The energy required to take carbon out of the atmosphere is at best, double what it took to put it in the atmosphere in the first place. There’s seriously strong economic reasons that this is a bad idea.
We’re at the point where we can’t prevent the consequences of climate change. We can only prevent it from getting worse and mitigating the effects. Even if we stopped all CO2 emissions this second, we’d still be suffering for years.
It’s worthwhile for us to look at technologies which can reverse our existing impact to some degree. Finding a way to safely and intelligently remove carbon from the atmosphere may be more expensive, but it has the possibility of fixing our climate much sooner than otherwise, and that’s worth it.
It’s important though that we don’t use it as an excuse to stay the same. The cost of doing this “cleaning” needs to be factored into fossil fuel price so transitioning away from it accelerates. Creating some additional cushion while we continue to do that would be very beneficial.
I’ve already accepted we’re fucked. There’s some really good ideas out there, and we know exactly where the majority of the carbon is coming from (I posted a graph in here, the biggest contributor is industry) but legislation isn’t being put in place to target the biggest emitters. Instead, we’re supposed to buy our way out of it by buying electric cars and building more things ie making more industry, when we should be doing the opposite.
You should check out some of Nick Johnson’s videos. There are so many empty, decaying houses in the US. And yet, more houses are being built. It’s astonishing.
The energy required to take carbon out of the atmosphere is at best, double what it took to put it in the atmosphere in the first place. There’s seriously strong economic reasons that this is a bad idea.
We’re at the point where we can’t prevent the consequences of climate change. We can only prevent it from getting worse and mitigating the effects. Even if we stopped all CO2 emissions this second, we’d still be suffering for years.
It’s worthwhile for us to look at technologies which can reverse our existing impact to some degree. Finding a way to safely and intelligently remove carbon from the atmosphere may be more expensive, but it has the possibility of fixing our climate much sooner than otherwise, and that’s worth it.
It’s important though that we don’t use it as an excuse to stay the same. The cost of doing this “cleaning” needs to be factored into fossil fuel price so transitioning away from it accelerates. Creating some additional cushion while we continue to do that would be very beneficial.
I’ve already accepted we’re fucked. There’s some really good ideas out there, and we know exactly where the majority of the carbon is coming from (I posted a graph in here, the biggest contributor is industry) but legislation isn’t being put in place to target the biggest emitters. Instead, we’re supposed to buy our way out of it by buying electric cars and building more things ie making more industry, when we should be doing the opposite.
You should check out some of Nick Johnson’s videos. There are so many empty, decaying houses in the US. And yet, more houses are being built. It’s astonishing.
And it’s perfectly normal for technology to advance and become more effective and efficient over time.