[tt] BBC: Giant trees 'to clear excess CO2'

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Giant trees 'to clear excess CO2'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/wales/7429562.stm
Published: 2008/05/31 21:07:53 GMT

[Thanks to Sarah for this important technological alternative to TREES.

[She has been feeding me pro-tree propaganda ever since I came out against 
TREES on the grounds that skyscrapers were the work of man and that only 
God can make a TREE. I had long thought that being thus anti-nature was 
shared by Ayn Rand, but in her California home she planted TREES. 
Everytime Sarah and I walk past a loud machine, she says to me "That's an 
oxygen-rebreathing machine," meaning not only that TREES serve important 
functions but that, were I to get my way and have all TREES taken down 
(and replaced with those icons of capitalism, shopping malls), this 
important function could only be done with a man-made replacement that had 
horrible drawbacks, in this case, noise. I say, noise is less offensive to 
my (ersatz-)Randian sentiments than TREES.

[Any number of times, when Sarah has introduced me to someone, I 
immediately ask whether they love TREES. They all do and are shocked by my 
follow up that I hate them. I can think of no other issue on which there 
is a lone dissident.

[I shall never reveal whether I am being serious.]

The scientist who coined the term "global warming" in the 1970s has
proposed a radical solution to the problem of climate change.

Wallace Broecker advocated millions of "carbon scrubbers" - giant
artificial trees to pull CO2 from the air.

Dr Broecker told the Hay literary festival in Powys: "We've got an
extremely serious problem.

He added: "It's a race against time and we are just sort of crawling
along at a slow pace."

He said some 20 million of the scrubbing devices would be required
to capture all the CO2 currently produced in the US.

But he told the festival: "Okay, you say that's enormous, but we
make 55 million cars a year, so if we really wanted to we could.
Over 30 or 40 years we could easily make that number."

After addressing the festival, Dr Broecker told the BBC News website
that 60 million of the devices would be needed worldwide at an
estimated cost of $600bn (£303bn) a year.

The towers would be about 50ft high and 8ft in diameter, and use a
special type of plastic to absorb the CO2.

The gas would then be either liquefied under pressure and pumped
underground or turned into a mineral.

Political will

Dr Broecker said the most likely location for the towers would be
desert areas of the planet.

However, he admitted that such a project faced an uphill struggle.

"If I were a betting man I would bet against it because I don't know
if we have the political will to do it," he said.

"But looking at countries like Germany and here in the UK the will
is developing."

He said the challenge was to get rapidly developing countries such
China, India and Brazil behind the idea.