In 1964 the Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed a scale to measure the level of a civilisation’s technological advancement. A Type I civilisation would use and control all of the natural resources of their home planet. A Type II civilisation has mastery of the power of its star and solar system, and a Type III civilisation harnesses and controls all of the resources available in the galaxy.

By this scale Earth, and humanity, is probably about a Type 0.7. We are using more and more of the resources of this planet, but leaving the natural cycles of elements and minerals unbalanced, and this is causing large, rapid shifts in the climate of our planet. What we need now is the total control of these resources and their environment, a form of climate engineering.

Currently, the opinions of most climate scientists are that we are close to the point of no return, the “tipping point” in regards to the amount of carbon in our atmosphere – but we’re not there yet, and there is time to restrict our emissions and develop technologies to reduce its presence in our atmosphere. Despite some researcher’s claiming that we have already passed this point they may be our best hope for keeping our home liveable.

Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

一of the most oft-talked about technologies for reducing carbon levels in our atmosphere is BECCS – combining bio-energy (creating energy from biomass) with carbon capture and storage (capturing and then sequestering the atmospheric carbon in deep geological deposits). CCS technologies have already been guaranteed in many planned power plants, as a way to mitigate carbon emissions.

For a long time carbon has been captured at the point of energy creation for a variety of other purposes – where else would the bubbles in your coke come from? However the key part here isstorage- 将碳变成一种形式，然后可以将其隔离在地下深处。但是，这项技术的经济学阻止了它 - 捕获的成本增加了约40％85% of the emissions。而且存在威胁，将大量碳存储在地下裂缝中最终会回到我们困扰我们 - 无论是泄漏还是更多……爆炸性。

贝克斯does have the potential for removal of CO2 from the atmosphere at a scale that, in conjunction with other conventional mitigation options, could deliver pre-industrial CO2 concentrations (Lenton and Vaughan 2009) and compares favourably in economic terms with other potential methods for air capture, such as using sodium hydroxide (Keith, Ha-Duong et al. 2006).

碳“擦洗”

We know that trees pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of their photosynthetic processes to generate food, so why not just plant more trees?

好吧，这当然是一个选择！意大利建筑师Stefano Boeri设计并正在建造“垂直森林” - 将树木整合到高层公寓的设计中，以减少这些房屋的净碳足迹。在接下来的几年中，我们将密切关注，以了解这在实践中的有效性。

城市highw海藻农场正在试验ay in Geneva, both as a source of biofuel and to mitigate the urban emissions.

但是，在理解如何将碳从大自然中拉出的情况下，我们为什么找不到技术解决方案？

再次……我们已经有了！基于同样的简单化学反应，使我们能够在潜艇和国际空间站中回收人类呼气Klaus Lacknerhas been developing a special plastic resin – his “artificial leaves”. This plastic can pull calcium out of water in a water softener – but when impregnated with sodium carbonate it pulls carbon dioxide out of the air, which converts the sodium carbonate to bicarbonate, or as it’s better known – baking soda.

This can then be sequestered as we see with BECCS, however it doesn’t need to be tied to the site of initial emissions and could be located directly above the sequestration site – saving time, money and effort.

外箱思考

除了上面详述的那些过程外，还提出了许多奇怪而奇妙的方法来应对气候变化和温室气体。繁殖和喂养奶牛以促进较低的排放，用巨大的激光阵列（同时使用2％的行星动力！）分解大气中的CFC，用太阳能和动力学面板代替了道路和人行道。

这就是人类传统上处理看起来像无法克服的问题的方式 - 我们把所有的想法都抛在墙上，看看什么是粘性（以及什么是成本效益！）。可能还会有一种新颖而巧妙的方法，没有人想到，这可以帮助我们减轻对我们生存的最大威胁 - 实际上，我们应该相信我们会的。疾病，战争，饥荒和自然灾害在几个世纪以来都令我们震惊，但人口和知识只会增加。

如果我们能护士地球氧化铝ng for a few more centuries, we may well be ready to leave it – and give mother nature a chance to reverse climate change on her own clock.

References

Lenton, T. M. and Vaughan, N. E.: The radiative forcing potential of different climate geoengineering options,Atmos. Chem. Phys.，9，5539-5561，doi：10.5194/acp-9-5539-2009，2009。

Keith, D.W., M. Ha-Duong, et al. 2006. Climate strategy with CO₂capture from the air.Climate Change,74（1-3）：17-45