Reaching the Summit

SUMMIT CARBON SOLUTIONS, a relatively new business enterprise, is up and running, fighting, or beginning the fight, against the atmospheric inundation of carbon which is causing climate change. They are already installing carbon capture facilities at no fewer than thirty seven ethynol production plants around the United States, with pipelines and all, with which they intend to store collected carbon deep underground in some remote place in South Dakota. There is impending litigation intended to stop the building of pipelines in places like Iowa, as one might expect. If there is sufficient wisdom within the American federal judiciary, the litigation will fall flatter than Donald Trump;s attempt to use it to overthrow the United States government, the pipelines will be built, and the planet will be saved, or, if nothing else, will be a bit closer to salvation. Interestingly, the sequestered carbon will be converted from gas to liquid for transport in the pipelines. Whether it will be transformed again into solid material before burial is unclear; chances are it will be. More coal to use again, or to lie forever buried beneath the surface, harmlessly. Perhaps it will even be drastically transformed into diamonds, which, due to their actual profusion, are, in fact, far less inherently valuable than we tend to believe. So, there is hope, hope for a clean planet upon wich our descendants might frolic and thrive. Carbon needs to be removed from land, air, and water. Much of it is deposited at the bottoms of oceans, much of it in the soil, in surplus quantities. Photosynthesis is the natural, traditional method of keeping earth's carbon content in balance, but, alas, we the human species have long since replaced too many trees with to much parking space to keep this delicate balance in effect. How many more versions of Summit Carbon Solutions will be necessary to complete the task? That, of course, will depend largely upon how wisely or stupidly humanity proceeds in its seemingly frantic race to destroy itself and the planet it inhabits. As we approach the four hundred and fifty parts per million level in atmospheric carbon (its supposed to be two hundred parts per million), we are warned that we have already surpassed our ambitious goals for keeping excess carbon out of the atmosphere, and are at risk of surpassing the level needed to prevent catastrophic future warming of the atmosphere. It is still possible that by the end of this century the Earth's atmosphere will have exceeded the deadly five degrees of average temperature increase world wide. Still standing in the way, as always, of our fondest ambitions, as you might have guessed, are the climate change deniers, stopping relevant legislation, crushing our hopes for survival. Most climate change deniers are American, period, although the benighted community persists globally. The possible election of Donald Trump to the presidency, with his coal burning oil drilling agenda and seventy five million Americans who apparently support this insanity, is seen by scientists and concerned citizens as a make it or break it moment in human history. Much the same thing was said in 2016 and 2020, when Donald Trump's election brought forth a bevy of climate denying leaders and advisors, and yet, we somehow managed to survive, and here we are. This time, however, we mean it. To continue to pump and pry coal and oil out of the ground and into the atmosphere will only exacerbate what is already an unsustainable amount of heat absorbed into the atmosphere. The choice, as always, is ours.