As Al Gore has pointed out, a lot of stuff got jammed in to the Inflation Reduction Act, like carbon capture and sequestration projects, that was more of a concession to fossil fuel shill Senator Joe Manchin than any actual climate solution. Still, most of the scenarios for a livable planet going forward do include some kind of carbon drawdown process. Video above is an intro to the idea, and does mention some of the pitfalls.
4 thoughts on “Geoengineering: Is this the Break Glass Moment?”
Removing the 0.042% CO2 from the atmosphere is a harder problem than removing the 5-20% CO2 from the industrial emission sources. Of course, an increasing amount of the emissions are from diffuse sources (wildfires, warming wetlands), but you get more bang for your buck going after the controlled sources first.
I’ve got a brilliant geoengineering solution* to mitigate sea level rise: Build a giant aqueduct from the Pacific Ocean to Death Valley, which is 86 meters below today’s sea level.
_____________
*as part of my bullet-proof “Cane Toad Solutions” portfolio
Stick with the plan, not sure mother earth would react to human short term break-the-glass solutions quickly enough to avoid mass tragic catastrophes.
MIT has some advice, there has to be some trust and listening.
The 2023 Global Change Outlook finds that both global temperature targets remain achievable, but require much deeper near-term emissions reductions than those embodied in current NDCs.
A stark reminder of the time frames nature and evolution works at vs. man’s short spell on Earth.
“The study covers geologic records spanning the past 66 million years, putting present-day concentrations into context with deep time. Among other things, it indicates that the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide consistently reached today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago—much longer ago than some existing assessments indicate. It asserts that long-term climate is highly sensitive to greenhouse gas, with cascading effects that may evolve over many millennia.”
Removing the 0.042% CO2 from the atmosphere is a harder problem than removing the 5-20% CO2 from the industrial emission sources. Of course, an increasing amount of the emissions are from diffuse sources (wildfires, warming wetlands), but you get more bang for your buck going after the controlled sources first.
I’ve got a brilliant geoengineering solution* to mitigate sea level rise: Build a giant aqueduct from the Pacific Ocean to Death Valley, which is 86 meters below today’s sea level.
_____________
*as part of my bullet-proof “Cane Toad Solutions” portfolio
Stick with the plan, not sure mother earth would react to human short term break-the-glass solutions quickly enough to avoid mass tragic catastrophes.
MIT has some advice, there has to be some trust and listening.
The 2023 Global Change Outlook finds that both global temperature targets remain achievable, but require much deeper near-term emissions reductions than those embodied in current NDCs.
https://news.mit.edu/2023/accelerated-climate-action-needed-sharply-reduce-current-risks-1206
A stark reminder of the time frames nature and evolution works at vs. man’s short spell on Earth.
“The study covers geologic records spanning the past 66 million years, putting present-day concentrations into context with deep time. Among other things, it indicates that the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide consistently reached today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago—much longer ago than some existing assessments indicate. It asserts that long-term climate is highly sensitive to greenhouse gas, with cascading effects that may evolve over many millennia.”
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/12/07/a-new-66-million-year-history-of-carbon-dioxide-offers-little-comfort-for-today/