Climate Control Arrives the Day After Net Zero

The primary goal of the sustainability industry today is to prevent GHG emissions from entering the atmosphere, with a goal of equal additions and removals, a concept called “net-zero.” Efforts to date have been one direction - to restrict, stop, and mitigate emissions. It’s all one direction. On the day net-zero is achieved though, society enters a new paradigm where removals are not the endless mission, and “climate control” is the goal. The world will hold legacy emissions systems in one hand and incredible decarbonization tools in the other, with the capacity to use both. There will be a strong sense that society can use these tools to literally assume control of the atmosphere and deliver a certain atmospheric make-up. Before then, there are significant scientific and psychological questions to resolve to steer safely to the inevitable climate control outcome.

The obvious scientific question is the final concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. Should we use our carbon capture and sequestration tools to return to the status just preceding the industrial revolution, or is holding the status on net-zero day best? If we want to find and keep planetary homeostasis, it’s probable that conditions beyond our control, like humidity, or the angle and rotational speed of Earth, will require shifting targets for atmospheric GHG concentrations.

Successful climate control will require accurate modeling, system understanding, correct target setting for multiple future time windows, and delivery of specific atmospheric conditions in those moments. The uncertainty will be massive. Caution is advised.

Climate control also raises deep questions about the meaning of society’s occasional mastery over nature. What is the psychological change of a society that assumes a new power for the first time? Agriculture and genetic modification are two areas where society assumes some command of nature and studying how society changed when the technologies arrived can help set expectations regarding climate control.

Major scientific questions remain unresolved, and the psychological meaning of technological success is as elusive in this endeavor as it was for those of the past.