We need to talk about our carbon problem

Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World

In the last 250 years, we’ve released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than in the previous 20,000 years. To make serious headway in meeting climate-change deadlines, experts are looking at technologies that go beyond simply curbing emissions to those that can also take carbon dioxide out of the air. In this premiere episode of Solve for X, tech journalist Manjula Selvarajah explores what we can do with all this carbon dioxide from burying it underground to turning it into vodka.

Featured in this episode:

• Roger Highfield, science director at the Science Museum in London, England, who talks about the importance of carbon capture and objects that can store carbon dioxide released by human activity — from toothpaste to yoga mats — as well as a noisy mechanical tree named Cranky that is 1,000 times faster at removing CO2 from the air than a natural tree.
• Katharine Hayhoe is a Canadian atmospheric scientist, professor of political science at Texas Tech University and the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, a global conservation organization known as Nature United in Canada. She explains the potential benefits — and pitfalls — of trying to “fix” the planet.
• Anna Stukas, vice president of business development at Carbon Engineering, talks about how the B.C. company can take CO2 out of the atmosphere.
• Stacy Kauk, the head of sustainability at Shopify, talks about carbon pricing and what to know when evaluating carbon offsets.

Further reading:

• The device that reverses CO2 emissions
• Carbon Engineering Makes Gasoline by Capturing Carbon Dioxide From the Air
• Can We Suck Up Enough CO2 to Cool the Planet?
• Removing emissions directly from the air might be Canada’s best hope for net zero

The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca.

Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.