Unearthed: The Mysterious Microbes in the Earth's Crust Could Help Us With The Climate Crisis

Climate change is threatening human survival on this planet and decreasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions alone will not reverse its potentially devastating effects. We need to pull existing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and put them somewhere safe. But where on Earth is a good safe place to keep them?

Climate change is caused when CO2, extracted from Earths interior in the form of hydrocarbons is released into Earths atmosphere. The most obvious solution is to put some of that carbon back from whence it came. The only problem is that we dont have hundreds of millions of years to wait to re-form the fossilized plant matter that it originally was.

We have to move faster. And to do that, we need to face the fact that the interior of Earth is not an inert dumping ground. Its teeming with life. Wherever we dig and however deep we dig, we find microscopic living organisms. To bury our CO2 effectively, were going to have to negotiate successfully with our silent downstairs neighbors. And to do that, weve got to figure out who they are and what theyre capable of doing down there.