Giving Compass' Take:

• Greg H. Rau at The Conversation discusses research on speeding up the process of trapping carbon dioxide in minerals in an effort to stave off climate change. 

• How feasible is this possibility? Could this type of large-scale carbon dioxide removal work?

• Here's another article showing how soil minerals hang on to a whole lot of carbon. 

The world’s nations are nowhere near to meeting the global Paris Agreement’s goals on climate change of holding global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius compared to 19th-century averages, much less its more aspirational goal of holding temperatures to a 1.5°C rise.

The most recent Emissions Gap Report from the United Nations Environment Program notes “global greenhouse gas emissions show no signs of peaking.” According to another study, the chance that humans can limit warming to no more than 2°C by 2100 is no more than 5 percent, and it’s likely that temperatures will rise somewhere between 2.6°-3.7°C by the end of the century.

These foreboding trends have led to an increasing focus on ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Among the methods being explored is the use of the ocean to absorb and/or store carbon by adding crushed rocks or other sources of alkalinity to react with CO2 in seawater, ultimately consuming atmospheric CO2.

Read the full article about tweaking marine chemistry to stave off climate change by Greg H. Rau at The Conversation.