Carbon capture has emerged as a crucial climate change recovery strategy, given the catastrophic environmental changes occurring worldwide. The melting of Greenland and Arctic ice sheets, deforestation and the loss of rainforests like the Amazon, warming oceans, declining coral reefs and fish populations, and the significant decline in insect populations have highlighted the urgent need for action. As human carbon emissions have outpaced nature’s ability to recover, there is a risk of crossing tipping points that could lead to severe and potentially catastrophic impacts. 

To get to net zero by 2050, we will need to reduce the #carbon footprint in all industrial and commercial sectors. This means pretty much reinventing our entire economy. A #greeneconomy is the only way forward.  It is NOT enough to stop producing greenhouse gases and harmful carbon, we must reverse the damage as best we can with restorative innovative technology. In order to continue to thrive, we need to find ways to uncouple our growth from carbon consumption & production, and help nature’s ability to heal from the decades of pollution and toxins in our air, land, and sea.  At least a trillion tons of CO2 will need to be removed from the air over the next few decades.

The innovative technology exists, and is becoming more efficient and less costly to implement, but still requires a lot of patient capital.  As with any industry, there must be driven, passionate innovators seeking to solve the problem and save the planet, and funding from the the private sector and compassionate capitalists.  In the case of reversing the harm that has been and is being done by global warming, it takes both government policy and funding to boost what the private sector develops to solve the problem. Hardware solutions are also necessary to repair our bodies of water, our ‘dead and dying’ soil, and repurposing discarded materials into new uses to ‘undo’ crisis of forever chemicals and toxic waste. 

Fortunately, there is a growing community of climate centric ‘green’ venture funds that are collaborating with each other and focused to putting their money to work solving this critical problem for our local and global communities.  Karen’s guest today on this thought provoking episode of The Compassionate Capitalist Show is Iris Ten Have, the Head of Science at Extantia Capital.  Karen and Iris explore the topic impact of the climate crisis, what is being done to address it, and what challenges lay ahead.  

Key Take Aways: 
1.The exponential growth of human carbon emissions has surpassed nature’s ability to recover, leading to the need for hardware solutions that can effectively capture and remove carbon from the atmosphere.

2.  Hardware, which is more expensive and requires patience in its funding, is necessary because software alone is incapable of actually doing anything. Software runs hardware that does the physical work of #carboncapture , a vital strategy for reversing the effect of #carbon  on #climatechange.

3. The US government is taking steps towards triggering a reduction in carbon emissions while[…]