The Millenium Development Goals, agreed to by every member country of the United Nations in 2000, call for the worldwide eradication of poverty and hunger, universal education, gender equality and huge improvements in health by 2015: two years ago!!
Can we do this without making the planet warmer?
Let's think big and imagine how we can confront the climate crisis in a way that is realistic about the other major problems that we face as a planet and as a species on it.
Clean Development >
How DAC Could Have a Huge Impact on Daily Life
For background information, “DAC” or Direct Air Capture system, is a product used to extract excess carbon from the atmosphere. It uses sticky receptors that the carbon dioxide sticks to without attracting any other unneeded gasses. It is able to separate a meaningful amount of carbon dioxide from the air but this process requires a huge amount of air to come in contact with the receptors because sometimes the carbon in the air can be very dilute. This process is efficient but is not cost effective and requires a lot of advanced technology to be developed and huge amounts of space. Currently, there are 18 DAC plants operating worldwide capturing about 0.01MtCO2 per year. And one plant is being developed in the United States that is projected to capture 1MtCO2. In the net zero emission by 2050 scenario DAC is projected to capture about 60MtCO2 per year by 2030. The carbon dioxide captured from the DAC systems can be implanted into the earth’s crust but more importantly, can have a second use to benefit humankind and possibly solve the climate crisis. Compressed CO2 can be used for manufacturing plastics, cement, carbon fiber, oil productions, and improving indoor agricultural yields. It can even be used for beverage carbonation which goes to show how ingrained and helpful extracted CO2 could be in the future. If we can find a way to use compressed CO2 to help with something like oil production which is already a coveted and toll taking matter on the earth to extract. It could speed up the process of cooling down the earth in an efficient amount of time to hopefully be able to save some species that are already suffering from climate change. Not only could DAC extracted carbon hopefully be able to save some endangered species but it could help humankind be more efficient with their carbon dioxide usage and help us rethink the way we produce products. Products that would normally be bad for the earth but if we use DAC extracted carbon a lot of our day to day resources could be better for the earth, which would eventually put an end to climate change.