Just a quick note to invite you to listen to my keynote presentation for the University of Alberta this evening (9:00 p.m., ET). If you’re interested, you’ll need to register for the event. You can do that here.
The numbers coming out Moana Loa are disturbing. We're hitting CO2 readings of close to 420 parts per million in January! Which means by mid-May we'll hit an all-time high of 424-425 PPM. Last May we flirted with a record 421 ppm for a few days--and the summer and fall were catastrophic. And this is currently happening with thousands of flight cancellations daily--air travel is a major contributor to atmospheric CO2.
It's clear that reducing emissions in the near term is not going to happen. So we have to seriously consider carbon capture. Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University is developing a passive system that collects CO2 simply by allowing air to pass through his modules. If the 1.42 billion motor vehicles worldwide were outfitted with these modules, we could remove perhaps one gigaton of CO2 from our atmosphere per month (the world emitted 36.4 gigatons of CO2 in 2021). What we need is an effort equivalent to Dunkirk times infinity. Think of this as an equivalent to the miraculous development of covid vaccines. If we don't do something NOW, the world is going to be a very unpleasant place to live (for Humans--other species will probably do just fine).
Will this require an absolutely enormous investment? Who cares?
The numbers coming out Moana Loa are disturbing. We're hitting CO2 readings of close to 420 parts per million in January! Which means by mid-May we'll hit an all-time high of 424-425 PPM. Last May we flirted with a record 421 ppm for a few days--and the summer and fall were catastrophic. And this is currently happening with thousands of flight cancellations daily--air travel is a major contributor to atmospheric CO2.
It's clear that reducing emissions in the near term is not going to happen. So we have to seriously consider carbon capture. Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University is developing a passive system that collects CO2 simply by allowing air to pass through his modules. If the 1.42 billion motor vehicles worldwide were outfitted with these modules, we could remove perhaps one gigaton of CO2 from our atmosphere per month (the world emitted 36.4 gigatons of CO2 in 2021). What we need is an effort equivalent to Dunkirk times infinity. Think of this as an equivalent to the miraculous development of covid vaccines. If we don't do something NOW, the world is going to be a very unpleasant place to live (for Humans--other species will probably do just fine).
Will this require an absolutely enormous investment? Who cares?
After reserving tickets, was unable to access SK keynote.
Well done! I love the mission focus of your talk. Very much speaks to us retired military. Thank you.
Is there an audio of video recording of this event online?
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