Going Carbon Negative

The idea that climate collapse can be prevented by going carbon neutral by 2050 is not based in scientific reality. Many predictive models have been far too conservative in their estimations. Many of the effects of climate collapse, originally predicted to be decades away, are happening right now. Worse yet, many of the predictive models are completely out of step with past climatic changes that are analogous to what we currently face. Some may be surprised to learn this is not the first time in earth’s history where fossil fuel burning has caused disastrous effects.

250 million years ago, when Pangea first came together, the collision of all the continents led to numerous volcanoes forming, creating massive lava beds. This lava seeped into the earth, igniting coal deposits and releasing carbon through combustion. This increase in atmospheric carbon led to dramatic levels of ocean acidification which annihilated the vast majority of life in the ocean. This acidified water eventually reached the land in the form of rain clouds, killing most of the plant life and in turn, completely destabilizing terrestrial ecosystems. This mass extinction event, known colloquially as the Great Dying, resulted in the extinction of over 90% of all species at the time. Today we are replicating those conditions, but around two hundred times faster.

These conditions are more likely to be replicated with further emissions. Bear in mind that despite the pledges many nations have made in regards to reducing emissions, they are still growing year after year and the emissions we have already produced are enough to guarantee disaster. The last time carbon levels were as high as they are currently, sea levels were 7 meters higher. This one effect would be an existential threat to civilization as we know it.

There is Still Time

There are three main reasons we have not reached this point yet. The first being that once a greenhouse gas enters the atmosphere, it doesn’t reach its full warming potential for many years. It is similar to when you put a pot over a flame, the water in it does not instantly boil. The second is that the world has numerous heat ‘sinks’ that can absorb excess heat. The biggest by a huge margin is the ocean’s ability to absorb heat. The ocean absorbs more of the planet’s heat than its air. The third is aerosols. In a sense these atmospheric particles are the opposites of greenhouse gasses. They reflect sunlight as opposed to absorbing it. Industrial activity releases these chemicals en masse. While this may seem positive, there is a catch; aerosols only last in the atmosphere for a few weeks at most, while most greenhouse gasses last from decades to millennia. It is likely that aerosols alone are holding back apocalyptic levels of warming.

This leaves us with one choice; we as a species must go carbon negative. Reducing emissions is not enough when we have emitted enough to end life as we know it. We must undo our emissions wherever possible. An essential part of this is mass scale environmental restoration. There is no technology that is even remotely as efficient at removing carbon dioxide as natural systems like forests, grasslands, seagrass beds and phytoplankton. Research has shown that restoring lost forest ecosystems alone could remove a third of all our emissions. It is clear that if this genie is to ever go back into the bottle, environmental restoration must be relentlessly pursued.