Introduction

Current global fossil fuel reduction targets used by our governments (and most environmental groups) incorporate calculations for future reductions in atmospheric carbon based on an untested and unproven new carbon removal technology. This carbon removal technology won't even exist at an adequate scale until sometime after 2050, if ever. If this sounds like a dangerous and irrational way to calculate our current life-critical global fossil fuel reduction targets, you are not alone.

Before we tell you why atmospheric carbon capture technology (aka NETs, negative emission technologies) designed to suck carbon particles out of our atmosphere will not save us in time from unending global warming catastrophes and global warming extinction, it would be helpful to tell you a short story to provide a relevant context for what the following materials will mean to your life.

Here is that short story:

Imagine you are addicted to some dangerous drug that will continue to ruin your life and is almost sure to cause your death within the next ten years. The only way that will not happen is if you quit entirely or at the minimum, radically cut back on your drug usage. 

You go to the world's leading doctor and authority on drug addiction for help. The doctor says to you, "I know that will be difficult for you to cut down or completely stop using the drug you are using now, but don't worry. You do not have to reduce your drug usage or quit at this time. 

I have heard from colleagues that in about 30 years or so there is a promising new drug technology being developed. This new drug technology should be able to stop you from taking the drug you are addicted to now and, it will remove most of the damage that this drug has caused to your body." 

It's hard not to imagine that you would not feel betrayed by the advice that this expert is giving you. This betrayal is particularly true because your quality of life would suffer severely by your continued drug use and you probably would likely die within the projected ten-year prediction. As hard as it is to believe, that is what's happening with what our global warming authorities [the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC,)] are telling us in the most elusive of ways. There also are other parallels to this story for what you are about to read on the effects of not radically reducing fossil fuel use to meet the 2025 reduction targets just below.

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The "carbon capture will save us from the escalating global warming extinction emergency in time," big lie

With the above story in mind, here are the details on why carbon capture technology will not save us in time from our almost 200-year-old serious addiction to fossil fuel.

The world's leading global warming authority (the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's [IPCC]) took the cowardly and easy way out. Instead of being honest with the public and telling us we needed to make immediate, radical, and costly global fossil fuel reductions and, make sacrifices for our children and future generations, they created false fossil fuel reduction levels. (Those targets and deadlines are we need to make a 40% reduction in total global fossil fuel use by 2030 and then reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.)

You will hear a lot about a Green New Deal that the US democratic party is trying to put into its 2020 political platform. The Green New Deal (along with all of the NGOs) currently using the IPCC's targets and deadlines suffer the same fatal flaw now being used by the world's leading authority to keep us from facing the following painful and difficult reality:

the only thing that will save us now from an unconscionable global warming-caused extinction event is meeting or getting very close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets! (Further below you'll see just how difficult these reductions need to be.)

Here's how this very intentional global fossil fuel reduction deception works. Like many things, the devil is in the details. As the essential part of their calculations to prevent the world from reaching a 2°C increase in average global temperature before 2100, the IPCC (and everyone else using their calculations) have relied upon the projected effects of a currently unproven carbon removal technology (or as we call them, magical carbon sucking unicorns,) for their "allowable" reductions for ongoing atmospheric fossil fuel carbon pollution.

"Inventing" this post-2050 atmospheric carbon removal "miracle cure and trick," which will somehow remove astronomically massive amounts of carbon from our atmosphere after 2050 was the only way to literally force their current carbon reduction calculations and targets to work to keep global warming at or below their own acknowledged "very dangerous 2° Celsius level." This "cooking of the accounting books" also allowed them not to declare a global warming emergency.

It also allowed the IPCC not to require us to make the painful and immediate 2025 fossil fuel reductions we needed to make! (See in part, Jason Hickel. "The Paris climate deal won't save us – our future depends on de-growth." The Guardian. July 3, 2017. Worse yet, not only will these magical carbon sucking unicorns be unable to keep the average global temperature increase below 2° C, they also are completely unable to meet the real reductions needed to keep humanity alive and safe long before 2100. (For the record, the way things are going now, we would have to be extremely lucky to remain below 4 or 5° C by as soon as 2060 or 2070.)

These "miracle cure" and "cooked books" false calculations based on some new technology that will be invented sometime after 2050 were easy to pass, politically expeditious, allowed fossil fuel exporting nations not to crash economically, and provided a 30-year windfall to fossil fuel-related industries.

These false calculations permitted the world's leading global warming authority to make everyone believe the most dangerous falsehood possible about our future. 

That we are currently safe, and we are making the necessary fossil fuel reduction progress to prevent the extinction of humanity long before 2100.

We do not know for sure, but at Job One we believe that brilliant fossil fuel industry lobbyists are the true originators of the idea of skewing and "cooking" the fossil fuel reduction calculations in their favor. It was sneaky, but brilliant to get the IPCC to rely upon nonexistent NETs (magical carbon sucking unicorns,) as opposed to doing what was needed to be done to:

• effectively reduce fossil fuel use so that we do meet our 2°C targets and, 
• prevent crossing the carbon 600 ppm mass extinction tipping point.

The graph below shows the mess we are in regarding global warming, causing carbon to rise in the atmosphere.

The obvious advantage to the fossil fuel industry is that if everyone believes that we only have to reduce our fossil fuel use gradually and a fraction of what we actually have to reduce it as laid out in the honest 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets, then everyone will go on blissfully and incorrectly using lots and lots of fossil fuel. Again this allows the fossil fuel industry to get decades more high profits much more fossil fuel out of the ground at the expense of the health and well-being of you and your loved ones.

Additionally, these “miracle cure” NET calculations were fully relied upon for creating our current official governmental fossil fuel reduction targets in spite of the fact that these new carbon sucking technologies:

1. do not currently exist in any way that could truly be called effective, (More will be said about this in point 2 just below.)
2. are all but impossible to scale up adequately in time for removing the needed massive amounts of atmospheric carbon, which are conservatively currently estimated at about 100 gigatons just to keep us below a 2-degree Celsius temperature rise. (1 Gigatonne or metric gigaton (unit of mass) is equal to 1,000,000,000 metric tons. 100 gigatons would equal 100 billion metric tons or 100,000,000,000 metric tons.) 

   As of 2018, the three experimental carbon capture plants currently operating are capable of pulling 500,000 metric tons of carbon out of the atmosphere per year and far from the 100,000,000,000 metric tons, we need to remove according to their own very flawed calculations. Unfortunately, the amount of additional fossil fuel energy that it takes to do this carbon removal creates enormous amounts of additional carbon going into the atmosphere so that the net benefit is grossly inadequate. For some of these plants, the average cost per metric ton to remove the carbon is currently around 600 dollars per metric ton. Where are we ever going to find the 60,000,000,000,000 trillion dollars to fund this grossly inadequate solution? 

   To remove the necessary 100 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere to keep the average global temperature below 2 degrees and, just to keep up with what we are adding in new carbon every year, but not what we need to do to get back down to safe levels, we would have to create about 200,000 more carbon capture plants similar to the ones currently operating unsuccessfully.
3. have so many catastrophic projected side effects that would make their desperate use to save us at the last minute around 2050 far worse than the original problem they were intended to solve! (This page has more about the issue of the many potential catastrophic side effects.)
4. do not even allow in their "cooked books calculations" for the massive additional amounts of carbon entering the atmosphere as temperatures rise well before 2050 and we cross key carbon global warming tipping points (such as when the tundra and permafrost begin releasing exponentially more carbon into the atmosphere or when the oceans, trees, and soils stop absorbing carbon and begin releasing carbon in massive quantities.)
5. do not even allow in their "cooked books calculations" for the massive additional amounts of methane entering the atmosphere as temperatures rise well before 2050 and we cross key methane global warming tipping points (such as when the tundra and permafrost begin releasing exponentially more methane into the atmosphere or when methane begins being released exponentially from our coastal ocean shelves.) (Methane is 86 times more powerful than carbon in increasing average global temperature and magical carbon sucking unicorns have no known ability to remove these additional massive amounts of methane from the atmosphere.)

As you can see magical carbon-sucking unicorns are not only a dangerous non-solution they are also grossly inadequate to solve a problem that needs to be solved long before 2050 so that humanity does not go extinct near or just after 2050. Magical carbon-sucking unicorns are not just "too little too late," they are in essence a form of "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when we should be steering away from the iceberg," and be focusing on getting the honest 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets achieved.

The near-complete reliance upon these non-existent new technologies by the world's global warming authorities to miraculously save us at the last moment is both irresponsible and irrational beyond belief! It is mass public delusion at the level of the Emperor's New Clothes parable.

These projections and reality-unproven calculations are especially unconscionable because the very future survival of humanity is held in the balance by the validity of these calculations because, these calculations are determining the fossil fuel reductions your governments are asking (or demanding,) you to make both now and in the future.

Worse yet, these groupthink illusionary and delusionary calculations have given the public a false sense of safety.

They have stolen the necessary accurate sense of appropriate urgency about the real dangers that are here today and over the next several decades, not sometime far off in the second half of the 21st century. Without the correct sense of urgency, the public has been prevented from both understanding and making the critical and radical fossil fuel cuts that should have been made and demanded decades ago to prevent the current global warming extinction emergency.

Because of the above and other factors such as additional miscalculations by the world’s leading global warming authorities underestimating by about 20-40% how fast and severe the consequences of global warming will be as well as the failure to include any of the 11 most dangerous global warming tipping points in their global warming consequence prediction timetables, global warming has now become out of meaningful control for at least the next 30-50 years.

Here are a few additional questions for future investigation regarding the global warming "carbon sucking unicorns" calculation and analysis anomaly:

1. Is this nonexisting equipment calculation for magical carbon-sucking unicorns that the world has bought into the most clever and evil way the fossil fuel lobbyists induced lazy politicians and timid climate experts to avoid and put off demanding the critical global fossil fuel cuts we should've begun decades ago?

We strongly believe that the tremendous media hype and extensive government promotion of the carbon capture false hope, is just another effective action of the global fossil fuel cartels' misinformation and disinformation programs. Please go to the following fossil fuel cartel disinformation strategy explanation page, where we lay out 60 years of fossil fuel cartel disinformation and misinformation strategies. It will shock you to the core, and we believe you will come to the same conclusion we did about who is behind the "too little too late" carbon capture will save us delusion.

2. Was it an ingenious and near-invisible way to delude us all into thinking that we don't have to cut fossil fuel use by anything but gradual and painless steps in the present when the exact opposite is true? 

3. Was this an absolutely brilliant way for the fossil fuel industry to trick and co-opt the efforts of environmental organizations and honest global warming fossil fuel reduction calculations and continue to make record profits when in fact, the fossil fuel industry should be moving towards far, far lower production and/or closing?

4. Have the big environmental groups bought into this delusion and false calculation because they also consciously or unconsciously, did not believe that they could ever "sell" the real radical and painful cuts to fossil fuel use that are now necessary to their members?

5. How can we believe that we can remove over 200 years of atmospheric carbon pollution that we have created from fossil fuel burning within as little as 2 to 3 decades in time to save us when an energy-efficient proven version of this technology that is also scalable is not even projected to exist until after 2050? 70 to 90% of us will not be around to see how this fantasy works out.

When you look at the real fossil fuel usage cuts that we should be making for humanity to survive (as shown below,) you can't help but wonder if the fossil fuel industry lobbyists are far more powerful and smart than any of us has previously recognized!

Here are the actual fossil fuel reductions we should be making:

To slow and prevent the process of crossing the carbon 600 ppm extinction level tipping point, here is what is needed to happen. The absolute minimum amount we need to reduce fossil fuel use to prevent ourselves from being very likely to go extinct is as follows:

a. All developed nations must reduce their fossil fuel use by 75 percent by 2025 and then continue reducing fossil fuel use to zero by 2035. This means that all individuals and businesses within the developing nations of the world must meet these reduction goals.

b. All developing nations must maintain their fossil fuel use levels as they are at the beginning of 2019 and not allow them to go any higher.

(To see all the details of these critical 2025 fossil fuel reduction targets and deadlines, click here.)

This shockingly large and radical amount of fossil fuel use reduction is now needed because our past and current gradual and painless reductions are not even close to what is needed to get close to where we need to be at net zero carbon. To grasp how difficult these cuts will be, imagine that if you live in the developed world in the next 6 years you personally will have to cut all of your home, auto, and business uses of fossil fuels by 75% then cut down to no fossil fuel use within 10 years after this.

To help you grasp how difficult these massive global fossil fuel cuts will be, imagine that in the next six years you personally will have to cut all of your home, auto, and business uses of fossil fuels by 75%, then cut them down to zero over the next 10 years. Those are the real numbersthat we are facing and the real cuts we need to make to prevent the likelihood of extinction!

What this all means is that magical carbon sucking unicorns (Carbon Capture Technology, NET's) will not save us in time and that, any reliance on them being discovered, scalable or usable without horrendous side effects miraculously some time after 2050 is not only foolish planning (when the very survival of humanity is at stake,) but it is also extremely harmful in that it makes us think the grossly inadequate gradual reductions we are making now will save us from horrendous, soon-arriving consequences when, in fact, the exact opposite is true.

What this all ultimately means is that we have to face and correctly manage the real cause of escalating global warming, which can only be fixed at this ridiculously late stage of the game by radically reducing fossil fuel use!

To see critical information on how challenging it will be to be able to manage the escalating global warming extinction emergency effectively, click here.

For more debunking science on the magical carbon sucking unicorns the fossil fuel industry wants you to believe in so you don't radically reduce your fossil fuel use also see:

Abby Rabinowitz and Amanda Simson. “The Dirty Secret of the World’s Plan to Avert Climate Disaster.” Wired. December 10, 2017.

Climate scientist Kevin Anderson explains the non-viability of these carbon capture assumptions by the Paris conference Agreement. In a more recent Climate Change Leadership Lecture, Anderson further elaborates on Paris’s shortfall, saying we should focus on urgent and deep fossil fuel use reductions now!

Too Many Companies Are Banking on Carbon Capture to Reach Net Zero

The new Climageddon book was published by Job One for Humanity. It describes all of the major dangerous miscalculations, groupthink illusions, or delusions currently held by the world's leading global warming authorities as well as the 11 major global warming tipping points.

Our blog article is called: Don't worry about global warming ever again because magical carbon-sucking unicorns will turn all of our atmospheric carbon into Skittles and save us just-in-time...

Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

The Carbon Capture Conundrum, Public Need Vs. Private Gain