People have opinions about the ways we should address the climate crisis. There are many possible solutions, but however we decide to change, we have to do it now.
People have opinions about the ways we should address the climate crisis. From
planting trees for sequestering
carbon
to updates to the Endangered Species
Actt,
the effectiveness of different initiatives is often questioned. Because time,
money, and human resources are needed to implement any plan, it’s a conversation
about whether an option is “worth it.”
If we take away one thing from this week’s climate observances, it should be
that there is no one silver bullet. Mitigating today’s environmental challenges
needs work in many areas.
As climate scientist Michael E. Mann says, “Any viable climate solution must
be multi-pronged … [and] fire on all
cylinders.”
Here at TerraCycle, our focus is eliminating the w-word (waste) and
collecting difficult-to-recycle materials through brand-sponsored recycling
programs and our comprehensive Zero
Waste Box system. Diverting items from
landfills and incinerators, and educating about recycling is our specialty, but
we know there are other concepts in the sustainability space with great
potential.
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Here are just a few interesting things happening around the world:
Putting captured carbon into new products
Seltzer and sparkling water fans rejoice: Valser, a beverage company and
subsidiary of Coca-Cola HBC Switzerland, is set to release “the world’s
first water bottled with carbon dioxide (CO2) pulled directly from the
air.”
Beverage companies are among the world's largest users of carbon dioxide; it had
been common practice to use the CO2 byproduct from power
plants
for carbonation By using direct air capture (DAC) technology to develop
food-grade CO2, the industry is poised to offer a way both sequester carbon in
the atmosphere and source a key ingredient for their products.
Speaking of carbon capture, another positive production practice picking up
steam is a new method of creating
concrete
(a material that touches nearly every aspect of global infrastructure), which
conventionally has a significant carbon and materials footprint, releasing
staggering amounts of CO2 in the air.
A company called Blue Planet uses a “low-energy
mineralization” process that takes
climate-changing carbon out of the atmosphere, dissolves it into a solution, and
produces a bicarbonate used for building materials. In addition to doing less
harm, this production is one of a growing number that creates a benefit by
creating a positive (new product) out of a negative (CO2). Win, win.
Learning from the experts
There is no waste in nature, and the earth cycles nearly everything it sustains
(if you don’t count humans and all the unabsorbable “stuff” we produce).
Recycling is one way we try to better fit in with nature’s activities, and
carbon capture is a form of this. Needless to say, nature inspires some of the
coolest ways we might fight climate change.
In an increasingly warm world, our day-to-day often entails indoor climate
control, which is a matter of public safety and health, and extreme cost. Mick
Pearce, an architect from Zimbabwe, is taking a biomimetic approach to designing buildings, inspired by
termite mounds and cactus spikes
that self-cool by tapping into the science of surface area, absorbing and
regulating heat and
cold.
Whatever we do about the climate crisis, we have to do it now.
Published Sep 25, 2019 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST
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