One of my earliest, most vivid childhood memories is bathtime — suspended in water under my mother’s protective supervision. To conclude the ritual, Mom wrapped me in a towel and pulled the plug on the bathtub drain. The dirty soap water gushed away, gurgling as the last dredges subsided down the pipe. It left behind a squeaky clean, clear tub.
That was back then — when the global atmospheric average of carbon dioxide was 371 ppm (parts per million). Today, we live at a dire 421 ppm.
What does carbon dioxide have to do with bathtime rituals? Just as my mom would drain dirty water from the tub, we can remedy climate damage by sucking pollution out from our atmospheric bathtub using carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
The Carbon Dioxide Removal Market Development Act is a crucial climate solution 5C students are coming together to support. Here’s why.
CDR refers to a suite of technologies that draws down and permanently stores carbon from a nonpoint source (such as ambient air) by using a range of natural and mechanical processes. Examples of CDR technologies include reforestation, direct air capture and biochar.
The IPCC, the preeminent global scientific body on climate change, has come to the sobering conclusion that “all pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of CDR [at scale].” This illustrates the synchronous need for both decarbonization and CDR.
CDR is often confused with carbon capture (CCS). It couldn’t be more different.
CDR is an emissions-negative process, whereas CCS is (at its best) emissions-neutral, since it curbs emissions from escaping from energy refineries as they are produced. CCS threatens to extend the fossil fuel industry’s moral and technological license to continue polluting — such as through enhanced oil recovery, whereby captured carbon is pumped into semi-depleted oil wells to extract more fossil fuels.
CCS is an industry dating back to the 1970s and has an overwhelming track record of failure. Despite billions of dollars in wasted investments, the majority of CCS projects have been terminated. In contrast, CDR is a budding solution that can mature with our support — just as was done for solar power with tremendous success.
Conflating CDR with CCS is dangerous because it allows fossil fuel interests to hijack CDR to greenwash the public image of CCS. They have used this kind of hoodwink PR scheme before, deceitfully linking renewables with natural gas in Tweets.
If you’ve mistaken CDR for CCS, it’s not your fault. Some of the most reputable journalism outlets have made the gaffe.
When I asked former U.S. Presidential candidate and climate activist Tom Steyer about CDR at a Pomona College lecture this spring, he too slipped up, mistaking direct air capture as a CCS approach.
The silver lining of CDR is that, in the long term, we don’t have to settle for a “best case scenario” of 1.5°C warming, which would take a grave toll on human health. By deploying CDR at scale, we can eliminate legacy emissions that would otherwise remain in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years.
CDR is not a band-aid solution; CDR will allow our climate to recover and heal.
Right now, proposed legislation in California seeks to require the fossil fuel industry to purchase carbon removal credits. It’s called the Carbon Dioxide Removal Market Development Act, and a growing coalition of 5C students is taking the single most impactful climate action they can — supporting it.
Climate complacency is for losers. We are 5C students and we are climate champions.
5C students can sign up here to lobby Claremont representative Chris Holden and call other representatives using a foolproof calling script provided here.
Harrison Chapin PZ ’24 is a climate champion and carbon removal evangelist. He hopes you will be too. For questions about CDR or the CDRMDA campaign, please email him at hchapin@students.pitzer.edu
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