The solution to the climate-change problem should focus on carbon extraction rather than suppression of the use of fossil fuels that remain so critical to our economies. The objective should be to reach an equilibrium between the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere by man-made activities and the amount removed from the atmosphere, so that the net difference is zero.
- There should be widespread and government-sponsored reforestation programs in every state in the United States as well as a ban on all wood burning, whether in homes or for generating fuel. Trees must be regarded as nearly sacred entities.
- There should be a similar widespread and government-sponsored soil enrichment program, so that arable land is allowed to restore itself at least every other year with natural vegetation, which naturally absorbs huge quantities of carbon if allowed to restore itself.
- New industrial technologies should be further developed for extraction of carbon and other greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere, and done on a large enough scale to impact the critical equilibrium.
- There should be a carbon tax on plants that release carbon and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, so that these plants will need to quantify the amounts released and pay a tax on those amounts, which should induce them to either reduce the amounts released or seek an alternative to releasing them, i.e., trapping and solidifying the gases into solids that can be buried as an alternative, and thereby avoiding the carbon tax altogether.
The solution to the climate-change conundrum is EXTRACTION, not suppression.
Henry's Views 