this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
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I remember reading somewhere that what we're experiencing now is a result of our actions from several years ago. (From the time pollution is released to the time it fully affects the weather system takes a few years and up to like a decade.) So even if we could stop everything 100% today, it would take several decades to stop progressing and start reversing the damage we've done.
So we're probably gonna have a bumpy ride the next few decades best case scenario. It also makes it that more important that we do what we can asap to stop it, even if we don't see any returns on our efforts right away.
The main problem at this point isn't us anymore. What we did was a catalyst to set off the rest of the environment, so you're right, stopping right now won't flatline the effects. The feedback loops we've started in the weather system, in the Arctic and Antarctic, the permafrost melting, the acidification of the oceans... they won't stop. The pushed boulder may be an overused metaphor, but it's accurate. How do you stop the rolling?
The words to look for in any serious discussion now are mitigation and adaptation. Anyone talking about net zero or carbon capture or all the other money making terms isn't trying to prepare.
We still must reach net zero, and that will probably involve carbon capture. We'll also have to adapt in many ways, but that's a different topic.
Look up the best we've done in CCS and DAC amounts. They like to brag on the websites how many millions of tons they've done (usually total, not per year). Then look up the annual increase of emissions each year. The units are completely different scales. The best DAC we have is a percent of a percent, and that's taking energy to run. Then there's the cost in energy and resources to sequester the carbon, because if you don't do that, it's for nothing (but $$$).
I've had my years of thinking maybe we can do this or do that and finally realizing physics doesn't get fooled. Can't run this in reverse. I'm over it. We aren't slowing down the demand and the output. We won't.
Current carbon capture systems are small because it takes energy to capture industrial quantities of carbon, so they are either using some trick that only works under specific conditions (e.g. adsorption by alkaline rocks) or financed through CSR / carbon credits. But if fusion power becomes commercialised, we will be able to absorb meaningful amounts of CO2.
This is not to say we'll be fine, but the Chinese government seems to recognise climate change as a major threat, and when they decide that something needs to be done, it tends to get done. So I expect there to be at least as much climate action as is needed to protect China.
You used the F word. And you implied fusion working, and then becoming more available. That's two huge hurdles to count on when we're essentially out of time. I don't disagree, lots of scifi uses the idea that fusion or other large energy source that doesn't wreck the environment opens up a lot of things, but... yeah.
DAC or possibly pulling carbon from water in similar ways is the only mass way to do it, and you're right, it takes enormous energy for just a small amount of effect. Which without fusion or other non-emissions source, is a bit counter productive. Long ago someone visualized what we're trying to do with carbon capture as much like running the fossil fuel plant backwards. Anyone knowing entropy realizes the challenges and losses of that. Fossil fuel was so easy to utilize, lots of energy in those molecular bonds, and we could even use fossil fuel to pull up more fossil fuel. How do you reverse that?
In 2022, the National Ignition Facility in the USA was briefly able to generate more energy than required to run the reactor. This is an experimental reactor, and the yield is small, but it shows that fusion can work. Since then, reactors in China and France have been able to sustain fusion for a few minutes.
Yes, you need a massive amount of concentrated energy, and as far as I know only nuclear reactors can do that.
I was told that it can take a fast, fully loaded (and presumably pretty damn long) freight train about a mile to stop. So, even after the conductor decides to hit the brakes, the train will still be moving for a while.
I like to use this example for visualization of “stop now, but continue paying for a time” situations like this one.
At 50 mph, it takes a fully loaded 150 car freight train over a mile to stop.
To further build on this, the train doesn't stop all at once either. The engine brakes and then every car starts braking from the front to the back of the train. That's why the train has to be organized so the heaviest cars are at the front and lightest are at the back. Otherwise the momentum of the still moving cars at the back will send a shockwave through all the couplings of the cars ahead to the stopped engine and shove them all forward.
The problem here, beyond the fact that there is a 0% chance of doing what we can asap as opposed to the 100% chance of increasing emmissions, is the feedback loops involved. The largest being perhaps the permafrost melting, which holds 2x the co2 as is in the atmosphere just in siberia, and huge methane sinks, frozen swamps, that will flood the zone.