Could the goo and gunk in your home be solutions to climate change?

Climate change solutions might be lurking in the dark recesses of your home, according to microbiologist James Henriksen, and he’s encouraging everyone to get involved in the search for extremophiles, organisms that survive in extreme environments – including your water heater, air conditioner and dishwasher.

Henriksen, a Colorado State University scientist, said these microbes, or microscopic organisms, have adapted to harsh conditions and have developed specialized traits – some of which could be beneficial to people by gobbling up carbon dioxide or cleaning harmful pollutants from the environment.

The Extremophile Campaign: In Your Home – a partnership among CitSci, the Two Frontiers Project and SeedLabs – launched in October to leverage participatory science in the quest to identify helpful organisms. Henriksen said they’ve already made some new discoveries.

“We believe that we have found new organisms, and we know that they have unique characteristics purely from the fact that they’re growing and thriving in some of these unusual environments,” he said.

Henriksen and his collaborators recently discovered one such microbe with an appetite for carbon dioxide in volcanic ocean vents – a CO2-rich environment – off the island of Vulcano in the Aegean Sea. The microbe – nicknamed “Chonkus” – can capture carbon dioxide quickly, and it sinks, essentially sequestering concentrated carbon dioxide.

Chonkus is a type of cyanobacteria, which feed on carbon dioxide through photosynthesis like plants, only they can consume much more CO2 than their multi-celled counterparts.

“Half the air you’re breathing comes from microbes,” Henriksen said, adding that they play key roles in carbon and nitrogen cycles and are essential for life on the planet.