Climate change is happening, and time is running out to turn it around. The IPCC's most recent report gives us about 10 years to reverse our carbon emissions. We're not going to get there by reducing our emissions alone. Here are 4 megaprojects that could actually save the planet.
Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage Biomass is the burning of biological material (usually plant matter) to generate energy. BECCS scrubs the CO2 out of the exhaust and sequesters it underground, thus taking CO2 out of the air via that plants and putting it into the ground.
Direct Air Capture With DAC, giant carbon scrubbers pull CO2 out of the air, after which the CO2 can be used to produce other items like fuel. Two companies that are leading in this field are Carbon Engineering and Climeworks.
Stratospheric Aerosol Injection SAI is, basically, creating an artificial volcano. The Mount Pinatubo eruption of 1991 cooled the planet by half a degree for 18 months. By flying a fleet of SAI Lofters (SAILs) regularly into the upper atmosphere, we could spread particulates around the planet and cool the atmosphere.
Space Solar Shield By creating a giant solar shield at the L1 Lagrange point, we could block up to 2% of the sun's rays, enough to alter the amount of heat getting trapped by the atmosphere.