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Language: en
what if we could undo climate change
we're already feeling the effects of a
warming planet to prevent further damage
from human induced climate change we
need to cut global emissions to zero
something that may take decades and even
then it could be too late to avoid
catastrophic damage so is there another
way climate change is driven primarily
by an excess of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere from human emissions this co2
acts like a blanket trapping heat on the
planet so if we want to reverse the
problem is there a way to just take some
of that co2 out of the atmosphere
actually yes there's carbon all around
us if you think of trees as a machine
then trees would be a carbon capture
machine when we're looking at trees
about half of that weight is carbon
first soak up carbon dioxide and they
put it into wood leaves roots you know
the basic building blocks of a tree and
that carbon is held in that tree
according to one recent paper planting
permanent forests on the order of a
trillion trees could erase nearly 1/3 of
all human carbon emissions since human
industrial activity began the potential
of trees is huge that paper has met with
some skepticism around just how
realistic it is there's uncertainty in
some of the measurements and a lot of
the land where those trees could grow is
spoken for people need land to for
example produce food for a growing
population some agricultural practices
have been developed to enhance the
ability of farmland to store co2 in the
soil but still what if our natural
solutions just aren't enough
can we engineer an alternative several
companies are trying to vacuum co2
straight out of the air the carbon
dioxide that these so called direct air
capture units collects can then be
recycled into useful products or
sequestered underground the challenge
here is direct air capture takes a lot
of energy
and even if it were run on renewables
that clean energy might be better spent
powering things that would otherwise
rely on fossil fuels and it would take a
lot of direct air capture to make a dent
one company estimates that it would
require 750 thousand of their shipping
container sized units to offset just 1%
of annual global emissions there is
another approach and it's quite
controversial
it's called solar radiation management
and here's the idea if we can't solve
the carbon problem fast enough maybe we
can just make the planet a bit cooler in
a different way until we can solve the
problem by reflecting some of the heat
from the Sun away from the earth sulfate
aerosols resulting from major volcanic
eruptions like Mount Pinatubo in 1991
have done this naturally in the past we
could do this artificially too by
releasing aerosols into the air compared
to other solutions
it could be relatively cheap and easy
but it only treats one of the symptoms
of climate change not the cause for
example it does nothing to fix ocean
acidification and it might lead to
unintended consequences like disruptive
weather patterns or worse this is a
manipulation of the Earth's atmosphere
on a huge scale what happens if things
go wrong nothing in our scientific
capability actually enables us to
understand the complexity of the
interactions that would be set loose
it's not just that it lowers the
temperature but what are some of the
other effects on the hydrologic cycle or
on heat waves and droughts the root of
the concern is that solar generation
research however well-intentioned
will be used an excuse for big fossil
fuels to fight emissions cuts solar
generation does not get us out of the
ethical and physical requirement to cut
emissions ultimately there are no quick
fixes to climate change and we can't
undo the damage we have already caused
to some community
and ecosystems so many scientists agree
that we must reduce greenhouse gas
emissions as fast as we can to limit
further damage and adapt to the changes
that are already here follow us on
social to watch our other episodes that
dive into those climate solution
strategies
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