Living Car Free - Who wants $25 million?

If you can figure out how to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year), you can get $25 million.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020900693.html

ah geeze....

, saying that the "survival of our species" is imperiled by current environmental trends,

trends like billionaires flying aroung the world on private jets

We got into this by millions of people doing what they wanted to, little bits at a time (driving cars, flying in airplanes, building suburbs, buying stuff from China). Maybe we will have to get out of it by millions of people doing their parts, little bits at a time. Unfortunately, those little bits will be things they DON'T want to do (bike to work, take the train, live in the city, buy stuff locally).

Maybe the secret is finding ways to make what must be done acceptable to those who must do it.

I like to hear people say that technology will solve the problem. They might be absolutely right in everything but the tense. Maybe technology "has solved" the problem, and we have turned our backs on it. Maybe the solution is...the bicycle.

Easiest form of Carbon sequestration I can think of is to plant trees. The power company I used to work for was testing this at the time I left. I don't know how success is measured, but its easy and fairly cheap to plant trees.

I think this idea is a good example of how desperate we will become in attempts to keep our fossil-fueled transportation culture going by any means possible.

We got into this by millions of people doing what they wanted to, little bits at a time (driving cars, flying in airplanes, building suburbs, buying stuff from China). Maybe we will have to get out of it by millions of people doing their parts, little bits at a time. Unfortunately, those little bits will be things they DON'T want to do (bike to work, take the train, live in the city, buy stuff locally).

Maybe the secret is finding ways to make what must be done acceptable to those who must do it.

I like to hear people say that technology will solve the problem. They might be absolutely right in everything but the tense. Maybe technology "has solved" the problem, and we have turned our backs on it. Maybe the solution is...the bicycle.

Much of the problem is China. Think of millions of bicyclists going to their jobs in coal-fired factories and working for peon wages.

There's an easy low tech solution. Quit making babies.

I think this idea is a good example of how desperate we will become in attempts to keep our fossil-fueled transportation culture going by any means possible.
Exactly... I've read of so many of these Rube Goldberg hair-brained schemes recently. One includes launching mirrors into outer space to deflect the sun's rays. The way to deal with this problem is to slow down on our consumption and let the planet take care of itself.

Easiest form of Carbon sequestration I can think of is to plant trees. The power company I used to work for was testing this at the time I left. I don't know how success is measured, but its easy and fairly cheap to plant trees.

This isn't so far fetched. Forests are a natural carbon sink in the carbon cycle. Unfortunately quite the opposite is happening and much of the forest is being removed.

This isn't so far fetched. Forests are a natural carbon sink in the carbon cycle. Unfortunately quite the opposite is happening and much of the forest is being removed.

True but I read recently that it's not so simple. Apparently when the trees are first planted and start growing (the first year I believe), they actually increase the amount of carbon released into the air. (Due to releasing the carbon that was stored in the ground when planting the new trees) but over the life of a tree, it definitely removes more carbon from the air than it produces.

Also, dying trees release carbon as well.

Richard Branson is probably the greatest billionaire to ever live.

Richard Branson is probably the greatest billionaire to ever live.

Really? What makes him better than Ted Turner or Warren Buffett?

Really? What makes him better than Ted Turner or Warren Buffett?

Creativity.

Still, even if we stop emitting GHGs (and this won't happen soon!), we still would be better off if we could get rid of the ones we already spewed forth. At this point, some CO2 will be absorbed by the oceans, acidifying them and possibly wreaking havoc on marine life.

Still, even if we stop emitting GHGs (and this won't happen soon!), we still would be better off if we could get rid of the ones we already spewed forth. At this point, some CO2 will be absorbed by the oceans, acidifying them and possibly wreaking havoc on marine life.

There was a very frightening article in the New Yorker last year about PH levels in oceans. The bleached coral reefs are just a bellwether.



THE DARKENING SEA by Elisabeth Kolbert
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061120fa_fact3
Already, humans have pumped enough carbon into the oceans—some hundred and twenty billion tons—to produce a .1 decline in surface pH. Since pH, like the Richter scale, is a logarithmic measure, a .1 drop represents a rise in acidity of about thirty per cent. The process is generally referred to as “ocean acidification,” though it might more accurately be described as a decline in ocean alkalinity. This year alone, the seas will absorb an additional two billion tons of carbon, and next year it is expected that they will absorb another two billion tons. Every day, every American, in effect, adds forty pounds of carbon dioxide to the oceans.