Read on Twitter
1) Let me explain the problem with this in a series of tweets.
@GretaThunberg @KevinClimate @GeorgeMonbiot https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/16/carbon-capture-vital-meeting-climate-goals-scientists-cut-emissions
@GretaThunberg @KevinClimate @GeorgeMonbiot https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/16/carbon-capture-vital-meeting-climate-goals-scientists-cut-emissions
2) "Engineers and geologists have strongly criticised green groups who last week claimed that carbon capture and storage schemes – for reducing fossil fuel emissions – are costly mistakes"
Engineers and geologists are not relevant experts, they lack an overview of the situation.
Engineers and geologists are not relevant experts, they lack an overview of the situation.
3) The main problem here is one of scale. Where just because it something seems feasible at a relatively small scale, a logical leap is made, without any proper thought, that it could be implemented at the huge scale needed to make an overall difference.
4) This is incredibly dangerous, because our current political leadership is sailing on oblivious to the catastrophic climate crisis, because engineers, geologists and lobbyists, have told them they have a magical solution to the climate crisis.
5) In other words, political leaders are assuming we can just carry on burning fossil fuels and emitting huge amounts of CO2, and then just suck it all out of the atmosphere with this magic technology.
6) See @KevinClimate's demolition of this thinking on the video in this article. He has far more insight than me, not just being a climate scientist, but being a highly qualified engineer.
https://redd-monitor.org/2019/09/05/nature-cannot-be-fooled-kevin-anderson-on-mitigation-as-if-climate-mattered/
https://redd-monitor.org/2019/09/05/nature-cannot-be-fooled-kevin-anderson-on-mitigation-as-if-climate-mattered/
7) If we get into the future assuming this magic technology, not yet invented, is going to save us, and it doesn't work, and can't be implemented at the necessary scale. We are truly going to be in a terrible place of hellish proportions.
8) The problem is this technology envisages using a huge proportion of the Earth's land surface to help suck out this excess carbon out of the atmosphere. Land which is used for our food production and as natural habitat for biodiversity, which also sustains us.
9) This is what I mean about these engineers and geologists lacking an overview. They are totally in denial that there is a biodiversity crisis, and an ecological crisis as great or not greater than the climate crisis. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/human-society-under-urgent-threat-loss-earth-natural-life-un-report
10) This ecological crisis is primarily driven by us recklessly using the Earth's land surface for intensive agriculture, mining, and general development, without any thought for the consequences. These geologists and scientists want to use a greater proportion of land for this.
11) This is what I mean by them lacking an overview. They simply have not thought about the rest of the ecological crisis and what is driving it. They have not thought about food production. They have not even thought about general sustainability.
12) In their fervour, they have just focused on 2 things, carrying on as we are, because they are essentially ideologues committed to business as usual, and then removing the excess CO2 we have created through this model.
13) There is absolutely no joined up thinking, no overview of the big picture and that's the climate crisis is only one small part of an overall much bigger ecological crisis on a much bigger scale. No sense of creating a sustainable economy. @KateRaworth
https://ipbes.net/global-assessment
https://ipbes.net/global-assessment
14) But this is the problem of people caught up in an ideological fervour, they just ignore everything else, but what they want to achieve, and develop tunnel vision. They are ignoring the precautionary principle and what will happen if their scheme does not work at scale.
15) I used to respect @ret_ward but he seems to have developed incredible tunnel vision. I challenge him here. How does he envisage this will fit in with the ecological crisis we face, and what is his plan to address it? Has he just not thought about this? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/human-society-under-urgent-threat-loss-earth-natural-life-un-report
16) I very much get the impression that the sole approach of this clique obsessed with carbon capture, and nothing else, literally have chosen to not think about the big picture of the ecological crisis, and general sustainability, because their vision is incompatible with it.
17) Nor has this clique apparently planned for what happens if their vision of carbon capture is impractical at the scale necessary, for a whole number of factors. That's because if they have, they have been remarkably silent about it.
18) I challenge them to explain how their plan will fit in with the overall need to create a sustainable society in the context of the whole ecological and sustainability crisis, not just one small part of it? Their plan has all the hallmarks of magical thinking, not science.
