I want to also point out that typically the route to lowering and absorbing emissions is more conventional than innovating a breakthrough because we can safeguard and protect our carbon sinks like the
rainforest and the
oceans
We may also look to preventing major emissions described as
"carbon bombs".
We can stop oil drilling in the
arctic
We can end
war which would greatly reduce emissions because there's extensive cost in both human life, green house gas emission and pollution, and bulky financial combustion
We don't need to have to have net zero carbon emissions. We need to set a deadline and time horizon for reducing the emissions we create to a point that doesn't result in what is termed as a "tipping point" (I'll describe that in a moment). We do have to protect carbon sinks that help regulate the rampant abuse on our environment. We have to preserve bio-diversity in a time of Holocene anthropogenic mass extinction. We have to do conventional actions and not a super-human breakthrough in science.
(for anyone who doesn't have a lot of education surrounding climate change and climate science) So 1) What is a green house gas? 2) What is a carbon sink? 3) what is a tipping point?
1) I recommend going to youtube and looking up the PBS funded channel Hotmess. If you just look up
"Hot Mess" the algorithm will bring you to unrelated content about people being a hot mess so to cut to the chase just look up
"understanding the atmosphere essentials of environmental science"
Essentially though, a "Greenhouse gas" traps heat from the sun in the atmosphere which warms the planet. That includes carbon dioxide and methane.
2) What is a carbon sink? A carbon sink is something that absorbs carbon dioxide. This can be many things. Soil acts as a carbon sink. Insects act as a part of the soil carbon sink system because insects eat plants that trap carbon through photosynthesis and essentially when insects eventually die they take the carbon with them in their exoskeleton and eventually move that carbon into soil rather than in the atmosphere. This applies to Fungi breaking down dead logs and woodchips and decaying leaves and grass. It also includes insects feasting off of dead animals and laying eggs into their carcass. There are gigantic carbon sinks like the amazon rainforest before the deforestation of the rainforest (it is no longer a carbon sink and currently produces more carbon than it sequesters because of widespread deforestation due to the increase in agriculture in Brazil). Or like the Ocean, which thankfully we do have a win in a legally binding win for Ocean conservation. 30% of international oceans will be preserved in a legally binding agreement.
3) A tipping point is when the balance of physics, chemistry, and biology become completely unbalanced to the extent that the consequences are permanent or destroys the ability for the Earth to have resolve and resiliency to the drastic changes in the climate on the only livable Earth in the universe that we know of (so far "there's no planet B"). So for example a tipping point can be when too many forests are destroyed in the Amazon rainforest in south america and it causes a mass die off of the rainforest resulting in a Savanna-like biome. Another is that the volume of carbon dioxide hitting a tipping point. So lets say that there's enough carbon that it's rapidly warming the planet which is rapidly melting Glacier icesheets and raising the sea level because of the added Water to the sea. So not only does sea levels rise but the hotter atmosphere expands the molecules in the water which makes the water expand creating more sea level rise. Another example is how wildefires create deforestation and unlike the example of insects moving carbon into the soil instead of in the atmosphere wild fires rapidly burn and emit carbon dioxide and remove the carbon stored in those plants and trees. A tipping point is basically a feedback loop.
Things that can be done are simply to preserve the bio-diversity of the environment, preserve the carbon sinks we have, reforest the environment, and not rely on propane, methane, oil, or coal and transition into renewable energy like wind energy and solar. The economic impact also comes with major benefits to securing jobs in a wide range of fields that tend to last much longer than fossil fuel led jobs. Such as in engineering, construction, and retrofitting.
There's a lot of marketing and greenwashing of fossil fuels too. One random thing:
natural gas companies create ads attacking the idea of banning natural gas and their focus is largely on Gas stoves. This is because they can attack gas stove bans through using emotion rather than facts. People tend to respond to emotional reasons all thanks to our human brains having a developed sense of emotion and self awareness and the neuro-marketing exploits this by making an emotional ploy to the consumer. Gas stove accounts for 2% of natural gas use but by focusing on Gas stoves the neuro-marketing ploys are more successful which helps to rely on the use of methane gas as a source of fuel which translates to keeping the pipeline stream constant which is profitable.
The topic of climate change, pollution, environment, and how it intersects with the Earth's beings is immense.
If you want some good books go read "Otherlands" by Thomas Holiday, "All we can Save" by a lot of collaborative authors, and "An Immense World" by Ed Yong just to learn more about the complexities of our fellow beings past and present.
