Climate

It is as if we are playing chicken...
in a car, accelerating toward a cliff.

We don’t know if we will go over the cliff in 12 seconds, or 25 seconds, but if we could sober up, come down and stop tripping so hard, we might get our foot off the gas and onto the brake in time.

The accelerator is putting more carbon into the atmosphere.

The brake is taking it out.

As we all know, it doesn't do any good to hit the brake while we are still accelerating at the same time.

The first step is to get to zero. No gas, no break.

This means no net emissions of not only carbon dioxide, but also other greenhouse gases, methane, and worse yet, nitrous oxides.

What will this mean?

1. Increase the net energy efficiently of everything as fast as possible.

2. No more burning the carbon in fossil fuels, especially coal, followed by oil.

3. Capture and burn the methane from landfills and myriad agricultural sources.

4. Vastly reduce the number of cattle, both for methane emissions and deforestation.

5. No longer make ammonia fertilizers, indiscriminately releasing nitrogen from soils in the process.

The second step is to apply the brakes. This means taking net carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

What will this mean?

1. Protect and preserve the tropical rainforests. These will reabsorb net CO2 if we allow them to grow back.

2. Make charcoal from biomass, while making energy out of the rest. This will steward net carbon in the soil, increasing water holding capacity and fertility, while removing net carbon from the atmosphere.