What about carbon capture through population growth?

The amount of carbon captured by the human population (if that is what you are talking about), is minuscule compared to the amount of carbon captured by the collective biomass of all living organisms throughout the history of the earth (which is why we call them "fossil fuels").

If we ignore the burning of fossil fuels ... humans (just like any animal) are solid-carbon consuming/gaseous-carbon (CO2) exhaling organisms. But we (and all other animals) are more than compensated for by the gaseous-carbon (CO2) inhaling/solid-carbon producing plants. That is the carbon cycle in a nutshell ... plants converting gaseous CO2 to solid-form, and animals converting solid carbon back to gaseous form.

But both plants and animals have been leaving behind bodies with carbon atoms trapped in solid form, for billions of years.

But the burning of fossil fuels changes that cycle.

We are taking all of that carbon captured in solid form for billions of years, and re-releasing it in gaseous form, (again primarily CO2), within the course of a few *hundred* years. And we expect this not to change the balance.

(Incidentally, the chopping down at the rate of 200,000 acres a day, of lush plant life in the rainforest, in order to make way for cattle farms, is not helping matters.)

>"Through the burning of fossil fuels and mining, have we not released enough carbon to create ourselves? "

If by 'create ourselves' you mean our biological bodies, then clearly no. As the burning of fossil fuels does not contribute to our bodies.

But if by 'create ourselves' you are being a bit more poetic ... and referring to the creation of ourselves as *technological* beings ... which produces a voracious need for more and more energy ... then yes, we have managed to 'create ourselves' by burning most of the fossil fuels we can get at easily.

But now that we have 'created ourselves', we need to continue to feed that energy appetite that keeps getting bigger and bigger ... with a supply of fossil fuels that can only get harder and harder to find and mine.

>"Maybe a more interesting question: Is six feet under enough depth to slow carbons release from burial and would this be a case for being buried instead of cremated?"

I doubt it makes a difference. The collective biomass of (at most) a few hundred years of human beings, even with our bloated population, is not going to produce a significant amount of the future world's fossil fuels. So burial or burning probably doesn't change the equation much.

Interesting questions. (And I hope I understood them correctly.)

> can we not simply capture carbon by increasing population instead of decreasing it?

No. When I was commuting, my car would burn through my body's amount of carbon in less than a month. More people means more people commuting. You also have people burning fuel oil in the winter to warm houses. (I live in Los Angeles. No heating necessary). So a human population is not a good carbon sequestration method.

> Is the reality of a large population on earth due to the fact that there is now enough carbon to go around?

No. Fixed nitrogen is more of a limiting factor. Without artificially fixed nitrogen ("Haber process") billions of people would starve to death. There's plenty of carbon to go around.

> Is six feet under enough depth to slow carbons release from burial

No. Decay happens. It would be more useful to sequester carbon in large growing trees. Most of them live longer than people, and contain a lot more carbon, in a more durable form. than a person.

Excellent question. I like it.