The Benefits of Carbon Capture

Summer air, cicadas buzzing, hot stones, a thousand rolly pollies. I sit outside my cousin's driveway, the tip of my finger gently poking the shell of an armadillidiidae, its antennae flare, body retracting to shell in the split of a second. Small and curious, my five-year-old eyes wonder; it’s as if a mini hurricane spins through the bug with each rotation, rolling, rolling, boom, as it hits the garage door. Laying down on the heated concrete, watching the bug climb back up, knocking it down again—I thought I could sit here forever. 

My Summer Backyard

Now I gaze out the window of a freshly painted house, squinting at the glare of the sun. I don’t really want to step outside, and the minute I do, heat rocks my body, droplets of sweat racing down sticky skin. Since when did summer get this hot? 

Each year, temperatures climb, ice melts, and natural disasters increase. According to the University of Queensland, a research project was conducted whereupon, “more than 97 per cent of expert climate scientists agreed global warming was caused by humans.” This anthropogenic feat has prolonged over billions of years, resulting in soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, melting glaciers, sea level rise, heat waves, etc. Stagnant action to globally combat the impacts of warming will threaten “human well being, and the health of the planet.” As stated by the IPCC in the NASA article “The Effects of Climate Change.” 

Although the consequence of the world’s ecological footprint seems etched in stone, scholar John P. Banks, and Tim Boersma of the Brookings Institute, have proposed a solution. They state, in a Brookings article, that CCS (carbon capture and storage) can play a significant role in limiting emissions (90% or higher) while also offering economic and national security advantages. It does this by providing a way to use fossil fuels while still reaching climate mitigation goals. CCS works by capturing CO2 before it enters the atmosphere and storing it underground. Additionally, since CCS is a bipartisan issue—according to the FTI Strategic Communications— U.S. leadership is key to bolstering global action. 

Ultimately, it’s not just about combating the cusp of human extinction, it's about losing the beauty of nature. Imagine the next generation of children who don’t play outside during summer, who don’t spend time climbing trees and catching fireflies. Who are we to take that joy away from them when the world is too hot?