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IS IT POSSIBLE

TO CAPTURE CO 2?

es. Nature is doing it all
the time and is our best
ally in the battle against
climate change. Around
half of all CO 2 emissions
are captured by natural
means—by the oceans
and plants of the world.
However that means the
more we damage the oceans and the
more trees we cut down, the less nature
can help us. Plants store about 30% of
all the CO 2 we emit, and the best way to

take advantage of that is reforestation.

“If we would plant about 3 million square

miles of forest, we’d be able to reduce

the Earth’s temperature by about a third

of a degree Fahrenheit by the end of the

century,” says Julia Pongratz, a research

scientist at the Carnegie Institution for

Science’s department of global ecology.

The problem: Not enough land is available

to plant 3 million square miles of forest.

Researchers hope that we can improve

farming methods enough to make more

farmland available for growing forests.

Y

HOW CAN I

PRODUCE MY

OWN ELECTRICITY?

F

or a long time, photovoltaic equipment

was considered by many consumers to

be too complicated and inconvenient.

Only if you owned your own home could you

hope to install the expensive equipment on

the roof of your house. But is that really the

case? Solar panels have become much less

expensive. Small ones can be mounted on

a balcony, and the electricity they produce

can be fed into the home’s power supply or

into the grid. According to the U.S. Energy

Information Administration, on average each

residential customer in the U.S. uses about

11,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.

So it would take 28 to 34 panels to generate

enough solar energy to power a whole home.

The lowest electric usage is found in Africa,

where the average kilowatt consumption per

household can be in the low double-digits.

WHY MUST WE

STOP THE HUGE

POLLUTERS NOW?

C

limate science speaks an unmistakable

language: If we want to prevent disaster,

the average temperature must not be

allowed to rise above preindustrial levels by

even 2°C (3.6°F) by the year 2100. Otherwise

the permafrost that underlies 20% of Earth’s

land surface will thaw, releasing billions of

tons of CO 2. That would mark a fatal tipping

point from which there would be no return.

Northern soils are estimated to hold more

than 2 trillion tons of organic carbon—five

times the total amount thus far emitted by

human activity and around twice as much

as is found in the atmosphere. Most of the

G20 nations are far from meeting the climate

goals they set for 2035. Climate scientists

say nations will have to triple their efforts

in order to prevent the worst-case scenario

from becoming reality, and the time to act

is now. “We are approaching potentially

irreversible thresholds earlier than we had

previously thought,” says Johan Rockström,

the co-director of the Potsdam Institute for

Climate Impact Research. Theoretically the

goal of 2°C is still within reach, and thanks

to the Carbon Majors Report we know the

names of the greatest climate killers. The

report “shows how a relatively small group

of fossil fuel producers holds the key to a

systemic change in CO 2 emissions,” says

Pedro Faria, technical director of the non-

profit environmental group CDP, publisher of

the report. A large percentage of industrial

greenhouse gas is being subsidized by the

taxpayers. So it’s up to us to compel these

companies to accept responsibility for their

actions and become part of the solution.

ideasanddiscoveries.com 27 May 2020