Why Trees Can't Fight Climate Change Alone: The Role of Living Carbon

We've all heard about how trees can help fight climate change by inhaling oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But why would living carbon think that they could improve on nature's efforts? The answer lies in the process of photosynthesis, which is how plants use light, CO2, and water to produce energy. However, this process isn't always very efficient. In fact, around 25% of the time during photosynthesis, an enzyme called rubisco incorrectly attaches itself to oxygen instead of carbon, creating a toxic compound that can disrupt photosynthesis.

To combat this issue, plants have developed a secondary process known as photorespiration, which allows them to remove the toxins and restore balance. However, this process costs energy that could be used for growth, making it less efficient than desired. This is where living carbon comes in. Their genetically modified trees are designed to reduce the rate of photorespiration, allowing them to put more energy towards growth and assimilate more carbon from the atmosphere.

Living Carbon's Technology

Chief Technology Officer Patrick Meller co-founded Living Carbon with Hall. The company has developed a way to modify tree cells using a process called photosynthesis enhancement construct. Essentially, this is their "recipe" for modifying plant cells. They use tiny gold particles and helium to introduce the modifications into the plant cells. This process allows them to create hybrid poplar trees that are engineered to capture more carbon from the atmosphere.

The process begins with growing cuttings of hybrid poplar trees in tissue culture until they have a number of leaves and other tissue. The leaves are then removed, and the remaining tissue is treated with a photosynthesis enhancement construct. This involves introducing tiny gold particles into the plant cells using helium. The result is the creation of genetically modified plantlets that can differentiate into new plants.

The Next Step: Growing and Evaluating the Trees

Once the plantlets have grown to a certain size, they are transferred to gel medium for further growth before being moved to soil in greenhouses. Living Carbon has already planted 600 modified poplar trees in Oregon as part of a partnership with Oregon State University. The trees are being evaluated over four years to see how they handle real-world conditions.

Partnerships and Revenue Streams

Living Carbon plans to make money by selling carbon credits earned from the additional carbon captured by their genetically modified trees. The company will give away the trees at cost or for free, but then monetize based on the additional carbon captured. This model provides recurring revenue, which is beneficial for both Living Carbon and landowners.

However, not everyone is convinced that genetically modified plants are a good idea. Advocacy groups have raised concerns about giving plants abilities they wouldn't otherwise have, such as resistance to certain herbicides. Living Carbon's approach is different in that they use constructs composed of genes from other plants, which do not create pollen or lead to the spread of genetic modifications.

Regulatory Approval

Before Living Carbon can sell their genetically modified trees, the federal government must approve it. While the company has not yet received regulatory approval, they are confident that their technology is worth waiting for. The process of photosynthesis has evolved over 2 billion years, and humans would be foolish to try to create something entirely new.

The Potential Impact

While Living Carbon's genetically modified trees may not single-handedly solve climate change, they could potentially make a significant impact. By reducing the rate of photorespiration, these trees can capture more carbon from the atmosphere and release less oxygen, which has been shown to be toxic to some species. This process would require humans to utilize an existing mechanism that has evolved over billions of years.

As we watch Living Carbon's genetically modified trees take root in Oregon, it's clear that this company is on a mission to improve our understanding of photosynthesis and develop innovative solutions to combat climate change. Whether or not their technology will be widely adopted remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the fight against climate change will require all hands on deck.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni am standing in what you might consider a greenhouse but there's something really special about the dozens of poplar trees i'm surrounded by these are what you might consider to be super trees and they might one day help prevent climate change the carbon levels in our atmosphere have us on a one-way course toward a climate catastrophe scientists agree there's no single solution but a bay area-based startup thinks it can put a significant dent in all that carbon by building better trees welcome to the headquarters of living carbon so our mission at living carbon is to rebalance the planet's ecosystem using the inherent power of plants that's founder and ceo maddie hall and there's more than meets the eye to her company's genetically modified poplar trees they not only grow faster but can store up to 53 percent more carbon not only that they can store that carbon for longer periods of time which is crucial in the race to offset global emissions half of all of the co2 that's drawn out of the atmosphere is returned in the same year and the process by which that is returned is decomposition of biomass from plants you can actually see the results of living carbon's genetic modifications in these photos the blue arrows are pointing at living carbon trees the red arrows that control trees of the same age but these enhanced trees are not just sitting in a lab they're already in the ground on more than 3 000 acres of land around the us if we were to double the acreage that we have today up until 20 20 30 we would be able to actually plant enough trees to remove 1.66 of global emissions in 2020 that is very significant that's the emissions of millions of people the 2015 paris climate agreement calls for us to keep the earth from warming more than two degrees celsius past pre-industrial levels but a new u.n climate report out this year says just reducing our carbon emissions won't be enough to get us there scientists found humans will only be able to achieve that with the addition of carbon capture technologies that's why you might have heard so much lately about carbon capture plants facilities lined with machines designed to pull carbon out of the atmosphere in fact we've done a whole video on it it doesn't take a scientist to understand how trees can help fight climate change we inhale the oxygen they release and they absorb the carbon that we exhale but why would living carbon think that they could improve on those trees provided by nature as it turns out photosynthesis the process that plants use to turn light co2 and water into energy isn't always very efficient it all starts with the enzyme plants used to convert carbon into sugar called rubisco around 25 of the time during photosynthesis rubisco incorrectly attaches itself to oxygen instead of carbon that creates a toxic compound that would otherwise disrupt photosynthesis so the plant has to remove the toxins using another process known as photorespiration and that costs energy that would otherwise help the plant grow this is where living carbon comes in their trees are modified to reduce the rate of photorespiration that's required meaning less energy lost and less toxic byproducts by doing that the tree can put more energy towards growth and it can assimilate more carbon from the atmosphere chief technology officer patrick meller co-founded living carbon with hall he showed us how their modified tree cells go from the petri dish to the ground these are hybrid poplar cuttings that are being grown in tissue culture to get them ready for transformation so what we do is grow the cuttings to the point where we have a number of leaves and other tissue and then we take off leaves and then we put them in these dishes and we get them to differentiate back into callous tissue which is like stem cells for plants that's when they introduce what they call their photosynthesis enhancement construct essentially their recipe for modifying the plant cells we have the construct on tiny little gold particles and we use helium to fire those gold particles into the plant cells and you can actually see on this dish how there are little plantlets differentiating off of the callus tissue when those plantlets get bigger we take them off and grow them in gel medium until they're big enough to move to soil eventually the trees are moved to greenhouses like this one in san francisco for evaluation before they're ready to be put in the ground there are already 600 living carbon poplar trees in oregon planted as part of a partnership with oregon state university those are being evaluated over four years to see how the trees handle real-world conditions and they're working with private landowners across the southeastern united states to plant modified pine trees and that brings us to how living carbon plans to make money it all comes down to carbon credits that the company can earn with its trees living carbon can sell those credits to companies and polluters that want or need to offset their carbon emissions our model is give away the trees at cost or for free and then monetize based off of the additional carbon that's captured because it's recurring revenue which is very good and hall says it's not just good for living carbon it's good for land owners as well we'll cover the site prep costs we will help restore this land that you otherwise might not have had economic incentive to want to restore and will also give you a revenue share of the carbon credits that are generated but what about the ethics there's no shortage of advocacy groups that are opposed to putting any sort of genetically modified plants into our ecosystems those concerns generally involve giving plants abilities they wouldn't otherwise have like resistance to certain herbicides what we're doing is different in the sense that we are giving these trees an ability that other plants already have using constructs that are composed of genes from other plants these poplar trees that we're working with do not make pollen uh all of the reproduction is vegetative we're not creating a situation where there's going to be pollen blowing from these trees onto other trees that then spreads it living carbon is working on other genetic modifications that could help their trees retain carbon even longer one way is by modifying the wood so it's less susceptible to decay from fungus it's worth noting the federal government will need to approve for the company to sell its trees and the feds have never signed off on selling a tree that's engineered for fast growth but for living carbon even if it takes time they think it's worth the wait it's like watching the beginning of some kind of evolutionary event that has the potential to really help the situation that we're in to really improve the rate of drawdown and retention of co2 photosynthesis has evolved for over 2 billion years and so humans would be very silly to not utilize that existing mechanism to capture carbon and try to just only invent something of our own design so what do you think of living carbon and their genetically modified trees do you think they could actually put a dent in climate change let us know in the comments below youi am standing in what you might consider a greenhouse but there's something really special about the dozens of poplar trees i'm surrounded by these are what you might consider to be super trees and they might one day help prevent climate change the carbon levels in our atmosphere have us on a one-way course toward a climate catastrophe scientists agree there's no single solution but a bay area-based startup thinks it can put a significant dent in all that carbon by building better trees welcome to the headquarters of living carbon so our mission at living carbon is to rebalance the planet's ecosystem using the inherent power of plants that's founder and ceo maddie hall and there's more than meets the eye to her company's genetically modified poplar trees they not only grow faster but can store up to 53 percent more carbon not only that they can store that carbon for longer periods of time which is crucial in the race to offset global emissions half of all of the co2 that's drawn out of the atmosphere is returned in the same year and the process by which that is returned is decomposition of biomass from plants you can actually see the results of living carbon's genetic modifications in these photos the blue arrows are pointing at living carbon trees the red arrows that control trees of the same age but these enhanced trees are not just sitting in a lab they're already in the ground on more than 3 000 acres of land around the us if we were to double the acreage that we have today up until 20 20 30 we would be able to actually plant enough trees to remove 1.66 of global emissions in 2020 that is very significant that's the emissions of millions of people the 2015 paris climate agreement calls for us to keep the earth from warming more than two degrees celsius past pre-industrial levels but a new u.n climate report out this year says just reducing our carbon emissions won't be enough to get us there scientists found humans will only be able to achieve that with the addition of carbon capture technologies that's why you might have heard so much lately about carbon capture plants facilities lined with machines designed to pull carbon out of the atmosphere in fact we've done a whole video on it it doesn't take a scientist to understand how trees can help fight climate change we inhale the oxygen they release and they absorb the carbon that we exhale but why would living carbon think that they could improve on those trees provided by nature as it turns out photosynthesis the process that plants use to turn light co2 and water into energy isn't always very efficient it all starts with the enzyme plants used to convert carbon into sugar called rubisco around 25 of the time during photosynthesis rubisco incorrectly attaches itself to oxygen instead of carbon that creates a toxic compound that would otherwise disrupt photosynthesis so the plant has to remove the toxins using another process known as photorespiration and that costs energy that would otherwise help the plant grow this is where living carbon comes in their trees are modified to reduce the rate of photorespiration that's required meaning less energy lost and less toxic byproducts by doing that the tree can put more energy towards growth and it can assimilate more carbon from the atmosphere chief technology officer patrick meller co-founded living carbon with hall he showed us how their modified tree cells go from the petri dish to the ground these are hybrid poplar cuttings that are being grown in tissue culture to get them ready for transformation so what we do is grow the cuttings to the point where we have a number of leaves and other tissue and then we take off leaves and then we put them in these dishes and we get them to differentiate back into callous tissue which is like stem cells for plants that's when they introduce what they call their photosynthesis enhancement construct essentially their recipe for modifying the plant cells we have the construct on tiny little gold particles and we use helium to fire those gold particles into the plant cells and you can actually see on this dish how there are little plantlets differentiating off of the callus tissue when those plantlets get bigger we take them off and grow them in gel medium until they're big enough to move to soil eventually the trees are moved to greenhouses like this one in san francisco for evaluation before they're ready to be put in the ground there are already 600 living carbon poplar trees in oregon planted as part of a partnership with oregon state university those are being evaluated over four years to see how the trees handle real-world conditions and they're working with private landowners across the southeastern united states to plant modified pine trees and that brings us to how living carbon plans to make money it all comes down to carbon credits that the company can earn with its trees living carbon can sell those credits to companies and polluters that want or need to offset their carbon emissions our model is give away the trees at cost or for free and then monetize based off of the additional carbon that's captured because it's recurring revenue which is very good and hall says it's not just good for living carbon it's good for land owners as well we'll cover the site prep costs we will help restore this land that you otherwise might not have had economic incentive to want to restore and will also give you a revenue share of the carbon credits that are generated but what about the ethics there's no shortage of advocacy groups that are opposed to putting any sort of genetically modified plants into our ecosystems those concerns generally involve giving plants abilities they wouldn't otherwise have like resistance to certain herbicides what we're doing is different in the sense that we are giving these trees an ability that other plants already have using constructs that are composed of genes from other plants these poplar trees that we're working with do not make pollen uh all of the reproduction is vegetative we're not creating a situation where there's going to be pollen blowing from these trees onto other trees that then spreads it living carbon is working on other genetic modifications that could help their trees retain carbon even longer one way is by modifying the wood so it's less susceptible to decay from fungus it's worth noting the federal government will need to approve for the company to sell its trees and the feds have never signed off on selling a tree that's engineered for fast growth but for living carbon even if it takes time they think it's worth the wait it's like watching the beginning of some kind of evolutionary event that has the potential to really help the situation that we're in to really improve the rate of drawdown and retention of co2 photosynthesis has evolved for over 2 billion years and so humans would be very silly to not utilize that existing mechanism to capture carbon and try to just only invent something of our own design so what do you think of living carbon and their genetically modified trees do you think they could actually put a dent in climate change let us know in the comments below you\n"