Perhaps you have heard Oprah say: “When we know better, we do better.” This is a short lesson that we all must consider.
We can learn to reduce CO2 destruction, because now, we “know better,” about greenhouse gases, the whole cost of dirty fuels, and how too many of us mean less earth for everything else that purifies our air, cleans our water, and ensures vitality of our soil. Can we sequester CO2 and put it to our service in these goals?
Carbon capture refers to more than one kind of process. The first question becomes, which kind of capture is to be applied? It usually refers to capturing CO2 at an offending source, and in effect, channeling it, or converting it, into harmless or practical use. One way is by burying the CO2, and another is by conversion to mineral carbonates, or in deep ocean storage. Collecting CO2 and storing it sounds practical, but at the scale required and the energy utilized, it becomes problematic quickly. It is not a quick fix, and it is not going to significantly reduce green house gases as a stand alone solution.
There are numerous proposals, and all fall short for present application. But, we can learn to know this, and do better. Bio-energy generated through carbon capture and storage is sometimes called geo-engineering. It is a biological method of “scrubbing” CO2. But carbon capture and storage, CCS, as a general term, usually is applied to non-biological operations that put much faith into our innovations being at least as efficient as nature’s ancient, tried and true purifiers: ocean life, pristine forests, and vast wild grasslands. Most CCS scenarios have bugs to work out, and as we know from all technological leaps forward, there are unseen factors that will only show up when we are already committed.
Climate change affected by behaviors of human beings is the climate change we must concern ourselves with here. Human beings with enlightened conservation education are the most significant source of change. A change of heart and habit will be ultimately the only thing that can truly reverse our pollution of the atmosphere, and our reliance upon dirty fuels for energy needs. It might be said, that knowing our own carbon is shared by an entire planet, and taking action to preserve that which preserves us, is the ONLY kind of “carbon capture”, that can have long term, sustainable results.
Capture the hearts and minds-carbon based, and therefore connected-of those who can influence your results. Nothing short of a complete turn around in every human’s sense of superior entitlement will truly affect our relationship with the planet. At present we all have a sense of entitlement to all free resources. These have historically been so abundant, and the weight of humankind so light, that they were thought of as infinite.
It is only quite recently, when Malthusian logic has been proved to indeed have merit, that people have begun to realize that all extraction is a form of borrowing against our future. Increased crop yields worldwide were based on artificial interference by means of monocultures, herbicides and pesticides, and subsidy of every kind. Any habitat or resource suffers when one species decides it exists for their exclusive use. All beings rely upon bio-diversity for support and genetic health.
Carbon capture is an assist to ameliorating some of the effects of climate change. CCS may not deliver instantly the answers we need, but it is a step worth our investigation. It must be combined with life-style changes that conserve, not just because we need to green wash our own fragile self-image, or because our political stand is purer than the next guys. We need to see that carbon capture relies upon our unveiling nature’s wisdom and ways. An example of this are methods being developed to sequester coal emissions and use them to effectively improve coal-based electricity generation within the next 20 years, but we must always be alert for corporate interest bias in any research and development. We must, in short, know ourselves.
“When we know better we do better” has some built in ego traps to overcome. We need to believe in our innovations and technology, but we must be on constant vigilance of potential arrogance. Pride often goeth before our fall. We have been known to re-arrange deck chairs on the Titanic, and these days many politicians, corporations, and climate change deniers, have good reason to wryly note “Hey, no more glacial icebergs for the Titanic to hit! Ain’t we great?!” It is better to realize that knowing better and doing better offers a kind of Reality Therapy. Doing better means realizing the natural consequence of always being given a second chance by self healing nature to remedy, renew, and re-vitalize that which sustains us is a gift from a wrung out biosphere. We may yet have time for a second chance, a do-over, but we can no longer afford to take any resource for granted, and our last chances too, are being depleted.
Carbon storage is yet another valuable idea that could also be termed experimental. We experiment with ways to tinker with those things we have already tinkered with to our own detriment. This does not mean people should quit working on solutions such as carbon storage. Our new found knowledge of knowing better must be applied daily. It is wise that we not bull doze our own ingenuity, along with precious resources, into the land fill, or pump it into the sky with our former disregard for our suffocating effects.
It is vital that we recognize that we have to work on attitudes of appreciation and humility of nature’s abundance to create a truly protected planet. When you are truly grateful for clean air, water, and land, you truly work harder to conserve it, and defend it.