Time for tech fixes

Image source: guardian.co.uk

Having grown increasingly pessimistic of late that our political leaders have the capacity to bring about change sufficiently quickly to avoid ecological catastrophe, I’m now of the view that scientific interventions constitute our best hope. The question is: will it be too little, too late. The latest breakthrough (reported in today’s Guardian) is the plan by a physicist at Columbia University to build and demonstrate a prototype within two years that can economically capture a tonne of CO2 a day from the air. This is about the same per passenger as a flight from London to New York. We’ll need a few billion of these to stop us going beyond 450ppm and the initial cost is GBP100,000 per unit!