Fake CO2 Sucking Trees: A Dialogue

by Rich Awn

Hmm, well… on the one hand, you’ve got your real tree doing it’s thing, living off carbon dioxide and being old.

Right.

And on the other, you’ve got the artificial thing made of the “proprietary material that behaves like sodium hydroxide,” one of the most corrosive, awful, caustic substances you can get your hands on (and if you get it on your hands, you’re in trouble).

Okay, we’re following you.

Now enter kooky investor dudes to the wacky professor’s lab who say, “We’re going to help you, Dr. Wackypants.  We’ll be with you every step of the way in trying to develop more eye sores for the world to feel better about their fossil fuel consumption.”

Starting to lose you here.

Wait, it gets weirder.  Now investor dudes and wacky professor succeeded in mimicking the behavior of real tree leaves by using vertically arranged sheets of proprietary paper (I especially love the bit where they’re using stuff like bunched up wads of yarn and testing the wind resistance… CLASSIC!).  The fake leaves, now caked in carbon dioxide, get rinsed creating some carbon dioxide swill “for storage” and the whole doohicky runs on electricity.

Lost you.

Yeah. I’m lost.  But my only lingering question is why did the wacky professor let his 12-year-old daughter handle lethal sodium hydroxide only to win SECOND PLACE in the elementary school science fair???

No clue.

Nova video here.

Photo by Carol Esther.

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