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No, your conclusion is wrong. You don't need to put more carbon into the atmosphere to take carbon out. Nobody would fund that, well without bad subsidies anywa

by eloff 6y ago

No, your conclusion is wrong. You don't need to put more carbon into the atmosphere to take carbon out. Nobody would fund that, well without bad subsidies anyway. We need to reduce the amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere AND increase the amount we take out. There is no reason not to pursue both strategies at the same time - indeed time is short and everything we can do counts.

el_nahual 6y ago
Agreed. What I was trying to convey is that reducing new emissions to ~0 is a necessary win condition. It's not optional...and it's also urgent because those emissions reproduce. We're going to have to cut emissions to 0 anyway, so the sooner we do so, the better...by a LOT. And besides being urgent, it's also something that we know how to do. As in, today. We have the technology! (It's called massive carbon taxes). Or at least we're much closer technologically than we are to any sort of clean, insanely efficient sequestration tech. Perhaps this is obvious to you, but if you read the replies to my comment you'll see a number of replies where the tenor is "it's impossible to enact carbon taxes to reduce our emissions so let's work on sequestration instead."
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  > because those emissions reproduce What does that mean? > We have the technology! (It's called massive carbon taxes) I agree that that's the best solution. Buy I don't see any signs it's politically possible.
- eloff 6y ago
  I don't think we'll get to 0, nor do we need to. We do need to get our net emissions to 0 though, or even drive it negative for a while. I'm such a fan of carbon taxes. If the market doesn't account for externalities, then price them in with taxes. Then the market will solve climate faster than any amount of regulation or wishful thinking. That's an excellent use of state power. Or governments or our people are too shortsighted or stupid I think it's fair to say in this case to see that. I'm not entirely sure which it is, maybe both. Working on carbon sequestration instead is also silly. I mean it's a typical engineer response of ignoring the messy regulatory and political world and trying to build our way out of the problem. But we need to focus on both, working on one approach does not preclude the other.

by eloff 6y ago

el_nahual 6y ago

Agreed. What I was trying to convey is that reducing new emissions to ~0 is a necessary win condition. It's not optional...and it's also urgent because those emissions reproduce. We're going to have to cut emissions to 0 anyway, so the sooner we do so, the better...by a LOT. And besides being urgent, it's also something that we know how to do. As in, today. We have the technology! (It's called massive carbon taxes). Or at least we're much closer technologically than we are to any sort of clean, insanely efficient sequestration tech. Perhaps this is obvious to you, but if you read the replies to my comment you'll see a number of replies where the tenor is "it's impossible to enact carbon taxes to reduce our emissions so let's work on sequestration instead."

BurningFrog 6y ago
> because those emissions reproduce What does that mean? > We have the technology! (It's called massive carbon taxes) I agree that that's the best solution. Buy I don't see any signs it's politically possible.
eloff 6y ago
I don't think we'll get to 0, nor do we need to. We do need to get our net emissions to 0 though, or even drive it negative for a while. I'm such a fan of carbon taxes. If the market doesn't account for externalities, then price them in with taxes. Then the market will solve climate faster than any amount of regulation or wishful thinking. That's an excellent use of state power. Or governments or our people are too shortsighted or stupid I think it's fair to say in this case to see that. I'm not entirely sure which it is, maybe both. Working on carbon sequestration instead is also silly. I mean it's a typical engineer response of ignoring the messy regulatory and political world and trying to build our way out of the problem. But we need to focus on both, working on one approach does not preclude the other.