Is carbon capture a solution to the climate crisis?

By this point, we know the importance of cutting back on our greenhouse gas emissions, but the science says it's not happening quickly enough. "We're currently emitting about 6 million tons per hour," said Lori Guetre. "It's like pulling a warm blanket over us, that's causing climate change."

Guetre runs commercial strategy for 1PointFive, a company with a radical idea: Sucking CO2 molecules out of the air, with a technology called Direct Air Capture. It sounds like magic, but actually, it's just chemistry. Huge fans blow outside air across a liquid that absorbs carbon dioxide molecules. The clean air returns to the outside, while the trapped CO2 is converted into pellets. When you heat those pellets up, you get pure carbon dioxide gas flowing into collection tanks.

What happens to that trapped CO2? "Today, people are simply burying the CO2 underground," Guetre said. "They're also turning the carbon into synthetic fuel, so we can put it into an airplane or a truck or a ship – some of those hard-to-decarbonize sectors. People are putting the carbon dioxide into concrete. People are making diamonds. People are making fizzy drinks."