NEW YORK CITY – The global community, long plagued by wringing hands and clicking tongues, appears to have discovered a magical solution to our impending doom inflicted by climate change: capturing carbon. From Scandinavia to the swamps of Florida, an eldritch chimera of treehuggers, hypercapitalists, and members of the Sith Academy have decided that simply reducing emissions is too passé. No, the new fad is to snatch that villainous carbon right out of the air, stuff it into subterranean dungeons, and pretend as if our planet's soot-smeared soul is cleaner for it. "It's incredible. I don't know why we didn't think of this sooner," exclaims environmental scientist Wanda Makestuffup, who also dabbles in necromancy. "We burn all the fossil fuels we want, then suck up the burped out CO2 like a ghost-hunting vacuum cleaner, and Ta-da! Solvey Solve Solve. It's a scientifically proven way. I saw this in an episode of Scooby-Doo once." The new path forward appears to be motivated in part by societal changes. Apparently, most of humanity prefers to toss their recyclables into the rapacious maw of a thousand polluting industries, then indulge in an orgiastic, nihilistic frenzy of carbon capture technologies that are consumer-friendly, yet hollow and ultimately unsatisfying acts. Anything but tackling the root of the problem – our collective carbon footprint. Julius Hindsight, a representative for the new group Carbon Capture for Cleardoom, enthuses over the possible applications of carbon capture technology. "Imagine cars, planes, and factories all belching black smoke into the atmosphere, and then right behind them, we have thousands of carbon vacuums humming like high-quality fibromancers at work. That looks like progress to me!" he exclaims while lighting a cigarette. Of course, the skeptics who like to point out that carbon capture technology remains nascent, costly, and less efficient than cutting carbon emissions are merely killjoys, unwilling to trade their moldering scrolls of science for sky-spanning dreams of consuming ever more, yet still achieving a guilt-free divine balance. Many, in fact, have been spotted wearing dour expressions and unsexy, off-brand togas, clutching their rolls of parchment like security blankets. However, even as beleaguered members of the Darth Vader Fan Club (Exit Through The Airlock Division) praise carbon capture as a way to absolve themselves of the sins of a thousand overflowing landfills and continue hosing down their expansive lawns, they are unable to ignore the underlying gnawing guilt. Their guilt, however, is not directed toward the emissions and waste their glorious industries produce, but rather to their collective nostalgia for a time when Baby Boomers parented with willful cruelty and children were sent to sleep with goodnight kisses and arsenic candies. Is carbon capturing a necessary evil or just another pipe dream for our slowly suffocating world? Only time – and perhaps a hordes of pipe-loving elves – will tell.