Every living thing on Earth has carbon in it. The sea takes up carbon. Rocks take up carbon. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is just part of the carbon reservoir in the Earth as a whole. There have been periods in Earth's history where there has been more CO2 in the atmosphere than there is now, so evidently it has a finite time in the atmosphere.
The problem is that currently we are increasing CO2 emissions while not increasing (and in some cases decreasing) carbon sinks. Natural cycles are all about balance. Life itself is a delicate but dynamic balance. You can't reduce the Earth to a simple series of stoichiometric equations. If that were the case you might as well start hurtling trees into space because they'll become CO2 as well, eventually. So will you. So will I. We could bury 30% of the world's population in a large concrete bunker and that would sequester a good amount of carbon but I don't think that would be politically acceptable.
On human scales no, it won't happen in time. But humans are another species subject to the same Malthusian concepts of resource crisis as every other. When things get really bad mortality will increase. Under environmental pressure there will be cultural clashes because in a resource crisis every animal becomes territorial and humans are very cultural. War, disease, famine, financial stress, drought, flooding and civil unrest will all contribute. Doesn't matter whether we build fusion reactors and develop carbon sinks. We won't do that in time either. We really don't have very long. In a chaotic system all it takes is something to trigger phase change and then all we can do is try to survive until another tipping point is reached.
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The problem is that currently we are increasing CO2 emissions while not increasing (and in some cases decreasing) carbon sinks. Natural cycles are all about balance. Life itself is a delicate but dynamic balance. You can't reduce the Earth to a simple series of stoichiometric equations. If that were the case you might as well start hurtling trees into space because they'll become CO2 as well, eventually. So will you. So will I. We could bury 30% of the world's population in a large concrete bunker and that would sequester a good amount of carbon but I don't think that would be politically acceptable.
On human scales no, it won't happen in time. But humans are another species subject to the same Malthusian concepts of resource crisis as every other. When things get really bad mortality will increase. Under environmental pressure there will be cultural clashes because in a resource crisis every animal becomes territorial and humans are very cultural. War, disease, famine, financial stress, drought, flooding and civil unrest will all contribute. Doesn't matter whether we build fusion reactors and develop carbon sinks. We won't do that in time either. We really don't have very long. In a chaotic system all it takes is something to trigger phase change and then all we can do is try to survive until another tipping point is reached.