Both, in parallel, theres enough humans and resources to work on both
Why? Because I think carbon capture sells the idea that with the right technology we could just continue doing what we are doing. It is the equivalent of an obese person stuffing food in their mouth and telling you fat can always be surgically removed. Yeah sure it can, to some degree, but you do see how that doesn't fix the problem? Do you see how them saying that might in fact be worse than them saying nothing?
So in my mind carbon capture is something that we should work on if we are capable of the realization that the role it will play in fixing the problem is utterly insignificant. If you think it is the solution, carbon capture sells a false hope and prolongs the struggle — and at least where I am from proponents of carbon capture are the people who definitely don't want to reduce their CO2 output.
Pointing at some future technology instead of doing something now is actively harmful. And I am not sure the actual positive effect of such technology would outweigh the negative effect it has as an excuse to justify not doing what is necessary now.
What you’re overlooking is that we will keep doing whatever we’re doing, for the same reason telling people to diet and exercise isn’t doing jack shit for the obesity crisis. We need Ozempic for the climate. Because the only alternative is 4C of warming.
It's unfortunate that the ecosystem has to suffer.
Fortunately natural selection will remove this mindset eventually.
It's unfortunate that the species has to suffer it in the meantime.
It may just be that this group of people isn't up to the challenge and, like you said, natural selection is necessary to produce a group that is up to the challenge.
Unfortunately that selection may come too late and much of the ecosystem may suffer for it.
Sounds a lot like giving up to me.
Wishing for human extinction makes you an enemy of all mankind btw
I'm saying that objectively maybe we should all die.
From a subjective perspective I'm going to keep fighting to the detriment of all the others around to the very bitter end and take down as many of them as I can, just like the real enemy of life that I am.
So either we change our way or we deive ourself into climate extinction. Since profits and geostrategic advantage seem to be more important than the survival of the human race it will be the latter. And someone somewhere in 2050 will start the alibi-CO2-capture machine, that was built by a tiny fraction of the oil money from this year.
If this comes across as cynical that might be, because it is. Trusting on carbon capture technology despite the presence of evidence¹ that it won't do shit is something we cannot afford. Don't get me wrong, we should still research and fund it. But you don't want to be that politician that wants to keep no speed limits on highways "because future carbon capture technology will solve this".
No, future carbon capture technology won't solve this, it will solve a tiny fraction of this. Pretending that it will do more creates false hope and a distorted perception.
¹ see IPCC report: : "Even if realized at its full potential, CCS will only account for about 2.4% of the world’s carbon mitigation by 2030"
> you do see how that doesn't fix the problem
It literally does fix the problem.
Unless we talk unicorn-pie-in-the-sky-fantasy-technology that can suck all carbon out off the air on the snip of a finger, any technology has to be measured within the bounds of its possibilities and not in fantasyland.
Bloomberg says global investment in carbon capture in 2022 was like $6.4 billion (https://about.bnef.com/blog/carbon-capture-investment-hits-r...).
Bloomberg also says that global renewable investment in the first 6 months of 2023 was $358 billion (https://about.bnef.com/blog/renewable-energy-investment-hits...)
Conversion of all carbon capture investment into more solar or wind capacity would not significantly move the needle on rate of renewable growth.
Effectively all carbon capture investment right now is basically in the pilot phase. Governments are sinking money into carbon capture for a broad range of reasons, including cynical (as a smokescreen to protect fossil fuel industries) to optimistic (we can start investing in the next step of net-zero since renewable trajectories look good) to being realistic hedges (they see the challenges in achieving net zero in certain fields like aviation, shipping, construction, and believe that carbon capture is what is necessary to achieve net-zero).
I'd argue for every million dollars towards reaching net zero emissions, we should maybe spend 1 dollar towards carbon capture, where we scale that investment up as we approach net zero emissions.