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CEMENT MIGHT NOT BE AS BAD FOR THE PLANET AS WE THOUGHT

City sidewalks and brick buildings look a little greener today, thanks to new research showing that cement can soak up CO2. That’s not the only good news to come out this week. A team of German scientists engineered photosynthesis to be faster and more efficient. And a team of Americans buried 1,000 tons of carbon pollution underground.

This research couldn’t come fast enough. Halting climate change is an uphill battle. A new tool from Climate Advisers and Climate Interactive shows just how steep the mountain is.

If humanity is to keep warming below 2º C — considered to be the upper limit of manageable climate change — we need to do more than slash carbon pollution. We must also scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Around half a century from now, we'll need to remove as much CO2 from the skies as we emit.

You can think of our atmosphere like a bathtub. We’re constantly pouring in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses. We need to drain the tub before it overflows. That could mean growing forests or developing farms that scrub carbon from the sky. It could also mean new technologies that turn atmospheric CO2 into something benign or even useful, like fuel for your car.