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The only reasons to not switch are political: the threatened power of the fossil capitalists and the geopolitical struggle with China.
there are some applications that just don’t work without energy dense fuels: planes, rockets, etc
in these cases, i’d argue it makes sense to run them on fossil or bio fuels and then pay to offset 100% of their emission with carbon capture, or in the case of bio fuels perhaps that’s enough since the carbon was captured and you’re just re-emitting it?
either way, emitting carbon isn’t the problem: not cleaning up after yourself is the problem… if it’s more economical to burn fuel and clean up elsewhere, fine… as long as it gets cleaned up
How about we do both ?
Yeah net zero is not enough and using trees and plants to capture carbon probably isn’t enough either. We burned millions of years of plant growth in just a few centuries.
Yeah, we're largely past the arguments about the economics of global warming and should be well into the discussions on what is technically feasible. Not many costs are too great at this point.
We currently emit a lot so the choice is: emit less with renewables or keep emitting but capture the carbon
Since renewables are much cheaper we reduce emissions much faster then going with carbon capture. That might be a good idea down the line, but currently 80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels, so down the line is probably decades.
Oh, so will you pay the delta to the uncooperative countries to switch to renewables? No? Then we'll have to do the real expensive thing: both.
If any of you give a shit about the environment or animals, go vegan.
Going vegan is the single biggest thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. apart from unaliving yourself.
Going vegan is a relatively small difference from going vegetarian, which is a small difference from just drastically cutting back on meat. The big thing is that our current systems are unsustainable for animal rights and the environment and everyone needs to cut back on meat drastically at the least. But I imagine that if you could stop driving a car entirely, that would be a bigger difference than losing a reasonable amount of meat from your diet. Though, cutting back on meat is an important step that all of us can take with much more ease.
I have no doubt that renewables are the lowest hanging fruit at the moment, and that we could get to net-zero mostly using them. But there is a big difference between mostly and entirely. As you approach the higher-hanging fruit, things get exponentially more expensive, and there may come a point at which some form of carbon capture is needed to cover that last segment of emissions? Also, I see no mention of nuclear here. I suspect it will need to play a role, though how large that would be remains uncertain. It should definitely be included in any cost analysis though.
Thing is, the time for net-zero has passed, did you hear that whooshing sound?
To pull back from the brink, what is needed is net-negative, which ain't happening without capture (alongside massive reduction in emissions), economics be damned, it's an existential threat, it's about survival. Could be as simple as massive reforestation, could be fusion generators pulling CO2 out of the air, will probably be many different things, but learning what works, as soon as possible, is imperative.
We're nowhere near net zero, though. We do need to get there first. Since carbon capture removes far less carbon per money spent on it than replacing fossil fuel power plants with clean options does, carbon capture doesn't really make sense right now
The varieities that might work out are the ones that give some other benefit for now. Afforestation can help prevent desertification, for example
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Well duh.
It's easier to not to make a mess than making a mess and clean up.
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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