Alumna Featured on TED Radio Hour Episode

Jennifer Wilcox, who earned her UA PhD in chemical engineering at UA in 2004, was featured on an episode of the TED Radio Hour titled “Climate Crisis.”

She speaks about how slowing climate change means not only lowering emissions, but removing carbon from the atmosphere. Currently, the carbon level of the atmosphere is at 400 parts per million, which means for every million particles of air, 400 are carbon dioxide.

“Right now, we’re at a point where the natural systems are not able to uptake all of that CO2, and there’s now extremely strong evidence that there are correlations between this 400 or 410 parts per million in the atmosphere today and the warming of the planet that we’re experiencing,” she said. “The options we have now are no longer just plain old mitigation. In order to make an impact, we also have to do the removal [of C02 from the atmosphere] piece.”

She says the technology to do this already exists, but needs to be scaled up. In fact, the solution might be similar to a giant Brita filter, designed to purify air instead of water.

Hear more from Wilcox in her full-length TED Talk.