Gotcha!

Instead of burying it or hoping our oceans will absorb it, why don’t we just grab all that carbon dioxide out of the air?

A group of researchers think that a CO2 removal unit the size of an ocean shipping container could extract a thousand tons of the gas per year with operating costs of approximately $100 per ton. Will we soon see one of these at every street corner, the way trash cans are now?

Carbon dioxide from large sources such as coal-burning power plants or chemical facilities account for less than half the worldwide emissions of the gas. Much of the remaining emissions come from mobile sources such as buses, cars, planes and ships, where capture would be much more costly per ton.

Chemist David Sholl says, "Even if we removed CO2 from all the (factory chimney) gas, we’d still only get a portion of the carbon dioxide emitted each year. If we want to make deep cuts in emissions, we’ll have to do more–and air capture is one option for doing that."

In 1998, Whitley Strieber had never heard of climate change, but the Master of the Key burst into his hotel room in Toronto and told him all about it, which led to his bestselling book "Superstorm." Climate change has now ARRIVED, as can be seen by the photo accompanying this story, which shows recent "before" and "after" photos of Greenland.

To read the latest update on the climate, click here.