Design
Could This Lovely Synthetic Leaf Solve our Carbon Woes?
The notion is awesome, but the science behind it might not be.
A few years ago, Columbia University researcher Klaus Lackner generated a spray of headlines with designs for a band-shaped plastic kiosk that would capture carbon dioxide thousands of times faster than any tree.
But Lackner's "synthetic trees" wouldn't look anything like trees, nor would they be made of anything remotely organic. Let's say they lack the romance of the real thing.