Possible cure/ slow down for increasing co2 levels?

[stormin1013]

Hi, im new here and new to biology. After going over basic genetics in class, I came up with idea...

 

If you have a plant, you can use restriction enzyme on the right sequence of the DNA bases, that produces chlorophyl. Then you can use animal or human zygote extracted DNA from the ectoderm and combine the extracts, and replace the original human DNA with the recombinant DNA. As the baby develops it should develop chloroplasts and reuse the co2 that the body naturally produces. Then it should reuse the co2 for the production of o2 and vice-versa.

 

Thats a far reality i realize but is this even possible??? Would the chlorophyl enzymes work with the high human body temp? (if it is possible to do that)

Please give me your comments, and remember, I am a noob.

[SkepticLance]

Chloroplasts are not a part of the plant cell in the same way that other inclusions are. The chloroplasts contain their own DNA and reproduce pretty much independently from the cells. The theory is that they started as photosynthetic bacteria and entered the early plant cell as a symbiote. It is probably realistic to think of them still, not as part of the plant, but as a symbiotic organism living inside the plant.

 

To put these symbiotes into human cells might be tricky. You would have to genetically modify the chloroplast DNA to make them tolerant of animal cells. Then you would have to modify the animal DNA to make the animal cells tolerant of chloroplasts. After all that, you would have to find a way to introduce chloroplasts.

 

And at the end, you would have a green human who could make some tiny amounts of sugar in his skin cells. Not much help, since the human would burn that sugar far too quickly and then go looking for a square meal!

[Radical Edward]

it wouldn't work, because the whole system is a zero sum game. at the end of the day, all the Carbon that you take in will either become a part of you or released. you don't generate carbon, you just release what you take in. so a reduction in the carbon that you release would be perfectly balanced by the carbon that you didn't take in from the environment. The only way to reduce C)2 levels is to sequester carbon and remove it from the biosphere. This was previously done by stuff getting buried and staying underground, but we keep digging it up and burning it.

 

a possible "natural" method might be to grow lots of trees, weight them down (or get wood that waterlogs and sinks) and dump them in the ocean. Or alternatively seed the oceans with chemicals other than carbon that would allow massive quantities of algae to grow, and let it sink.

[ecoli]

not to mention that human respiration is not the most significant source of CO2 emissions. Burning fossil fuels is, however.

[Riogho]

I was under the impression humans accounted for less then 5% of CO2 emissions.

[iNow]

I was under the impression humans accounted for less then 5% of CO2 emissions.

 

Source?

[SkepticLance]

In actual fact, all we need to do to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere is to cut down on the CO2 emissions. ie. Stop burning fossil fuels. Stop cutting down forests. Tidy up agriculture. And a few lesser changes.

 

Once that happens, the excess will be removed by natural processes such as photosynthesis by plants, carbonate formation in minerals, and solution in the ocean. In due course a new balance will establish with much lower atmospheric CO2.

 

Of course, getting off the carbon habit is easier said than done.

[Mr Skeptic]

Apart from it not having a noticeable effect on CO2 emission, making green humans would be rather complicated and of little benefit. Note that we already use sunlight to produce chemicals, such as Vitamin D, so you'd have to make sure that the chloroplasts don't block that. Getting chloroplasts to play nice with animal cells might not be easy either, and might require enveloping it in an additional specially designed membrane, changing our DNA to produce the additional building and control proteins for chloroplasts, and maybe designing transport systems for these proteins and CO2 as well. And in the end, you'd still use more calories lying in the sun than you would gain. It would be interesting though.