Climate change: Negative CO2 emissions not so farfetched

I just read Johnathan Franzen’s essay on climate change, “What if we stopped pretending the climate apocalypse can be stopped?”in The New Yorker. I hate to say this, but I’m afraid he might be right.

Perhaps it is just human nature to focus on ourselves in the present, but as Franzen points out, there are still things we can and should do.

Even for those who don’t believe human activities are the cause of climate change, the remedy is the same – reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.

However, to avoid catastrophe we need to not just get to zero emissions. We need to get to negative emissions, i.e. to permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Fortunately, there are ways to do that, as explained by Jenifer Wilcox in her 14-minute TED Talk, “A new way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.”

This technology is a necessary strategy for avoiding a catastrophe for the human race. She mentions three companies working on different solutions to negative emissions: Carbon engineering, climeworks and global thermostat.

It’s time to stop pretending or ignoring and start acting to do what we can.

This story was originally published September 25, 2019 at 5:39 PM.