It's a few weeks since both the United States and the European Union confirmed the hottest average global temperature ever recorded. Intense and unusual heat waves, along with fires, storms, and other extreme weather events, seemed to make 2023 the year when climate change became more disturbing.
Of course, climate change is more complicated than things simply getting hotter, but the overall warming of the earth is perhaps the most direct consequence of the carbon dioxide we have released （释放） into the atmosphere since the 19th century. What to do about this problem is the subject of this month's cover story, in which writer Sam Howe Verhovek and photographer Davide Monteleone take a closer look at carbon removal.
Ideas for how to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store or use it in some way have been around for a long time, but we've made little progress. Now we may be at the point where urgency, combined with technological advances, market demands, and creative vision, is making carbon removal a better choice for helping us manage the climate crisis.
Many environmentalists argue that carbon removal is a red herring（鲱鱼） that take our attention away from the need to dramatically reduce our emissions（排放）. The first industrial revolution got us into this mess; maybe a second one can assist us with getting out of it.
