When it's in the ground it's not, no. But when we try to take it out or put it back in it does cause significant environmental disruption. Especially open mining.
> - Without joking: not with that attitude we won't. Let's not quit before trying?
Because any effort and money we throw at this won't go to things that are more likely to work. The scale to make CO2 capture actually make a difference is huge. Even the thought of producing and siting all those capture factories is mindbogglingly difficult without creating even bigger problems. For example: If we have to ship all their machinery and steel from China, we're likely to emit more CO2 than they will capture in years.
Like I said I'm open to being proven wrong but I don't think it will ever scale to this level.
I don't see coal being an environmental hazard and that's carbon captured in the ground. Plus you have to ask whether some risk of leaks or whatever is worse than not even trying at all.
> I don't think we'll manage to do significant CO2 capture before the effects are irreversible anyway.
- Without joking: not with that attitude we won't. Let's not quit before trying?
- We need all solutions to develop and mature right now. If it turns out cement remains unsolved, for example, or maybe it's fertilizer that we can't find a solution for or we can't get the solution to farmers in low income countries, then having a way of removing said issue indirectly will still be helpful.
- There are different degrees to overshooting. A +3°C climate (already way too hot by current estimates) is still better than a +5°C. Maybe the runaway effects at +3 make it into +5, but also, those effects take time to run their course. Anything we do to slow down, reverse, control, it all buys us time to decide what options to deploy. "We won't manage anyway, why bother" is the only wrong path to walk down. Maybe we can adapt to +4, but without tech to reduce emissions or counter a runaway effect, it won't stay at +4.