Global Warming | Culture
The Uncertain Plan To Pull CO2 Out Of The Air
Can carbon capture alter our fight against global warming?
Another hurricane just slammed into us here in Florida which, on its own, isn’t unusual. But we’ve seen increasingly hot weather and record setting water temperatures that are threatening to kill off our coral reefs.
The threat of climate change is more real than ever and it’s already here. 137 countries have taken the carbon neutral pledge — with many having a target date of 2050. Progress is being rigorously tracked but many nations have a long way to go.
The hard reality is that most modeling scenarios have a built-in assumption that we’ll innovate better ways of removing CO2 manually. Which brings us to carbon capture — which is fascinating, but not without flaws. Here are a few ways it can happen.
Rock weathering
This generally happens naturally in these steps:
- Rainfall hits rocks and reacts with it, capturing CO2.
- The CO2 breaks off and goes into the water.
- It is used by shells and coral.
- Then it’s converted to limestone.
