Slow and steady will lose to climate change

Carbon capture or carbon suction is one of the technologies being touted to reduce the density of carbon from the atmosphere. Many experts doubt the efficacy of this method though. Even if one does not fathom the scientific nitty-gritty of why this is not the answer to carbon emissions, the fact that major oil corporations are touting it should be enough to connect the dots. Carbon capture basically helps the fossil fuel industry to present this as a solution instead of ending the use of fossil fuel. The most effective carbon suckers on the planet are trees.

The real solution to the threat of climate change is ending the use of fossil fuels and using wind, solar and other sources of clean energy generation. However, one of the major problems that still has to manifest itself is having to do with the pace. Even if we ended the use of fossil fuel entirely today and started sucking carbon from the atmosphere, the results wouldn’t come in years or even decades.

The winters that we grew up in were warmer than the ones in which our grandfathers grew up and so on. The one saddest reality surrounding the issue of climate change for this author is that even if we implement all the recommended solutions today, we will still never see the winters in which we grew up let alone the winters in which our fathers and grandfathers grew up.

The wait period is a major problem. The time factor shouldn’t change our calculus but it will. We live in a world where speed defines quality. People want speed and comfort. They buy food in a drive-thru. More and more people are trading cryptocurrency because the transactions are quick. More importantly, people want to get rich fast. People jog for 2 days and then stand in front of a mirror expecting to look like Brad Pitt.

We also live in a world where lies define the truth. Despite many sources of news, there is more misinformation than when there were fewer sources of news. Remember when Obama did not produce his birth certificate quickly, so many people believed the racism-filled rhetoric that perhaps Obama wasn’t actually born in the USA. When people are asked to make lifestyle changes including eating less beef and having less children; when people are told to only drive electric cars and avoid using wood furniture so as to save trees; and when after all of those things, the planet is still getting devastated by wildfires, superfloods, extreme heat, tornadoes and it will, then the propaganda war will win against the truth.

People don’t usually get to enjoy the shade of the trees they plant. But their children and many other people in the next generation do. We may not see and live in a world where carbon has been completely removed from the atmosphere and global warming has been eliminated, but the next generation of humans and animals would have a livable planet, if we act now.

The steps required toward solving the climate change problem should be the fastest thing in the world. This is the only fight where the slow and the steady will lose. Despite claiming to believe in science, President Biden has ordered and allowed more fossil fuel drilling than the first 3 years of President Trump. The poor and developing countries are arguing that they need to build their economies and shouldn’t be lectured to stop using fossil fuel by those who created this mess in the first place. The results of the solutions implemented would come with the slowest speed. And that right there is the irony. What should be the fastest is moving the slowest and what will only be achieved slowly is expected to happen with lightning speed.

We don’t only need to treat growing trees as a climate solution. We also need to treat climate solutions like growing trees.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2021.

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