The tricky plan to pull CO2 out of the air
VloĆŸit
- Äas pĆidĂĄn 5. 04. 2023
- Will carbon dioxide removal work? It has to.
Subscribe and turn on notifications đ so you don't miss any videos: goo.gl/0bsAjO
In recent years, over 70 countries have committed to net-zero carbon emissions, aiming to become carbon neutral by mid-century. The 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally limit it to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Despite global efforts, emissions are still rising, and achieving the 1.5-degree goal has become increasingly difficult.
Most pathways to keep warming below 2 degrees, and eventually return back to 1.5 rely on negative emissions, which involve pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods like enhanced weathering and direct air capture.
However, these techniques are still in early development stages, and require land, energy, and money. Critics argue that relying on CDR implicitly encourages governments and companies to postpone necessary emissions reductions because counting on CDR now means relying on future generations of leaders to deliver on those promises. Preventing emissions is broadly less costly than cleaning them up after the fact. But even with dramatic cuts to emissions, experts say some amount of CDR will still be necessary.
Sources and further reading:
cdrprimer.org
www.stateofcdr.org/
www.carbonbrief.org/explainer...
carbonplan.org/research/cdr-v...
carbonplan.org/research
www.eenews.net/articles/compe...
skepticalscience.com/SkS_Anal...
www.annualreviews.org/doi/10....
insideclimatenews.org/news/04...
www.climatewatchdata.org/net-...
www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-...
www.carbonremovalalliance.org/
ourworldindata.org/grapher/cu...
unfccc.int/process-and-meetin...
ourworldindata.org/grapher/an...
www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-...
unfccc.int/sites/default/file...
ourworldindata.org/grapher/so...
newrepublic.com/article/16606...
Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: vox.com/video-newsletter
Vox is an explanatory newsroom on a mission to help everyone understand our weird, wonderful, complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. Part of that mission is keeping our work free.
You can help us do that by making a gift: www.vox.com/contribute-now
Watch our full video catalog: goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on TikTok: / voxdotcom
Check out our articles: www.vox.com/
Listen to our podcasts: www.vox.com/podcasts
Shop the Vox merch store: vox.com/store
Watch our full video catalog: goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on Facebook: / vox
Follow Vox on Twitter: / voxdotcom
Follow Vox on TikTok: / voxdotcom
Artificial CO2 removal isn't a technology that is currently viable in any way unfortunately. Don't let big-oil convince you otherwise.
If it were viable, would you support it?
@@SomeKidFromBritain lol, i dont understand, its just a engineering problem, either it works or not. its not an opinion. Are you against cleaning the air? its not the point. the point is viability as a solution for the problem. which in the current state, it is not. is it hard to compreend?
No but that isn't the point. No it won't allow us to keep burning fossil fuels and no it's not practical to just offset everything. However, current predictions say global warming is already at 1.2 degrees Celsius and it's predicted that it will reach 3.2 degrees Celsius at the current rate of decarbonisation we need much stronger measures to accelerate that decarbonsiation, most effective would be a carbon tax. But in the long run there are both industries such as long distance air travel which are near-impossible to decarbonise (short distance can and likely will be electrified but the energy density of batteries is far too low for anything beyond a few of hundred miles), where the best solution will likely be to require airlines to pull as much or more carbon from the atmosphere as they emit. Additionally in the long run we will want to pull the carbon which has been and will be emitted out of the atmosphere and to do that at scale we need the technology to be mature, which means we need to start development now.
ââ@@SomeKidFromBritain I think anyone reasonable would. The problem is it's a hypothetical solution to a very real and imminent problem that already has real solutions. The only thing preventing those solutions right now is that it would affect profit of companies that majorly contribute to the problem, and require everyone to put their guns down in a very volatile global political climate.
To all of you, in a scenario where carbon capture can be demonstrated to function effectievly, It must be used. We could go net zero tomorrow and we still need to pull co2 out of the air.
Godspeed.
A more accurate bathtub metaphor would be adding food coloring to the tub and then trying to extract it back out. Extraction is a lot more difficult and energy intensive than prevention.
good analogy
good metaphor
That's entropy right there! Well said.
much better than their analogy
*Why can't someone of influence just come out and say "it's obvious - the affluent areas of the world are OVERPOPULATED (env impact = overpopulation x overconsumption)?* Why do the phonies keep being disingenuous about what we need to do?
The first lie I remember my government telling me was twenty years ago when the UK pledged to net zero by 2020. That goal just got pushed back another thirty years. I wonder if in 2050 they'll all say "We promise to hit net zero by 2100"?
I don't recall the UK government making such a promise back in 2000, they set goals to reduce CO2 emissions by set amounts below 1990 levels.
@SitFigNewton maybe by systematically going off with their heads, theyâd realize the problemâŠ
It literally won't matter anymore by 2050, climate change will be entirely baked in and unavoidable, period, end discussion. 50+ meters of sea level rise will be the absolute best case scenario long-term.
Could you link me a official statement issued by the United Kingdom in 2000 to reach net zero by 2020? I highly doubt such was ever made. Why do you lie?
even if they do, you should be happy about it, going net zero is just waste of money that can be spent on something more useful...
CDR does just seem like an excuse for companies to not have to turn off the tap, or in some cases even increase the amount coming out if they think they can "buy down" their emissions for a lower cost than what they can make by increasing emissions
is that a bad thing? if they CAN buy down emissions (seems prohibitively costly though) then let them emit as much as they want
â@@swank8508 that money would be better spent transitioning to greener forms of energy and whatnot.
@@swank8508 the problem right now atleast is with the accuracy and accountability of those carbon credits that companies buy. Its rife for abuse and exploitation. Some of those carbon credits can be bought for projects that haven't even started capturing yet, and if that's used as an excuse for creating more emissions then were worse off than where we started
@@swank8508 > is that a bad thing?
Generally speaking, yes.
> if they CAN buy down emissions
Problem is they can't. Not really. Sure you can setup a market and charge them for polluting, but until we have the technology to undo that pollution its not solving the climate crisis. Nature stubbornly refuses to accept USD or any other human currency.
@@swank8508 yes, it's a bad thing. continuing to use fossil fuels and non renewable energy just because 'we have methods of removal' doesnt suddenly become good. that's a quick and easy way to stay carbon neutral for hundreds of years, or even worse, regress back to carbon positive
Carbon capture has another big problem not mentioned in the video: CO2 is not the only pollutant created by carbon intensive heavy industry. Only capturing carbon leaves poor communities located next to factories stuck with all the NOx, PM2.5, and other toxic products that aren't captured.
exactly and also the environmental damage these factories and companies cause.
CH4 is the worst one of all
You're not wrong, but the focus of this video and carbon capture is on attempting to reverse global warming caused by CO2.
Those issues you mentioned are not problems associated with the technology. You might as well say, "the issue with heart surgery is that it didn't get rid of my cancer and diabetes". That makes no sense.
Methannnne 25% more increase of warming than co2
That's an important fact to keep in mind. But it still seems a little strange to say the problem with this thing is it solves some of our problems and not all of them. It's still much better than nothing.
What your saying is like saying we can't forgive student loans because it doesn't help with medical debt.
Maybe I missed the part where they talk about how many of the carbon capture technologies require more energy than they save and that was rolled up into the "we gotta turn off the tap" line.
Carbon capture technologies don't save any energy, but they can be carbon negative if we use renewable energy to power them
I guess the thinking in those cases is that you're supposed to power them with renewables
Also, it doesnât mention that Oil companies are the biggest investors in this technology.
They are promoting carbon capture instead of renewables, as a way to profit on the other end
We have to start somewhere. We didn't ditch the horse + carriage and ended up in a ford mustang over night. Things take time and money to improve. You know... R&D.
â@Lilian oil companies also spend lots of money on renewable energy and research. I know you guys like to always make them out as 100% pure evil but they DO invest in cleaner technology that competes with fossil fuels. You can downplay it as PR or whatever but it's silly to think that every seemingly good thing is actually some complicated ploy to earn even more money.
I think it's super dangerous to present it as a real option. We just don't know if it is viable, and the fact we are already relying on it in our plans is just a way to launder saying that we won't hit our goals. We need to be realistic about how badly we are doing, otherwise we'll never actually do what we need to.
Not to mention that this is yet another way for extremely profitable corporations to push their costs into externalities we all have to pay for.
And to be clear, that isn't to say we shouldn't *try* to make it work, just that relying on it working is wrong, and any costs should be weighed against just investing in more reliable existing options.
You do realize that net-zero isnât enough, we have to remove the carbon in the atmosphere
@@lattyware there is no scenario where it isn't a real option. I don't say this as a booster of the tech, but saying that we can rely on anything else to avoid extraordinary harm is false. I know that makes me sound like one of those nuclear advocates who demand we rely on that particular tech (or any other tech, I just hear nuclear advocates say stuff like that a lot). But there are no scenarios which do not contain this - since the 5th assessment report carbon sequestration has been part of the projections for 2 degrees and 1.5 degrees. It's really unfortunate that we're trusting something that doesn't exist to save us, but that's our only option.
@@avinashreji60 I mean, we could probably live with some level of elevated carbon. Like a positive one degree world is probably something we could accept. But I agree with current trends we are going to need to find some solution. That doesn't mean we will find a means to achieve it, but we will need it.
â@@avinashreji60 we would eventually, but the more pressing matter is stopping emissions right now, which we are already struggling with
Big friggin problem:
The massive amount of energy that it takes to remove that teeny tiny bit of CO2 is just going to lead to more demand for fossil fuels, so this WILL make the problem worse.
Yep
Ideally theyâd only run when thereâs excess renewables production. Second best would be hooking up small nuclear plant to provide exclusive power for the machinery. Cheapest would probably be powering it with oil and gas so, sadly, that seems the most likely.
@CarlosT No, because all that clean energy could have gone to offsetting fossil fuels on the grid. Supply of solar, nuclear, etc. is as of yet limited.
the sincerity in the almost deflated, apologetic, sadness of the statement at the end .. i felt that, like a big sigh
same feeling when the toys in toy story 3 accepted their fate - too. soon.
we accepted our date 40 years ago when we allowed corporations to dictate how we live. When we allowed money, paper monopoly money to control our lives.
I would highly recommend tracking down a copy of 'on the beach', might hit that note even more precise than toy story.
@@moonknightj5797 "40 years ago" is quite short sighted.
Me after watching the video: weâre all doomed
â@@j377yb33n film or novel?
Big part of sequestering forest carbon is that you have to do something with the trees. A tree falls in the woods, it rots and releases Co2 back into the environment. You harvest timber in a sustainable and silviculturally sound way, then you get products that store Co2 in them. Ideally for this you want structural and architectural products that are durable and last hundreds of years. Not toilet paper and fast fashion construction.
Exactly, plus the trees we plant are very fast growing and typically monoculture and nonnative further disrupting ecosystems.
Well, when you plant a forest in an area that didn't have one before even if one tree dies and releases it's carbon back into the atmosphere another one will take it's place and capture it again. The problem is we are currently cutting down more forests than we plant.
Not all of that tree's CO2 has to be released. Soil has a huge capacity to store carbon, hence the no-till movement as an effort to reduce climate change.
but some of that carbon from the trees stays in the ground, and treed are the most efficient in comparison with the CDR technologies ( and it doesn't require additional energy )
Sounds reasonable in principle. But in practice... what can be mass-produced and also last hundreds of years?
Funny how you've left out the part where all those CDR payment those companies like Meta do are done in vain into a scam of a process just to get a green logo on their website.
Litterally
It would be interesting to know if the companies pursuing CDR and ESG status, how many of them operate primarily in buildings with LEED Platinum Status?
There are concerns with LEED donât get me wrong, but that system at least tracks emissions from cradle to grave and has a qualified standard by which to gage the environment impact and benefit of buildings that tenants occupy.
Course tenets have to pay a heft premium for these builds, but it would mean a lot more if companies are willing to pay out a 400% premium for structures to occupy on the front end than to promise futures of CDR without ever actually making that investment.
Hi, I loved the presentation, but I must say I have a few notes and requests.
With planting trees, the young canât quite capture the same amount of CO2 that older trees can. And the older trees also emit more CO2 once dead. Iâd love to hear more about how forest protection is equally important as reforestation & whatâs happening around the world regarding that.
And the other point is the continents most responsible for CO2 emissions. Is it really the countries or is it specific companies? How is CO2 emitted, whatâs the root cause? Who are the biggest players? Iâm sure some other channels (like The Story of Stuff) have already touched on these, but maybe we need to get the emitters to be more accountable by mentioning them.
young trees also don't take as much space as old trees so it probably balances out. young trees also won't take as much energy to cut down, process into biochar, and bury.
Coming back to this comment in 2070 to see if it's still up
you will probably be dead by then
Youâre a genius.
7 more years and it's 2077
YO samee
I'm not sure if we all will be alive by then đ
In chemistry labs, thereâs something called green chemistry which focuses on using renewable resources to make reactions rather than use many chemicals for the starting reactant. Not a lot of labs use it but many chemists really value synthesis that use solid CO2 to make their product since it contributes to healthy environment even if very little
đ
who aske
What if we banned all chemicals having more that a dozen atoms per molecule?
âShould we change our economy to avoid destroying the world?â âNo, itâs too expensive.â
@Youssii or maybe the severity of the problem is greatly overstated. You might want to read "Unsettled" by Steven Koonin. Reacting to predictions of disaster founded on computer models that can't be verified is a sure fire way to hurt a lot of people. "The cure would prove to be worse than the disease".
What's being destroyed?
@@mra4955 the arctic, worldwide ecosystems, thousands of spiecies, forests..
@@estebanbolduc 'worldwide ecosystems' lol
You have to understand "the economy" isn't an abstract dollar sign in a computer. It's the combination of all human activity. Changing the economy means poverty. You may be perfectly willing to do it for the cause, but convince billions to live on less resources. People would grab the pitchforks.
Watch how in 47 years youtube starts randomly putting this in everyoneâs recommendations lol
I probably shouldn't have started my day with this
Currently in bed and decided to watch this before getting up, gonna turn it off now and watch it later after reading this comment. Thanks!
why not?
The economic argument for sequestration misses the point entirely, because they don't run on dollar bills, they run off electricity, and that energy even when it comes from renewables takes away from other uses of that energy.
When a company pours billions into sequestration in the US, while India is building coal plants because they don't have cheap enough access to renewables. They're not being "socially responsible", they're acting in the interest of their rich friends.
LITERALLY
Replacing a coal power plant with something like a nuclear power plant is easier than done in India. India has come a long way, but the construction industry is inefficient and investors are still hesitant to invest due to political instability and overbearing regulations regarding the industry.
"We were committing to net 0." No đ€Ł. We told that we're committing to net 0, but based on the current trend (at least for Canada and the US), we're not even gonna get close to net 0 đ.
I need more Joss Fong videos.
i see you are a man of culture as well
sheâs so beautiful
Sheâs mine
Funny how FONG didn't talk about China big problem
@@RenetteDescartess69 - Except she totally did. Twice. She didnât mention most countries by name but they were highlighted in the graphic as the biggest polluters and on the chart, âespecially Asiaâ. What else donât you understand? Maybe I can help you with that too.
"in the 2020s we were figuring out how to plant trees and protecting existing forests"
Not as simple as planting trees unfortunately. Look up how the carbon cycle works and itâs main contributors.
â@@TheGhostOf2020 look how efficient plantlife absorbs c02 in the air and how many can they "fix".
You'll be surprised
Planting trees is at-best CO2 neutral in the long term, realistically: It's only adding more CO2 to the atmosphere.
Before you even plant a tree at its location, you already expel several kilograms of CO2. Then tree grows - captures a few tons of CO2. But after death it doesn't get sequenced into carbon, rather it is used for products that end up roting in waste yards, if it isn't burned directly for heating. And everything between tree being cut down and turning back into gases and ash involves tons of CO2 - the more there is between final remains of the wood being turned into underground carbon, the more CO2 gets emitted.
And even in a fully natural environment, without any human activity (which barely exist in Europe or US), majority of the mass of the dead tree is expelled into atmosphere at one point or another, from roting to cow farting off last atoms of carbon re-used by other plants that grew from that dead tree. In nature very, very little of the dead tree actually remains underground. That's why it takes hundreds of thousands of years to accumulate even 1 centimeter of rock.
@@SkywalkerWroc Everything you said can be fixed.
Trees can be composted. I have friends who already bury logs for compost.
Also, "Before you even plant a tree at its location, you already expel several kilograms of CO2." - what do you mean?
@@AntonAdelson Composting turns around 20% of the mass into CO2 and methane, but there are also numerous other byproducts, notably NOx (the poisonous gas that diesel cars emit).
And if you use the resulting substrate for anything else than to bury it underground - in the end it's emitted into the atmosphere in up to 99% of the mass.
"what do you mean?" - I mean that you don't teleport seeds into the field, even if the only CO2 emitting thing you do is transporting them by car - it's still CO2. And stuff like growing the seedlings also has associated CO2 emissions (e.g. plastic pots, moving stuff around, delivering water, etc. etc.) - all in all it's several kilograms of CO2 quite easily.
CO2 capture/removal only makes sense for things like concrete where emmisions aren't avoidable because of the chemical reaction that happens during production and once you stopped emitting CO2 in the first place. Direct air capture takes energy in the form of electricity, so even if you power it exclusive with green energy that electricity could have been used to replace fossil fuels in the electricity grid instead. Which means you didn't actually remove any CO2.
that's not necessarily true though if lets say with 1 mwhr of fossil fuel energy 10 tones of co2 is produced while using carbon capture 1mwhr of energy 100 tones of co2 can be removed from the atmosphere it would be better to remove co2 then to not. but at least right now its way better to not produce co2 in the first place and use renewable energy to replace fossil fuels
@@anustubhmishra First of all - Current state of the technology consumes more CO2 equivalent of energy than it removes. Second - It's not anywhere near things people would invest in, as it does not produce any profits, and that's what is driving the economy, so don't count on that. Third - This is a "solution" fuel companies came up with and are actively promoting to protect their busines. And to add a cherry on top - CO2 is not the only gass that's produced by burning fossil fuels, in fact lierally all the other ones are those we shoud be worried about. CO2 could easily be handled by all the trees growing all around the world if we weren't actively chopping them down.
CO2 capture will NOT happen unless mandated by a government, and even that is unlikely to be done in any proficient manner.
@@shapelessed That's fair I guess. we should definitely get the basic stuff right first and then worry about carbon capture and other fringe technologies. Climate change wont be solved with any one technology but will be a long process that will be require a societal shift in the entire world. idk why but i feel optimistic about it so i think we will get it done somehow and in the process it might even raise our standard of living!
@@SigFigNewton I doubt that's going to happen. Concrete has become such a vital part of our lives and now that scientist have figured out how roman concrete (which is self healing) is made I see even less chances that we will find a suitable alternative.
â@@anustubhmishra yep. The technology works, but it just makes more sense to stop polluting than to rely on this expensive tech.
Eventually this tech will be more useful, but for now it's just a distraction that lets oil companies continue to pollute.
Net zero will never happen when human society keeps its comfort and does not start living back in the pre-modern era.
Why slow down the gravy train when we can gamble our future on high tech fantasies instead? Thanks for the hard hitting interview. Powerful journalism đ
literrally got an advert from Kayak, encouraging me to book flights, before watching this video. Clowns.
Do you travel everywhere on foot?
sounds like in a generation or so we might be paying for clean air
They are trying to demonise the gas of life.
Having a higher CO2 concentration in the outside air won't make it unbreathable until you get to far higher concentrations than anything forecast. The issue is climate change, not air quality.
Unfortunately, we already are.... In some parts of the world, especially in China...
People are buying bottled air. Bottled Air..... :"
@@TheGerm24 interesting point but air quality is part of the issue before it becomes entirely unbreathable in my opinion đ€·đŸââ
@@TheGerm24 True, but there' are other emissions combined with CO2 being emitted after burning fossil fuels - nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, ozone, methane, and carbon monoxide. There's already higher concentrations of those gases and particulate matter in urban and high density populations causing all sorts of health problems. I would imagine those concentrations worsen as more air pollution is released from fossil fuels, causing more widespread health concerns and deteriorating respiratory conditions.
Love the pessimism that this video will only be viewed 1.2 million times in 47 years. That's on brand for humanity to not bother about any sensible discussion related to climate change.
There's such a simple solution to this. According to Terraformation, native, biodiverse forests that WE LEAVE ALONE will sequester carbon out of the air for $7 A TON. JUST $7 - so someone explain to me why we're not ALL IN on this until other carbon capture technologies come online - I'll help look up any details or questions about this number people have. The solution to this already exists: forests.
forests are absolutley part of the solution but they wont fix climate change on their own.
Theres only so much land on earth. The reduction in forest capacity since the industrial revolution has almost entirely been due to agriculture and suburban sprawl. People need to eat, so planting forests where their food grows doesnt really work.
You can reduce the land required for food by promoting plant based diets (no need to grow animal feed or have grazing land) but thats wildly unpopular.
@@cbuck1669 no climate change its a scam
@@cbuck1669 Yep I think you're right, it should never be a standalone solution, but it probably has more capacity for carbon drawdown than people give it credit for - and critically it is "shovel-ready" today, like right now, while we figure out the technocratic approaches. Land use is another huge part of the solution - an intelligent, co-ordinated way to use the land to meet our collective needs.
Net zero carbon is NOT enough. We need to transition to completely non-emissive forms of energy. Solar, wind, water, and nuclear. No exceptions. And all of society needs to push towards this, all future bills must also push these changes. We need to dump oil and gas yesterday. Also trees are the best form CDR, which intrinsically makes sense. Plants need the CO2. The US alone could transition within a decade to completely non-oil or gas-based energy, we just need to think outside the box and have some dreamers push it
As a climate researcher I can tell you it's a pipe dream. The year 1990 or even 1992 was the last year when if we had completely stopped the emissions, we would be able to reverse course. And they want to be net positive by 2050? Unfortunately we are already in collapse and by 2050 we will have wars, famines and the collapse of many countries (South east asia, Latin america, Africa etc)
We need systems that actually push for change and human well-being, not chase profit at any expense
Dude how do you think we make solar panels, concrete for hydroelectric dams, and wind turbines?
We need to make sure to put the pony before the cart here. Sure those energy sources are ideal in so many ways, but we canât build those power sources/tech only using our existing capacity.
Sometimes you have to crawl before you can walk.
Not just trees. Ecosystems. Grasslands, wetlands, everything.
@Josiah Klein correct any plant native to their ecosystems. Ideally I envision the US going full solar using federal land in Nevada and eventually just making electricity free in the US. We need to work with scientists tho to make sure solar farm of that magnitude is not detrimental to the ecosystem there. Runoff energy goes towards a desalination plant to stabilize the water of the western US. This ideas think of themselves when you have people who actually are less old than dirt
The problem with carbon capture is that its energy intensive and long term storage could become disastrous even if the tech was viable. You need to prevent any leak or chemical interaction which release CO2. The reason why trees aren't a great solution is that they get broken down by fungi etc which releases all the trapped CO2. The reason we have oil and coal to begin with is all the trees that became the fuel were during a period where microbes couldn't break down lignin allowing the trees to be buried and fossilised. So we are essentially recreating the atmosphere from millions and millions of years ago
Baby, microbacteria release the CO2, but it's NATURAL, not like we do digging on liquid that is not supposed to be our business.
@@isabellacatolica5594 They were pointing out that simply growing a tree doesn't permanently lock carbon away the way the carbon of a coal seam has.
Take trees, turn them into biochar, bury biochar somewhere it won't decompose. Can even make some wood gas along the way.
Excellent analysis!
@@2bfrank657 then you are deforestingvđđđđ
Soil is the biggest carbon sink other than the ocean but you don't want too much carbon going in the ocean because it change the pH. The Save Soil initiative has brought more than 80 countries to recognize the importance of understanding and protecting the soil upon which we depend. It also brought to my attention that by solving that one thing, other major problems that humanity could face would be averted, like mass migrations and drought.
Remind me when it's 2070 guys, i'll pay a visit to this again.
Global cooling is forecast for the next 30-40 years... a natural cycle and you know some politician is gonna take credit for it.
5:27 are these companies just buying "carbon credits"?
They are paying for actual carbon removal. There is a certain amount in the atmosphere. They are removing a measured amount of it. It's not like they are getting paid to prevent logging on a forest or something like that.
Itâs just not going to happen. Never in a 10 year period have we even doubled the output/mining of a single industrial material, but weâre expected to believe in the next 7 years weâre going to produce anywhere from 2-22x the amount of lithium, iron ore, bauxite, neon, silicone, copper, silver, zinc, nickel, rare earth metals and PGMs. That, on top of doubling the electrical grid.
â@@SigFigNewton even if we could do that, the habitat loss, environmental damage, and emissions from mining and processing would grow to absurd proportions. And double isn't enough for lithium; its mining would have to increase by 23 times. And where would those resources come from? That's right, developing countries, historically exploited by developed countries.
Based Zeihan enjoyer.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Who?
Another problem with reforestation is that it takes a LOT of time for newly planted trees to grow to full maturity and become part of the natural carbon capture process, decades even, all time we really don't have.
I realise that tourism and hospitality is important to some underdeveloped countries but when are people going to stop taking so many international vacations/flights? And thereâs way too much business travel. How can we make a difference to CO2 emissions if the âentitledâ are allowed to continue travelling so freely?
Something to know about the tree idea is that trees may not be the best plant for the job in the states. We've actually planted too many trees and a lot of our native grasslands are almost gone
Yeah, and donât forget about wetlands! People keep talking about planting trees but we need to restore what was there before. Itâs ecosystems not trees.
Edit: Let me explain a bit more :D what I was saying isnât that we shouldnât plant trees because in forests that are lacking them, that is great! But what is also important is also the diversity of those forests and all the plants that grow underneath that also help keep carbon trapped. Also, there needs to be bigger efforts with other ecosystems such as grasslands as grassland plants are more well equiped to live there than typical trees. But effort is awesome
i saw the algae in a box thingy and it looks like a perfect thing for the job. of course combined with already existing trees and etc., not as replacement
@@cherryowl The problem is we are unable to convince those states which have cut down trees in drove like Brazil to restore the trees in Amazon. Even with Bolsonaro gone and Lula taking office, it would still be an uphill battle for him to scale down the deforestation, let alone reforestation.
â@@cherryowl I guess one doesn't exclude the other
Different landscapes call for a different approach, what is best at one place isn't at another
But doing something is mostly always better than doing nothing
@@spacemonkey9561 well we won't know for sure until we've tried
This is the market solution unfortunately, HOORAY INFINITE GROWTH!!!
infinite growth is a delusional.
well put
The US needs to steer away from our obsession with cars if we want to slow down climate change. We build our cities solely with the car in mind, it's like we forgot that trains, busses, bicycles, and good ol' walking also exists.
no climate change duhh
I don't see the problem with it. It's like you're bailing out a sinking boat and getting angry at the one guy who stops bailing and tries to plug up the hole. Or vice versa. Both approaches have value.
haven't seen Joss for a long time! welcome back!
Thanks for this video. Very informative.
What is really interesting to hear about mostly about this topic right now especially whatâs going on
Recently the government in Denmark decided to put taxes for companies that release high amount to CO2.
a few things to keep in mind:
IF the nationally determined contributions pledged at the Paris agreement are met we will likely achieve 3.2°C of warming by 2100.
In 2018 it was calculated that to have a 66% chance to keep emissions at 1.5°C by 2100 the total amount of CO2 that can be emitted was 480 Gt of CO2. That means achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, not 2050. Of course if you lower you probability to 50% you end up with a larger carbon budget and hence more time to achieve carbon neutrality, that is why estimates that can be found online vary widely. Of course because of the historical responsibility of the Global North in CO2 emission, the North should have achieved carbon neutrality well before 2030.
letâs enjoy ourselves while we can.
One frightening fact is gas saturation in liquid. Ie: oxygen saturated in rivers and oceans. Gas saturation goes DOWN in water as temperature rises (unlike solid saturation in liquids, who generally go up). Even 1 degree Celsius has a huge impact on the oxygen in water. Not enough oxygen=not enough for fish and plants to live. 3 billion people feed on fish. We're seeing this with coral now: its dying all over the world. No coral = no home for fish = no food bigger fish= no fish.
Then there are Millionaires and Billionaires riding private jets that emit carbons more than every individuals emit in their lifetimes combined.
The problem with CDR is that in order for it to work it canât make any emissions in the process of removing carbon or it would pointless. And since long term cdr storage is only viable in certain geological conditions, there is a very tiny portion of the world that can actually do it. Otherwise youâd have to transport those emissions to places where they can be stored. CDR is just another way to pretend weâre actually making a dent in climate change but in actuality it may make it worse. Because just like with carbon offsets cdr gives a false sense of security that may make companies emit more they normally would. And since cdr isnât that efficient you can see how weâre actually making the climate crisis worse by doing things like cdr and offsets. The solution to climate change is not to greenify our current rate and scale of production it is to simply reduce it. Infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is not possible.
It's like the fish that bites it's fins
Yeah the massive reforestation and extreme emission reduction is still the most important thing to reduce big amount of carbon dioxide for now
From the recently published article in Nature by David T Ho about carbon dioxide removal:
â⊠think of CDR as a time machine. Take the proposed US DAC hubs, for example. Each facility is eventually expected to extract one million tonnes of CO2 each year⊠for every year of operation at its full potential, each hub would take the atmosphere back in time by almost 13âminutes, but in the time it took to remove those 13âminutes of CO2, the world would have spewed another full year of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, if everyone on Earth planted a tree - 8âbillion trees - it would take us back in time by about 43âhours every year, once the trees had matured.
The time-machine analogy reveals just how futile CDR currently is.
We have to shift the narrative as a matter of urgency. Money is going to flood into climate solutions over the next few years, and we need to direct it well. We must stop talking about deploying CDR as a solution today, when emissions remain high - as if it somehow replaces radical, immediate emission cuts.â
I love that metaphor you use
It would be nice if other states and countries made it law to have your vehicles SMOG. It's been required here in California for several years.
You guys seemed to have overlooked the important point that direct carbon capture requires energy and thus carbon emissions which will most likely surpass their offset.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to a collection of technologies that can combat climate change by reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The idea behind CCS is to capture the CO2 generated by burning fossil fuels before it is released to the atmosphere. 0:15 [MIT Climate]
The Carbon Market resulted from the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) during the ECO-92 in Rio de Janeiro. [IPAM]
Carbon capture, or carbon removal, is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and trapping it in some form.
Carbon capture is among many strategies that could reduce the impact of climate change, and keep temperature rise limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius as outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement. 0:30 [Investopedia]
The carbon offsets market isn't just for billionaires-any individual can purchase them.
As trees grow, they capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the biomass of their trunk, branches, and leaves. 3:13
I love how the activist is talking about a new acronym like it's a new idea or technology. Carbon capture and sequestration is the actual phrase they're trying to rename and it's been researched for decades.
They seem to differentiate the two half way through the video
â@@megh6761 they are litterally the same, except one is not acting towards companies and the others are
JOSS FONG!!! đđđ
I missed her videos on this channel so much aaaaaa
"Will guilt tripping to promote recycling only at an individual level en massework work? It has to." Heard that one before
From a childfree 50 yo, good luck to your kids, grandkids..
much love from Indonesia, đ
If we spent the same amount of money and effort on renewable energy, we would prevent far more carbon from being released and much sooner.
Got a new job, can walk to work, and I'm vegan.
Saving up for the solar panels, heat pump, water heater, and battery pack system today.
Planning on moving out of this small town because everyone thinks climate change is a hoax and no jobs are truly climate friendly here.
Degrowth, Degrowth, Degrowth. End Capitalism!!!
This video is the most polite, balanced, respectful way ever to state the hard cold truth that *CARBON CAPTURE IS A FRAUD.*
The only way to finance this is very simple: Taxes on consumption to pay for the removal of the CO2 used to produce those products or services. Youâll instantly see massive changes in consumer behavior. Being so simple and logical means, people will hate it.
We're doomed. Waited too long.
I think that might be for the best. Humans had a good run
I have a feeling that little people like me are gonna suffer the most from this climate change initiative. It used to be housing being extremely expensive. In the future, energy would be extremely expensive. Heating in the winter already is. Flights to see family and friends are gonna be more expensive. I can do without the flights but I have to be able to commute to work. I canât afford to live where I work and I canât ride bikes for 30 km one way in all weather conditions. I never understood why people were so against nuclear fusions. And now crying population decline.
This đisđwhyđweđneedđnuclear đenergy
Is there any efficiency to integrating these into major roadways and capturing the carbon at the source as much as possible?
Stop emitting CO2 - Only if it was that simple. The smallest of items in your house like an eraser to the largest like a car or your huge wardrobe is made by factories and guess what a majority of them being outsourced to smaller plants elsewhere and then you blame these countries for emission. I mean at least address the problems in your home first before coming and knocking at the doors of others
Reduction by 2050 has tp be the most wishful part of the whole video.
Even they don't think it's possible
@@isabellacatolica5594 it's a guarantee that we'll surpass 1.5. Our current trajectory is at 2.6-2.8 degrees. Getting our temperature no over 2 degrees before 22nd century will be a miracle of itself.
why is amador so wide? great video so far kim!
Brave of you to assume there will still be someone around to watch a video in the 2070's.
We will have ended ourselves by that point, and I for one will not cry for us.
Very serious video starting with WELP
Carbon sequestration is seriously expensive. While I believe that itâd have some effect on dense urban communities, it is too big of a time and financial risk to tie our literal future as a society to it.
i recently read an MIT study that demonstrated carbon removal from the oceans, rather than the air. the idea is that the oceans do the capture step for us, and the concentration of co2 in the oceans is 100 times higher than in air. and when we remove the co2 from the oceans, even more co2 from the air is dissolved into them. if we scale that, it could be viable.
This seems silly
Concrete and trees absorb co2 but the problem is going into the atmosphere
It's good the oceans store co2 it does the job for us
How does it work?
Is there a way to get a transcript of this video? Thanks in advance!
Only 1.2 million views in 47 years? Vox really underestimates how viral this topic should be in discussion.
Especially with the return of Joss Fong
assuming I'll live that long (in 2070 I'll be 93), I'll come back to comment on this video :)
And my guess is there'll be no noticeable change in temp in that tiny time frame. There been practically no global warming in the last 200 years so I doubt we'll see any in the next 45.
@@jukesfood5601 Hopefully you'll become more wise within the next 45 years.
@@knownas2017 I doubt I'll live that long. I'm an old guy. Just looking at the last 200 years of recorded temps shows no noticeable warming so I doubt there'll be any change in the next 45.
@@jukesfood5601
1. The more time progresses, the more factories, etc. are making this place worse.
It's not a, "just stop and everything'll be okay" scenario.
The more c02, the faster the planet heats up.
Considering how terrible people've been so far on this subject, I expect the absolute best they can do, is solve the problem by the time the temperature increases by tenfold of what it's already increased to.
Though, my expectations is that they'll go extinct because they all have the same thought process of, "it's not a problem right now", without knowing anything.
And by the time it is "a problem", it'll simply be way, way too late.
Humans going extinct via their own greed, whilst destroying the planet in the process?
Doesn't surprise me, honestly.
2. A change of a few degrees can be(and has been) catastrophic for various species.
3. I'd like to reiterate; The longer the problem stays, the more gas gets produced.
The more gas, the faster the heating, and the harder it is to solve the problem.
Consider it, a timer for a death spiral;
When the time is over, mass extinction is inevitable.
Have a good day. c:
@@knownas2017 You just sound like a doomer sales scammer(or maybe just one of their gullible customers). Your grand childrens grand children will see no difference in temps compared to today. CO2's(a trace gas) biggest effect on the planet is causing slightly more plant growth making the planet slightly greener.
Amazing video!!
Not only is currently costly, it takes something emissions out without replacing it with a new source which is why large companies are heralding it as a solution-they don't need to invest in providing a new energy source (Exxon + friends). Investing in renewable technologies takes out the demand for fossil fuels and replaces it with clean energy. A 1:1 instead of a 1:0
As a junior high-school student whoâs finished with learning about Climate Change, Global Warming, and the Greenhouse Effect - I found this video very insightful! Thank you guys for shedding light to something like this đ
the people responsible for it will be long dead before they experience any effects. Itâs literally pointless.
Joss couldn't make a bad video if she tried. Great journalism!
To me, a BIG, BIG part of scaling down CO2 emissions is by demanding less from our lives. Traveling less, wanting less stuff in our house. Size down. I'm passionate about vehicles, but let's be honest, driving a 1300 kg car for 4 people when you are more than 90% driving alone and almost never driving with 3 or more people?... There should be like 2 seater motorcycles/cars that run 50 km on 1 L of fuel. You can design that with NO problem. Look at the XL1, It drives 100 km/L, the Velomobiel Streamliner run 84 km/L... Prohibit the making of cars that are heavier than 1000 kg, and have them run at least 30 km/L. Make these rules stronger and stronger as the years go by...
This woman did not provide any convincing argument on the feasibility ofCDR. Compare to solar?come on
Here is the HARD truth no one wants to hear: we CANT stop global warming and continue having the lifestyle we have
We need fossil fuels to drive cars or have eletricity. We need metals (which are also limited resources) to have renewable energys or eletric cars, and those metals usually come from poor countries where people work in poor conditions so we, the developed countries continue to have the easy life we have. We also need metals in technology (yes the phone in which you and me are watching this video too)
Most people dont even care about recycling or, before recycling, they dont consider to reduce how much they consume. I am talking about how long are your baths, what do you eat, etc.
We want everything new, everything comes in plastic even fruits and vegetables in a lot of countries.
Idk what is the solution. Maybe the solution is to use a little of everything: a mix of fossil fuels, renewable energy, florestation, CO2 sequestration. This all has to be profitable. We need economy to keep growing. But the way we live has to change. And this hard because the way our society is designed in developed countries it not made thinking about this issue. But if we dont change the way and how much we consume, we will go extinct.
Sorry for the rant. I hope i didnt give you a panic attack.
Have a nice day đ
Like the video. Wish it had mentioned nuclear as a part of that plan though.
nuclear is too expensive to invest in. only about 10% of all energy demand in the world is by nucelar afaik and we have about 440 reactors. we'd need about 4400 and one costs a few billion dollars. what we need is degrowth and eat the rich as they emit so, so much more than the poor.
@@Nuke_Skywalker nuclear energy is still the cleanest energy of all, even more so than hydroelectricity because those infrastructures require a frickload of energy to work. nuclear plants produce so much energy with so little help, theyâre much more effective than anything else. i also wish countries were less scared of adopting it
@@Nuke_Skywalker Nuclear is actually extremely profitable long term. The expensive part is the initial capital investment that is very high. The reason people have been hesitant to nuclear is because itâs only now people have stopped being scared of its perceived and unfounded risks. Nuclear is in reality the safest energy source there is.
Also, eating the rich wonât do anything to emissions. The way countries industrialize and how industrialized countries work is through releasing emissions, you would need to completely restructure society to remove emissions. The energy sector is a good first step, but itâs difficult to move on from there.
@@8is Thats why he said Degrowth, which is a concept that calls for completely redesigning society. And by "the rich" if we look globally, that includes most middle income americans and other western nations. Not just the top 1% of 1%
Nuclear plants and the waste storage ore recycling is too expensive. Nuclear energy costs more per watt than solar, wind and maybe natural gas
Cool thing about biochar, it not only removes carbon, but it has a great commercial value. Farmers can use biochar as a substitute for increasingly expensive fertilizers, improving their soil fertility and reducing their carbon footprint, at the same time removing atmospheric carbon. It also has a number of other industrial applications, like "green concrete". And it requires minimal energy to produce. Just one of many strategies that we need to develop and deploy more rapidly and at greater scale.
Yes I think this is the most promising tech we have at present
Do more. Carbon neutral isn't enough. Aim for greenhouse negative until it's time to transition to carbon neutral. Please.
Great video Joss and Team!
I want to let you know that Amazons AWS55X made it this year. Any better way to start a global change? Don't get me wrong I know they are not like altruists or something but they keep doing the right thing to improve the situation, power the ecomonmy and so much more. We need players like them and we can always jump in the train at good spots such as this one
What is Amazons AWS55X?
@@brendanshannon1706 Simple search shows it's a crypto. I like it
@@tgktepe Ngl I did a google search and it was not very informative. I should rephrase my question, âwhat is Amazon AWS55X exactly and how will it start global change? How does it relate do the environment and global economy?â
â@@brendanshannon1706 might be one of those Crypto scams that keep showing up in the comments
@@Egerit100 thatâs what I thought lol. Thanks for clarifying aha
Not to gloss over the spike in Asian production of CO2 emissions, but how much of that has been in production of goods for the West? The issue that would be a great subject for another video is that Asian markets are keeping up with western demand for cheap goods by using the cheapest energy source: coal. In a way, western nations didnât reduce the flow of emissions coming from their taps, they merely outsourced it to Asia.
đ đ đ
Cheers from San Diego California
IMO. Cracking fusion is our best hope here. If we had basically limitless green power we could use it to run machinery that would be able to pull the carbon out of the atmosphere. Unfortunately we are always 20-30 years away from fusion (so really like 100). I think that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
I agree :((((
Unless AI steps in and helps accelerate fusion research. But even then, the actual execution takes far longer.
How about just stop consuming? Make non business cars just sooo expensive that high density housing has a chance to create walkable communities.
â@@timharbert7145 Don't even need to do that, just push companies to let people telework from home (most white collar workers really don't need to go into the office every day) as well as help make electric and/or hydrogen cars cheaper and more widely available.
Also I hoped for similar stuff like what you mentioned when I was younger but now that I've travelled and seen lots of different horrible to walk across suburbs and business parks, seen how militantly some people would be against all that and seen how terrible some bus systems and bus drivers are at their jobs I just have to say that what you suggested is unfortunately completely impractical.
Thanks for your future forecast oh great seer
Well, if adults had listened to gen X when we were in hs and college, and screaming about this, and Al Gore would have been allowed to be president, since he won the popular vote and all,... he would have done something about then, we wouldn't be in this position.
Combusting fuel releases energy, CO2, and other pollutants. Capturing the released CO2 WILL take more energy than releasing it in the first place, no matter what you do. Its thermodynamics. Trees require the energy from the sun for photosynthesis and capturing CO2. Using devices like direct air capture is useless and I am genuinely surprised with the attention it is getting. Even if the direct air capture used renewable energy, it could have been better used for powering homes.
Incredible video
Direct air capture barely makes a difference in the C02 it captures because it also admits C02
It doesn't, if the energy it uses comes from renewable sources. But then again we could use renewables in the first place and not emmit co2 to begin with
Excellent explanation and I love the bathtub/pipes analogy.
Brace and prepare for the Real life Snowpiercer! This is how Snowpiercer's story began lol.
Le Transperceneige would never work in real life. You need someone to maintain that rail system, and that means a lot of infrastructure. We're also having less and less snow, not more.
You ever thought about, holding corporations responsible for causing this?
To those of you watching in 2070, we really wanted the powers that be to take the necessary action. We really had hope. There is only so much a single person can do, and so much of this necessary change had to be systemic and widescale. We really did try. â€ïžâđ„
Lucky it didnât happen. If it did happen all life would perish