XPRIZE Carbon Removal aimed to tackle the biggest threat facing humanity - climate change. It took place over the course of four years, launching on Earth Day 2021 and concluding during Earth Week 2025.
The grand prize winner and runner-up teams, representing solutions across four countries, each successfully removed more than 1,000 net tonnes of CO2 in the final year of the competition, meeting XPRIZEâs bold demonstration requirements, the first step towards scaling sustainably to remove billions of tonnes globally.
XPRIZE Carbon Removal aimed to tackle the biggest threat facing humanity - climate change. It took place over the course of four years, launching on Earth Day 2021 and concluding during Earth Week 2025.
The grand prize winner and runner-up teams, representing solutions across four countries, each successfully removed more than 1,000 net tonnes of CO2 in the final year of the competition, meeting XPRIZEâs bold demonstration requirements, the first step towards scaling sustainably to remove billions of tonnes globally.
have you looked at the data?
because if you have...
Thank you for posting this. It is a rational, data-driven look at how we should approach the climate change problem. Yes, humans are driving the current upswing in global annual average temperature. Yes, it can be solved if we admit that we are responsible and can adopt alternative energy policies. Yes, if we donât take action soon weâre fucked.
As someone who commuted to NYC every day for a dozen years (85 miles each way) before work-from-home was a thing, I'm a huge proponent of improving public transportation, and reducing the number of cars in metropolitan areas. I think everyone from DC to Boston should be able to hop on a train and go between those two in clean, comfortable, reliable, affordable trains. It should be so easy, that nobody ever wants to drive in or through NYC ever again.
This is a really interesting study after 4 months of congestion pricing in NYC. I put it here (global warming) because I wasn't sure where to share it... but this is a win/win done correctly. Fewer emissions will only be possible if people can move as they need, when they need, in relative comfort and ease.
Fewer cars. Faster travel. Less honking. And some questions we still canât answer.
This is exactly how tax incentives should work. Want less of something bad for our society? - make it expensive. Want more of something? - make it cheaper. It's obvious. What is strange is the rich people that will fight it in the name of hording their stash. But even they should be on board. trump should want congestion pricing 10X what it is. It wouldn't materially impact him at all, he would just pay it (or find a way to skirt it, probably paying more to skirt it than it would just to pay it), and he would have the roads all to himself and his billionaire pals.
As someone who commuted to NYC every day for a dozen years (85 miles each way) before work-from-home was a thing, I'm a huge proponent of improving public transportation, and reducing the number of cars in metropolitan areas. I think everyone from DC to Boston should be able to hop on a train and go between those two in clean, comfortable, reliable, affordable trains. It should be so easy, that nobody ever wants to drive in or through NYC ever again.
This is a really interesting study after 4 months of congestion pricing in NYC. I put it here (global warming) because I wasn't sure where to share it... but this is a win/win done correctly. Fewer emissions will only be possible if people can move as they need, when they need, in relative comfort and ease.
I'm in agreement here with you. I'm not a proponent of raping and pillaging the land.
I loved and respected nature since I was a little kid.
I am a proponent of a balanced approach to using it. And there's a way to use it without destroying it.
When it goes to far to the left... or to far to the right is when things go haywire. Just like politics.
I also think (for whatever that's worth), as your chart you posted here shows, that a lot of the issues have to do with cycles in the system itself. Nothing to do with us.
I have seen catastrophes in my life here on this earth. And after a few decades, it seems there's no more evidence left behind.
Again... not an excuse to dump on it or in it.
I remember an article in Outside magazine back in the early 80's. Some guy floated down the New River in the Mexico/ Imperial County area. One of the more polluted rivers in the U.S. He tested the water in increments of miles from the other side of the border to the Salton Sea. His findings... it was badly polluted at the start thanks to Mexico dumping pretty much what they felt like dumping into it. The closer he got to the Sea, the cleaner the water got. It was in decent shape by the time it got further away from the border. Natures little cleansers were doing their job.
I'm not in favor of dumping in a river, the air or the land. But this earth does a pretty good job of fixing itself. Despite us.
After all... we're still drinking the same water and breathing the same air that was here from the start.
I remember doing science projects in grade school with rocks, gravel and sand. Filtering dirty water through it and ending up with clean fresh water in the end.
The same basic principles applied in rivers and sewage treatment plants.
You and I probably come from a pretty similar mindset/background. My Dad was a deer culler in the 50s and loved the Great Outdoors and riding his Indian to get there, with his 303 slung over his shoulder and his dog riding on the petrol tank. He set up the local hiking club and was active in a shit ton of activities, SAR, radio ham, etc. etc. He wasn't a petrolhead but some of his mates were and he ended up working in an engineering shop for one his mates before he died far too young from colonic cancer, probably from eating too much venison while living in the wild.
Location: Really deep in the heart of South California Gender:
Posted:
May 5, 2024 - 5:25pm
NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
Reply to KurtfromLaQuinta from the volcano thread:
I would agree that the whole GW debate has become very polemicised and frequently too simplistic on both sides. What is clear, looking at past extinction events, is that some trend set in to stress environments before the extinction event happened. In other words many species were already having a tough time of it and the bolide impact or vulcanism or change in ocean currents or whatever else it was, basically finished them off.
From that I draw the conclusion that it is not a good idea to stress environments. Yet we are clearly doing that. Deforestation, habitat loss, pollution, over-fishing etc. etc. is making life very tough for many species out there.
Now, if you add a bolide impact or a super-eruption to such stressed environments, you could indeed finish the remaining species off that we haven't already driven to extinction. My take is we should be better stewards of the environment. True we are but ants taking the perspective of an individual's lifetime - but as a species we are no different to a swarm ravaging everything in its path and we are making life tough for most other species out there. As one biologist put it, "I've seen what happens when a culture reaches the edge of the Petri dish."
In terms of life itself, this is not a problem. Life will survive in some form or other, no matter what we throw at it. It would just be a shame if we killed off sentient life in the process (worst case) or reduced our own habitat (likely case).
So, on the one hand, you are right. We are currently living in paradise. The world and life itself has never had it so good (see the chart below).. and yes CO2 levels were way higher in the Cretaceous than they are today.
But that doesn't mean we should trash the world we live in. We need to be better stewards and not see everything just from our own species-centric perspective. We should be trying to protect the natural environment as best we can for its own sake. At the moment we subjecting it to massive and even worse, sudden, stress.
That's my take on it.
To put things in perspective, here's a great chart from the Natural History Museum of Stuttgart covering the Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary and Quarternary (our little bit)
To explain the legend on the right hand side, from the top moving down:
Green shaded = biodiversity (number of marine invertebrates)
yellow line = sea surface temperature
light blue line = O2 concentration in the atmosphere
dark blue line = sea level
grey line = CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
salmon shaded = extinction rate of marine invertebrates
The skull and crossbones are the last two mass extinctions.
I'm in agreement here with you. I'm not a proponent of raping and pillaging the land.
I loved and respected nature since I was a little kid.
I am a proponent of a balanced approach to using it. And there's a way to use it without destroying it.
When it goes to far to the left... or to far to the right is when things go haywire. Just like politics.
I also think (for whatever that's worth), as your chart you posted here shows, that a lot of the issues have to do with cycles in the system itself. Nothing to do with us.
I have seen catastrophes in my life here on this earth. And after a few decades, it seems there's no more evidence left behind.
Again... not an excuse to dump on it or in it.
I remember an article in Outside magazine back in the early 80's. Some guy floated down the New River in the Mexico/ Imperial County area. One of the more polluted rivers in the U.S. He tested the water in increments of miles from the other side of the border to the Salton Sea. His findings... it was badly polluted at the start thanks to Mexico dumping pretty much what they felt like dumping into it. The closer he got to the Sea, the cleaner the water got. It was in decent shape by the time it got further away from the border. Natures little cleansers were doing their job.
I'm not in favor of dumping in a river, the air or the land. But this earth does a pretty good job of fixing itself. Despite us.
After all... we're still drinking the same water and breathing the same air that was here from the start.
I remember doing science projects in grade school with rocks, gravel and sand. Filtering dirty water through it and ending up with clean fresh water in the end.
The same basic principles applied in rivers and sewage treatment plants.
Reply to KurtfromLaQuinta from the volcano thread:
I would agree that the whole GW debate has become very polemicised and frequently too simplistic on both sides. What is clear, looking at past extinction events, is that some trend set in to stress environments before the extinction event happened. In other words many species were already having a tough time of it and the bolide impact or vulcanism or change in ocean currents or whatever else it was, basically finished them off.
From that I draw the conclusion that it is not a good idea to stress environments. Yet we are clearly doing that. Deforestation, habitat loss, pollution, over-fishing etc. etc. is making life very tough for many species out there.
Now, if you add a bolide impact or a super-eruption to such stressed environments, you could indeed finish the remaining species off that we haven't already driven to extinction. My take is we should be better stewards of the environment. True we are but ants taking the perspective of an individual's lifetime - but as a species we are no different to a swarm ravaging everything in its path and we are making life tough for most other species out there. As one biologist put it, "I've seen what happens when a culture reaches the edge of the Petri dish."
In terms of life itself, this is not a problem. Life will survive in some form or other, no matter what we throw at it. It would just be a shame if we killed off sentient life in the process (worst case) or reduced our own habitat (likely case).
So, on the one hand, you are right. We are currently living in paradise. The world and life itself has never had it so good (see the chart below).. and yes CO2 levels were way higher in the Cretaceous than they are today.
But that doesn't mean we should trash the world we live in. We need to be better stewards and not see everything just from our own species-centric perspective. We should be trying to protect the natural environment as best we can for its own sake. At the moment we subjecting it to massive and even worse, sudden, stress.
That's my take on it.
To put things in perspective, here's a great chart from the Natural History Museum of Stuttgart covering the Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary and Quarternary (our little bit)
To explain the legend on the right hand side, from the top moving down:
Green shaded = biodiversity (number of marine invertebrates)
yellow line = sea surface temperature
light blue line = O2 concentration in the atmosphere
dark blue line = sea level
grey line = CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
salmon shaded = extinction rate of marine invertebrates
The skull and crossbones are the last two mass extinctions.
China and 23 other countries already engage in significant weather modification. China is setting up or has already set up a level of rain control across Tibet and other parts of China. Tens of thousands of fuel-burning chambers will be installed across the Tibetan mountains, with a view to boosting rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion tons of rain annually. In 2013, China was already producing 55 billion tons per year of artificially induced rain. China is expanding this to over 250 billion tons per year.
That article is wrong on a number of counts. Thankfully they link to the original Forbes article.
They are not "burners" churning out yet more carbon, the way it makes it sound, but modes of deploying classical silver iodide seeding - a practice that has been used for decades, albeit not on this scale.
"simulating a volcano" is by no means that easy and even if it could be done, the volcanoes that reduce global temperature are the ones that pump out megatons of sulfate aerosols. These are not necessarily the big ashy eruptions (ash drops out of the atmosphere quickly), but SO2 rich volcanoes with enough oomph to pump aerosols into the stratosphere to stay aloft a long while and reflect the sunlight, like Pinatubo. Other geo-engineering ideas might sound like great easy fixes but when it comes down to it, the easiest one of all is to stop burning carbon and start a massive reforestation program. Technically neither are that difficult. The biggest problem is political will and entrenched interests lobbying against global warming.
China and 23 other countries already engage in significant weather modification. China is setting up or has already set up a level of rain control across Tibet and other parts of China. Tens of thousands of fuel-burning chambers will be installed across the Tibetan mountains, with a view to boosting rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion tons of rain annually. In 2013, China was already producing 55 billion tons per year of artificially induced rain. China is expanding this to over 250 billion tons per year.
Yeah, I think you largely nailed it. I think there were some here who believed that kurtster was trying to use methane as a FUD-inducing distraction about global warming. He says no, he was just trying to point out that it's not all about CO2.
That is correct. It was the only real point I was trying to make.
Well I can't follow this dog's breakfast of whinging about who has or hasn't recognised the importance of various greenhouse gases, with tangents into whether pollution you can't see is a problem if there has been improvement in pollution you can see.
So my summary of a few of the important points
C02 is the most important greenhouse gas - not the most potent, but has concentrations increasing at rates high enough to cause the greatest effect in atmospheric warming.
Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas because emissions are increasing fast enough to increase warming in spite of its shorter atmospheric half life than CO2.
There is a feedback mechanism that concerns many scientists regarding methane because emissions are expected to increase due to release from melting permafrost
There is active research in changing the feedbase to reduce methane emissions from ruminants but my understanding is that is unlikely to stablise emissions. Eating kangaroo is greener than beef or lamb I'm just not that fond of the stuff. Being vegetarian is better still, but, at least in Australia, there is a lot of land not suited to much other than pasture and you get into all sorts of farm economics arguments.
There is significant methane emission from fossil fuel production - double whammy. Flaring it off is probably better than nothing but continues to release CO2 and contribute to the problem. Don't hold your breath for the US EPA to make much headway on this issue. Not that the Australian government is doing a very good job.
CO2 is the most siginificant greenhouse gas (yes I said it before). If you accept that methane is a greenhouse gas, then you have no basis for rejecting CO2 as one. Bonus point: If you don't accept that methane is a greenhouse gas, you have no basis for rejecting CO2 as one anyway.
Yeah, I think you largely nailed it. I think there were some here who believed that kurtster was trying to use methane as a FUD-inducing distraction about global warming. He says no, he was just trying to point out that it's not all about CO2.
Side-thought: my guess/hope is that the best way to reduce methane from domesticated meat-providing animals is to tissue-engineer meat in a lab. While we wait for that to happen, we should eat less meat.
Again, miamizsun provided this link to a great op-ed/interview in the New York Times about the number of ways we can attack global warming. Thought I'd re-post it to get the general conversation back on track.
Well I can't follow this dog's breakfast of whinging about who has or hasn't recognised the importance of various greenhouse gases, with tangents into whether pollution you can't see is a problem if there has been improvement in pollution you can see.
So my summary of a few of the important points
C02 is the most important greenhouse gas - not the most potent, but has concentrations increasing at rates high enough to cause the greatest effect in atmospheric warming.
Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas because emissions are increasing fast enough to increase warming in spite of its shorter atmospheric half life than CO2.
There is a feedback mechanism that concerns many scientists regarding methane because emissions are expected to increase due to release from melting permafrost
There is active research in changing the feedbase to reduce methane emissions from ruminants but my understanding is that is unlikely to stablise emissions. Eating kangaroo is greener than beef or lamb I'm just not that fond of the stuff. Being vegetarian is better still, but, at least in Australia, there is a lot of land not suited to much other than pasture and you get into all sorts of farm economics arguments.
There is significant methane emission from fossil fuel production - double whammy. Flaring it off is probably better than nothing but continues to release CO2 and contribute to the problem. Don't hold your breath for the US EPA to make much headway on this issue. Not that the Australian government is doing a very good job.
CO2 is the most siginificant greenhouse gas (yes I said it before). If you accept that methane is a greenhouse gas, then you have no basis for rejecting CO2 as one. Bonus point: If you don't accept that methane is a greenhouse gas, you have no basis for rejecting CO2 as one anyway.
