Question about global warming and carbon

[OnionPatch]

This might be a stupid question, but are there any (practical) ways to remove some of the carbon in the atmosphere? With all the weird weather and signs that global warming is already happening, is reducing carbon emissions, even drastically, going to be enough?

[wtmusic]

1. Carbon sequestration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration

[NNadir]

2. To answer your first question: Only if you have energy.

If your energy comes from fossil fuels you are attempting to build a perpetual motion machine. The building of perpetual motion machines often has popular appeal.

Plants remove carbon dioxide from the air using solar energy. It has nothing to do with Governor Hydrogen Hummer.

To answer your second question, I very much doubt that reducing carbon dioxide emissions even drastically, will be enough. The only approach is to stop carbon dioxide emissions. It can be done, but not without great effort and a change of some rather ridiculous public attitudes.

[skids]

3. There are various proposals...

...most involve trapping it in a very cold pool of the ocean, e.g. stuff like this here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/thin-soup-and-a-thin-story/#more-440

Almost all have to rely on vast population of organisms to do so, or at least artificial photosynthesis. Though I suppose one mechanical solution would be to reduce the energy needed to create dry ice by doing it at the poles where it's already very cold -- and then figure out how to store it to keep it in that form.... somehow.

[bananas]

4. $25 Million Offered In Climate Challenge

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

$25 Million Offered In Climate Challenge
Tycoon Hopes to Spur Milestone Research

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A13

LONDON, Feb. 9 -- British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, with former vice president Al Gore at his side, offered a $25 million prize Friday to anyone who can come up with a way to blunt global climate change by removing at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the Earth's atmosphere.

Branson, saying that the "survival of our species" is imperiled by current environmental trends, said the prize was similar to cash inducements that led to some of history's most notable achievements in navigation, exploration and industry. A competition launched in the 17th century, he said, resulted in the creation of a method to accurately estimate longitude.

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The winner of the contest must devise a plan to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere without creating adverse effects. The first $5 million would be paid upfront, and the remainder of the money would be paid only after the program had worked successfully for 10 years.

<snip>

Other judges in the competition are James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies; British environmentalists and authors James Lovelock and Crispin Tickell; and Australian conservationist and author Tim Flannery.

<snip>