Carbon Capture Is Messy and Fraught—But Might Be Essential

On paper, carbon capture is a simple proposition: Take carbon that we’ve pulled out of the Earth in the form of coal and oil and put into the atmosphere, and pull it out of the atmosphere and put it back in the Earth. Direct air capture, as it’s known, is one of several negative emissions technologies, or NETs, that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine explored in a massive report released last week. And that if we pour money into researching them, higher-tech options, like filtering CO2 out of the air and storing it underground, could go a long way in cutting back emissions. “Negative emissions have the potential to be a major new tool,” says Princeton University’s Stephen Pacala, who chaired the commission that produced the NAS report. “There is no ‘too late,’ and there is no ‘too early.’ It's just, let's get the job done however we can.” On the simpler end of things, carbon capture strategies include campaigns like encouraging the restoration and proliferation of seaside habitats that suck up and sequester carbon in plants and sediment.