Carbon Capture and Storage is necessary to keep global warming below 2°C

When you only have a single Petri dish in which to make observations, and you also happen to eat your lunch out of that same dish, waiting for the science to lock into even greater certainty than that which has been established over the last fifty years or so is a less wise way to approach the matter. Observations of biodiversity loss are, for me, sufficient to move beyond the debating and towards the changing phase.

>I'm far more concerned about the effects of air pollution, acidification etc than a slight increase in temperatures (do not misinterpret: I say more concerned, both are concerning)

Also greatly concerning, but elements of the same whole which needs to be addressed. I think we’re on the same page here - my overall position is that singular focus on targeted solutions for only one aspect of the problem ignores the wider picture and will likely lead to second-order effects which cannot be foreseen.

CO2 as far as air pollution goes it is a nasty topic also. We’re starting to understand the impact of CO2 on human cognition at the local scale. If we consider that the removal of lead from petrol was linked to a significant down-turn in human aggression, what’s the world going to look like if the entire population runs 24/7 with the equivalent of a morning headache, effectively dropping the global IQ by a significant amount?

> Homo sapiens is extremely young, we are born of an ice age. 415ppm is among the lowest CO2 concentrations of all time, ever.

From an anthropogenic POV I’m not sure how this is a good thing. It’s higher than its ever been in the period that allowed humans to develop.

That’s assuming we’re talking about humankind and society as the thing we’re really seeking to save here.

We could also talk about biodiversity, but then the rate of change is probably a more significant element than the resting level. We’re spiking the level at a rate only previously seen during mass extinction events, and it follows that if we did want to draw back down to a lower level again for the purpose of allowing life to flourish again it probably couldn’t be at the same rate.

There's a lot wrong here.

(a) Over the past two centuries, we've been doing hundreds of crazy new things we've never done before. Correlation =/= causation: you can't just assume biodiversity loss is mostly caused by atmospheric carbon (btw: it's not)

(b) You're painting me as a caricature that has no link to reality. I'm not "waiting for science to lock" and spending my time "debating" instead of taking action, I've been working on clean energy development&commercialization for almost my entire career, and it is my primary long term focus in life.

That being said, I think there's very good reason for other people to spend time debating these issues instead of just rallying for radical political fixes to CO2 emissions. Like I've been trying to explain, the science is not at all settled on the subtleties of what we should do long term.

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> Also greatly concerning, but elements of the same whole which needs to be addressed. I think we’re on the same page here - ... effects which cannot be foreseen.

I completely agree with you here - you're absolutely right.

You also bring up very good points about why increased CO2 is nasty - these are accurate and CO2 is fundamentally a toxic gas so of course I'm also leaning towards the "the ideal level is probably below today's level" side - but I don't know yet. With so many different factors to consider, we can't just look at any one thing like human cognition and ignore the other pros / cons.

> That’s assuming we’re talking about humankind and society as the thing we’re really seeking to save here.

I don't think we need to "save" humankind or society (or the planet) - all three of those things are extremely resilient. Some portion of humans will survive just about anything with maybe the exception of a nasty gamma ray blast.

My concern is that GHG emissions will probably cause countless millions of avoidable deaths, negatively affect billions of human lives and cost us trillions of dollars long term in addition to ruining the natural environment and biodiversity.

This is, however, a slow process compared to a human lifetime. It's a really slow, big problem that will do a lot of damage if we don't focus on solving it before it becomes even worse.

> We could also talk about biodiversity

I'm very unsure whether GHG emissions are a leading cause of biodiversity loss in recent years. We do so much other bullshit (global shipping alone basically destroyed the natural barriers between ecosystems) and have already plunged nature into a mass extinction before the industrial revolution even began iirc

There's a lot of things humans do that cause extinctions. We should probably be addressing all of them.

Even if warming stopped now, Arctic and Antarctic would continue to melt for decades to come. Rate of change is key.

Your reference is also local (to the arctic), not global.

Again, what argument are you making here?

Is it: 1: It was warmer in the past / 1a: but nothing bad happened / 1b: therefore current warming is not due to human activity / 2: therefore there is no need to reduce CO2 levels.

We could create more such sites at great expense after we run out of natural sites and abandoned mines.

Have to be also very careful to not break underground water reservoirs.