would actually do something? Seeding the oceans would help. It would mean global warming can be paused by a mere drop of 92% of fossil fuel usage, a big increase, at the cost of a HUGE loss of oceanic biodiversity. So I hope it's clear that while that is a far better suggestion, it is very far from a solution, and doesn't come without costs. Besides, if the climate warms further, my bet is that the oceans will "seed themselves" more and more.
I'm sorry to repeat, but no: the planet will not help us and stay static and stop warming (or even go back to normal warming) if we just "stop destroying nature". And building a few parks in cities, like it seems your real suggestion is, will do nothing at all.
Yes they already do, as evidenced by the sargassum that wrecked this season for Florida and Mexico.
If we can cut emissions entirely then that's the first step. Next devote 5% of energy generation to CO2 removal and we'll take out a year of 100% emissions in less than 20 years. We don't need to go back down to 280 ppm, something like 320 would be fine. It's a long term project but it can work.
Need step one first though.
To add to that: there are no good alternatives to coal as the stabilizer in a renewables-fed grid, for Germany. They don't have hydro and don't have nuclear. Even Spain now runs some coal despite having near-100% renewable grid for a year. That big blackout was a big lesson for all grid operators. Please don't shame countries for running a small percentage of their grids on coal.
> there are no good alternatives to coal as the stabilizer in a renewables-fed grid, for Germany.
1) political: the only economical natural gas comes from Russia, which means it's a betrayal of Ukraine (especially after the many German, and worldwide promises not to do so)
Obviously that hasn't stopped Germany. Neither the promises nor the betrayal aspect. Hasn't stopped Spain either.
2) physical: the lines got bombarded, so Germany does not have physical access to Russian gas ("kinetic sanctions"), at any price (oh and, not that it actually matters, but Germany is not willing to invest in rebuilding the lines, and before you say it can't be done, Ukraine is rebuilding Russian oil lines that Russia bombed on Ukrainian soil. Germany can rebuild, for example, Nord Stream, they just don't)
3) second political reason: only LNG is doable. There is Qatarese gas, except not right now due to Iran war, and US gas, which Germany doesn't want (it's a little more expensive). So it's buying US LNG for at least the next decade (they had to sign long term contracts to get it at all).
4) ecological. Coal is 750g-1000g CO2 per kWh, but less than half that (ie. 300g per kWh with carbon capture, which is widespread in Germany). LNG, due to the many inefficient processing steps is 350g-750g CO2 per kWh. Qatar hides their numbers, but US LNG is certainly 650g per kWh. Canadese LNG is actually worse.
So LNG natural gas is not better than coal (anymore) and it's the only kind accessible to Germany (same goes for Spain and EU)
But let's not pretend Germany cares in the slightest, after all the German Green party supported switching to coal in 2023 and again in 2026 rather than switching back to nuclear. This is not the only choice Germany has, it is the one they decided on.
Btw: in order for CO2 to reduce, fossil fuel producers (ie. Russia and Saudi Arabia mostly) need to stop digging up oil. Other posts correctly point out that if Germany just stopped, or even absorbed the amount of CO2 it currently produces, that would be a rounding error.
Or we could spread aerosols in the atmosphere (because oil will run out, which means atmospheric CO2 will start reducing by itself, according to IEA predictions, around 2050)
> Coal is 750g-1000g CO2 per kWh, but less than half that (ie. 300g per kWh with carbon capture, which is widespread in Germany).
1) have a 20 year history of increasing fossil fuel use, and on a dozen occasions, when choosing between a nuclear compromise and more CO2, systematically choose "no compromise!"
2) technically part of 1, but so serious it deserves it's own point, when this decision turned out in 2014 to be far more disastrous than initially expected, the Greens doubled down choosing to warm the climate further
3) Again, technically part of ... but after 2023 and the "kinetic sanctions" in 2024, progressively worsening with now also the Iran war making it worse, the Green's decision is responsible for not just massively worsening Germany's CO2 output but doing so WHILE causing a doubling of energy prices.
4) this total lack of willingness to compromise guarantees yet another fight over global warming in parliament. The Green's party actual politics are: grandstanding and demanding HUGE compromises "in the name of global warming". In reality the tactic is different: they cause big problems, everywhere (nothing on the scale of the nuclear closure, but you'd think they would compromise to ease the effect of the factory closures. The opposite is true). They do this so there's fights, and they appear to be "fighting for global warming". The opposite is closer to the truth.
5) this then caused emergency reactivation of coal power plants ... no objection of the Greens and even a further statement that they WILL NOT COMPROMISE ... okay.
And there's "a lobby" because everyone else points out ... but Green policy, and their total lack of willingness to compromise is responsible for half of Germany's CO2 output, and now $other_party has to compromise to fix that? WTF? Of course the answer? "The lobby is unhinged". Because we all know further Green party policy will only lead to further disaster (for example further destroying the auto industry [1]).
The only thing the Green party sees is a chance for more votes. You will not catch them doing any sort of discussion about policy, or the policy's effects. Just shouting about how necessary it is, fight, distract, obstruct, sabotage. Shout, shout, shout. And every adult in the room realizes what the situation is, but adults don't vote Green in the first place, work in factories, and will soon be fired and unemployed anyway.
I just don't understand how you a political party can be that deeply evil, playing on pure identity politics, willing to damage everything, the climate, the environment, society and politics JUST to get votes and power.
[1] https://www.gruene.de/artikel/merz-draengt-eu-kommission-und...
Yes, the LLM can invent elaborate fantasies for anybody who will listen to it, but everybody actually lives in the real world. In the real world Germany decreased fossil fuel use in its production of electricity both proportionally and in total as you can see in the data.
None of what you wrote addresses the very obviously bogus original claim, probably because to do that you'd have to understand that facts are true which is confusing if you're just generating plausible nonsense.
Conveniently Germany is about 1% of the world population. You realize that if most countries use the same argument nothing ever change? (It's only 1% how can it make a difference)
In fact Spain has less coal now than it did in 2025, or 2024, or 2023 and so on.
And no their grid isn't "near 100% renewable", they do have a lot more than most European countries but they have large gas imports too to run some of their conventional thermal power plants - what they're getting rid of, sensibly, is coal.
There's a 4x seasonal swing between summer and winter for Spain's solar power, and obviously the maximal swing (clear summer's day versus overcast mid-winter) is much larger, but they're nowhere close to being rid of fossil fuels even in July, much less January.
This whole "blackout was caused by renewables" stuff was crap when it was first spouted and didn't get any more plausible once we had more information.
That isn't what it said
> if they never used renewables or not to this extent, this event simply wouldn't have occurred
This is an entirely speculative counter-factual and so is even more useless than it appears.
Coal AFAIK a bigger source of acid rains and world has not stopped using coal.