For Google / Obama / White House: End Global Warming & Climate Change Now Proposal (V 1.0)

End Global Warming & Climate Change Now

This Proposal was submitted to Google’s 10^th Anniversary Project 10¹⁰⁰, described as a “call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible" (CNET); only words were allowed, no graphics or links.

My understanding is that Google adapted the Project 10¹⁰⁰ technology to develop a similar project for President Barack Obama's Open Government Change.gov website called "Citizen's Briefing Book", where it was noted that people could "Share...ideas on any issue facing the new administration, then rate or comment on other ideas. The best rated ideas will be gathered into a Citizen's Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama". I submitted essentially the same idea as the one here to Citizen's Briefing Book (as Idea Name “End Global Warming & Climate Change Now”, from Nickname “clifftrobot”). The Government submission form did not have as tight a restriction on character and word count as the Google form, so I was able to add a few additional salient points to the government version.

Additionally, I mailed and faxed a printed version of the submission to President Obama at the White House. In order to deliver all the content from the two submissions, I’ve combined all the information from the two versions into this single presentation on as follows:

• Original content, from Google Project 10¹⁰⁰ idea submission version, is presented in plain text

• Supplemental content, from Government Citizen's Briefing Book idea submission version, is presented [between brackets]

• Post-submission content, from new development updates, is presented {between braces}

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8. Your idea's name (maximum 50 characters):

01) End Global Warming & Climate Change Now

9. Please select a category that best describes your idea: Environment

· Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?

· Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?

· Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?

· Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?

· Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?

· Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?

· Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?

· Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don't fit into any category at all.

10. What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters):

Remove all CO₂ added to the air since the Industrial Revolution, in 1 - 10 years using a forest of synthetic trees.

[Continue to remove CO₂ from the present onward as a stopgap, until all countries meet UN CO₂ goals.]

11. Describe your idea in more depth (maximum 300 words):

Each of Columbia University geophysicist Klaus Lackner's synthetic trees removes 90 Kilotons of CO₂ per year. Roughly 600-900 Gigatons of CO₂ have been added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, thus requiring 10 million trees to remove it all in 1 year, or 1 million in 10 years (Al Gore’s timetable) or 0.3 million in 30 years (John Doerr’s timetable). Note that in 2002-2003 China alone added 10 million cars to its roads. Since global ice is melting much faster than predicted, consider the need as urgent & go for the shortest time period doable. Distribute mass production of trees according to each country’s global CO₂ contribution: US 22%, China 18%, Russia 6%, Japan 5%, 202 other countries 44%. Extracted CO₂ can either be…

• Sequestered using gear like Norway’s Statoilhydro Sleipner natural gas offshore CO₂ sequestration platform, & stored in areas like the Norwegian North Sea Sleipner West field sea floor porous rock layer, which Statoilhydro Project manager Tore A. Torp estimates is capable of holding 600 Gigatons of CO2

• Possibly removed entirely from the earth by venting into deep space, through a NASA Space Elevator modified as a “pipeline“, with the elevators’ carbon nanotube belt fabricated as a rectangular or circular tube. [The thickness of the earth’s atmosphere, covering the distance from earth to space, is 63 miles (the length of earth-bound gas pipelines frequently measure in the 1,000’s of miles)]. Private-sector companies currently working on designs think an operating space elevator could be built by as early as the end of this decade

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CO₂ sequestration, though currently the most popular storage solution, may not be ultimately viable for several reasons:

• Sequestration storage capacity world-wide may be insufficient; currently the total global capacity available is estimated at 1 Teraton or 1,000 Gigatons, which would be nearly filled by the “post Industrial Revolution to present” 900 Gigatons, & soon could be overflowing by adding the current estimated annual human-contributed amount of 30 Gigatons every year, no doubt sure to increase as global megacities grow

• Leaks, especially from underwater seismic events, could be catastrophic. Consequently the modified NASA Space Elevator Pipeline, a “civilizations’ exhaust pipe” with no storage limits, would seem a safer & more effective solution

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An unanticipated consequence of global ice melting much faster than predicted is an additional CO₂ release source from polar permafrost melt, which is exposing formerly frozen tundra to the sun, resulting in the resumption of the tundras' natural CO₂releasing vegetative decay process, now being observed in rapid advance and estimated capable of contributing an additional double or triple the amount added by humanity since the Industrial Revolution (IR). To handle this additional CO₂ removal we could enhance our strategy by approaches like increasing the number of trees from 2-3 times &/or, if the tundra contributed amount will take some time to accumulate, breakdown the grand total CO₂ amount, for example "3 times the original IR amount", into 3 block amounts fed sequentially across time into the tree forest, i.e. a sample scenario might be, remove the 1^st 900 Gigaton IR amount the 1^st year, over which year the tundra replaces it with its "double amount", run the trees another year to remove the double amount, over which year the tundra replaces it with its final "triple amount", run the trees a final year to remove the last of polar tundra contributed CO₂ . The timing might get a bit tight & we may actually blow past the ecological tipping points temporarily, teetering at the precipice as it were, reminiscent of nearly the same situation we experienced recently in economic terms, when the nation seemed balanced on the brink of economic meltdown from the banking and mortgage crisis, looming before President Obamas' election. Teetering at the brink, tipping point alarms sounding & thermometers in the red & rising, the full force of the trees working at the max passes their own tipping point as they reach equilibrium - CO₂ extracted balances, & then surpasses, CO₂ added, thermometers reach their highest point but stop rising, then slowly begin to fall, as the CO₂ release process is caught up with, stopped & turned around. The shortness of time we have to resolve this problem invokes an 11^th hour style scenario that humanity has often encountered throughout history, which seems to serve as a final trigger of sufficient force that invokes a "humanities' finest hour" response, setting aside differences & rallying the troops into often heroic action.

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Of all global warming/CO₂ removal geo-engineering proposals, such as increasing cloud/ice reflectivity, stimulating oceanic plankton blooms or launching orbiting space sunshades, most all of which augur unanticipated & potentially disastrous run-away ecological responses, synthetic trees are the safest because they aren’t ecosystem invasive - they simply mimic natural trees’ CO₂ removal ability & can be switched off when done.

12. What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words):

Catastrophic global climate change, due to the global warming

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If we do not effectively & quickly respond to climate change, we soon pass all the ecological tipping points & a “perfect storm” of disasters kicks in – as global ice continues melting much faster than predicted, (primarily due to surface melt water draining thru crevasses to greatly lubricate under-glacier slippage planes, seriously accelerating glacial movement off land & into sea - estimates for year 2100 melt rates were recently revised to a much earlier 2020-2030), so global warming finishes melting (a) mountain glaciers, (causing Asia’s & the Middle East’s main rivers to dry up, which 2/3 of global population depend on for fresh water & agriculture; contributing 15 feet to ocean rise) (b) Greenland (contributing 20 feet to ocean rise) (c) western Antarctic ice shelf (contributing 20 feet to ocean rise) (d) the rest of the Antarctic (contributing 250 feet to ocean rise). Total ocean rise passes 300 feet in a world where 40% of the global population lives along shorelines. All the ice gone in turn leads to a vastly diminished planetary albedo (the total ice-based white surface area available to reflect solar radiation back into space), leading instead to capturing more solar radiation over greatly increased areas of dark ocean exposed from the melted ice, heating up the oceans (due to their being a thermal mass acting as heat sink), where temperature rise kills off the oceanic plankton, as well as terrestrial microbes that support plant growth, both creatures constituting the base of the planetary food chain.

Additionally, there are two further devastating consequences of global warming, coming from prehistoric times, when the planet’s polar regions were once vast tropical areas covered in lush, dense vegetation, now frozen as a dense tundra in a permafrost layer below the ice, and when, in that era, nature, through the action of the oceans, absorbed and sequestered vast amounts of excess CO₂ and methane, generated from sources like volcanoes and decaying biomass, and stored these gases as vast fields of frozen ices at the bottom of the oceans on the sea floor, the problems being (a) as polar ice melts, the tundra thaws, releasing vast amounts of additional CO₂ into the atmosphere – the amount in the arctic alone is estimated at 200 Gigatons of CO₂ (b) as the oceans warm, they melt and additionally release the vast amounts of frozen sea floor CO₂ and methane into the atmosphere. Particularly troubling is the frozen methane, a white carbonate rock ice known as Gas Hydrate which can be ignited and burns like a natural gas, making it an alternative energy source being considered for extraction by deep sea ocean mining platforms (though burning it releases additional greenhouse gas into the atmosphere). Doctor Roger Sassen estimates there is enough Gas Hydrate on the ocean floor to provide for the entire planets’ human energy needs for the next several thousand years. Unfortunately, the release of these gases into the atmosphere from global warming would not be gradual – as heating water abruptly transitions from liquid to gas at the boiling point of 212°, once the melting points of the arctic permafrost tundra and sea floor ices are reached, massive releases of the gases would occur planetary-wide in abrupt bursts or “burps“, relatively instantly adding significantly more greenhouse gas, with methane being 25 times more lethal than CO₂, than humanity has added since the Industrial Revolution. This natural phenomena has already been observed occurring in a small but deadly form, and was recently documented in a BBC/TLC Documentary titled ”Killer Lakes”, describing life-threatening explosions of gas from CO₂/methane buildup in several West African lakes, the phenomena itself being known as “lake overturn”. According to “Yahoo! Answers”, “lake overturn, also referred to as limnic eruption or exploding lake, is a rare type of natural disaster in which carbon dioxide gas suddenly erupts from the deep lake waters, posing the threat of suffocation for those on the shores. CO2 saturation usually takes place due to volcanic activity or decomposition of organic matter. Such an eruption may also cause tsunamis in the lake as the rising CO2 displaces water. Scientists believe landslides, volcanic activity, or explosions can trigger such an eruption”. According to the BBC report, “When Mount Nyiragongo erupted in the Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2002 it seemed like a disaster. Molten lava plunged down the hillside and poured into nearby Lake Kivu. Many died, and much of the city of Goma was destroyed. In fact, the local people were lucky. Had the eruption spread to one of the many volcanic faults under Lake Kivu, it could have unleashed one of the most terrifying of all natural phenomena - lake overturn [which causes]…Death by suffocation…The phenomenon of lake overturn first struck in 1984 at Lake Monoun, in Cameroon. 37 people mysteriously died, suddenly and silently. In 1986, before research into the Monoun disaster was made public, it all happened again. The tragedy of Lake Nyos, also in Cameroon, made headlines around the world when almost 1,800 people sleeping in houses around the lake suffocated in their sleep. The team of scientists that went to investigate concluded that carbon dioxide, trapped at the bottom of the lake, had suddenly risen to the surface, killing everything within 25km. They called their theory lake overturn. The Nyos disaster promoted a survey of deep lakes in Africa and Indonesia to see where else lake overturn could happen. All seem to be safe, except one - Lake Kivu, in Rwanda. Lake Kivu is one of the largest and deepest lakes in Africa and two million people live around its shore. It is also filling up with carbon dioxide, although it's not yet saturated with the deadly gas. The only thing that could trigger a gas release would be a massive geological event. Worryingly, Lake Kivu is sitting in an earthquake zone and surrounded by active volcanoes, including Mount Nyiragongo. If an eruption or an earthquake was to happen under the lake, then the effect could release millions of tons of asphyxiating gas into the surrounding areas. Until a solution is found, millions of lives could be at risk”. Thus a massive global ”burp” of ocean floor CO₂/methane, likely accompanied by tsunamis, could trigger a life mass-extinction event from world-wide suffocation and drowning, on a par with the common planetary Extinction-Level Event (ELE) scenario of astronomers reporting the discovery of a large meteor headed toward Earth, due to impact sometime over the next few decades – with global ice melting far faster than predicted, our plight seems relatively dire & the time to turn things around fairly short, so the sooner we can get Prof. Lackners’ artificial trees forested, the better we can all breathe easier, literally.

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13. If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words):

100% of life on earth in general and human civilization in particular would benefit by avoiding possible species extinction due to catastrophic climate change

14. What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words):

The following steps to the “firing up” of the synthetic tree forest should be doable within 2 years:

1) Develop a “Marshall Plan”-style program to implement the project. [For inspiration & confirmation that we can do this, look to previous generations’ response to a global threat, for example, global domination by Nazism in World War II & the rapid response of the American people in the massive ramping up of factories for warplanes & munitions production, as well as & the building up of the huge naval battle fleets at our Kaiser shipyards]

2) Propose the plan to all the countries of the earth at the United Nations, as meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals, “Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability”

3) Mass produce the trees as we mass produce cars at an auto factory – the tree is far simpler & cheaper than a car. [If there are shutdown auto manufacturing facilities available, for example in the USA at Detroit, Michigan, then retrofit & repurpose the factories’ assembly lines for the project – this offers the additional benefit of providing jobs for the laid-off autoworker community.] Additionally, include plans for global distribution, installation & startup

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To spur development of the CO₂ Removal & Space Elevator technologies, there are several major “X-Prize” style contests, including:

• Virgins’ “Earth Challenge” ($25 million), announced by Sir Richard Branson & Al Gore. Branson states, “we set up to $25 million to see if somebody out there can come up with a way of extracting carbon out of the earth’s atmosphere”, & Gore adds, “Sir Richard’s initiative…is important and welcome”

• Spaceward Foundations’ “Elevator 2010 Space Elevator Challenge” ($4 million). Spaceward states “Our prize money is provided by NASA's Centennial Challenges program”

• Googles’ “Project 10¹⁰⁰” ($10 million). Google describes the project as “a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible"

To support Prof. Lackner’s development of artificial trees, I’ve submitted a recommendation to the Google Project, essentially the same as I’m submitting here, to utilize the artificial trees to end global warming, & I’ve emailed him at his 2 addresses (Columbia University & Global Research Technologies) regarding the Google submission & Virgin Earth Challenge.

Virgin Earth Challenges’ Sir Richard Branson states “Global warming is perhaps the greatest threat the planet faces”, while Al Gore has proposed a "Generational Challenge" on “Climate Change”, & recommended a “10-Year Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis”, stating that “the world's scientists…the…leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis”. Al Gore’s chief ally, the “Paul Revere” of climate change, Dr. James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has said of the global warming/CO₂ situation, “The idea is an emergency; we’ve reached a point where we need drastic actions very quickly if we’re going to avoid disaster.” {In February 2009, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists reported to Congress that, to avoid passing the tipping point of irreversible damage from climate change, by reining in and getting control of CO₂ emissions globally, we currently have about 6 years}

Consequently, to repeat, with global ice melting far faster than predicted, our plight seems relatively dire & the time to turn things around fairly short, so the sooner we can get Prof. Lackners’ artificial trees forested, the better we can all breathe easier, literally.

An additional benefit of artificial trees is that, like a “planetary artificial lung”, they give humanity breathing room. If countries fail to meet their CO₂ removal deadlines, & even if all other removal schemes fail, the trees will remove all post Industrial Revolution CO₂ to the present & can continue to run as a stopgap to remove future global annual contributions. (Note: Currently, 2 tree footprints are commonly seen: (1) a cabinet-size model extracting 1 ton/day (2) a shipping container model extracting 90,000 tons/year)

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15. Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words)

Atmospheric CO₂ would be restored to pre-Industrial Revolution levels in 1 to 10 years, as measurement of CO₂ levels would confirm, & would stay that way for the foreseeable future. Global warming would end, catastrophic climate change would be averted, & life on earth would survive to enjoy such experiences as KPCB “Green” Venture Capitalist John Doerr’s having a wonderful lunch with his daughter in 2020

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18. If you'd like to recommend a specific organization, or the ideal type of organization, to execute your plan, please do so here. (maximum 50 words)

1) Al Gore and company to help develop strategic program “Marshall Plan” 2) Klaus Lackner, geophysicist at Columbia University to provide Synthetic Tree technology 3) Statoilhydro Project manager Tore Torp to consult on CO₂ Sequestration 4) Bradley Edwards, HighLift Systems, Space Elevator Conference, to consult on Space Elevator modification proposal

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[Supplemental]

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“Optional supplemental potential resource” - Google Project 10¹⁰⁰ “X-Prize” as initial funding for the “End Global Warming & Climate Change Now” idea

Google states “Project 10¹⁰⁰“ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.…We'll help bring these ideas to life...We're committing $10 million to implement these projects... Thank you to everyone who submitted an idea. We received over 100,000!...We'll post a selection of one hundred ideas and ask you, the public, to choose twenty semi-finalists. Then an advisory board will select up to five final ideas...Once we've selected up to five ideas for funding, we will use an RFP process to identify the organization(s) that are in the best position to implement the selected ideas. We will be providing funding to these organizations to implement the ideas [& not to the submitter of the idea]…Voting Begins: March 17th, 2009”. I submitted this idea (as Idea Name: 01) End Global Warming & Climate Change Now, Nickname: Cliff_"High-Tech") to Project 10¹⁰⁰. If the idea makes it to finals & can be voted as a winner on Project 10¹⁰⁰ (for Prof. Lackner & his organization), then this idea would come funded with some millions of dollars provided freely by Google prize money & not from a government source levied by taxes, so I encourage folks to check back on the Project 10¹⁰⁰ website when “Voting Begins: March 17th, 2009”.

“End Global Warming & Climate Change Now” – Epilog

Because the Google Project 10¹⁰⁰ website idea submissions are not, at the time of this writing, listed & searchable, I’ve placed a copy of the submitted “End Global Warming & Climate Change Now” idea, along with a few other related “ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible”, on a “Project 10¹⁰⁰“ webpage on my website “VillageTech.org” (chronicles my after-hours efforts assisting developing nation villages with appropriate technology projects), & I’ve included a "Send me a reminder to vote" link on the page.

“End Global Warming & Climate Change Now” – Graphic

“End Global Warming & Climate Change Now” – Video

From “Five Ways to Save the World”, a 1 hour documentary on the November 2006 NASA Ames Geoengineering Meeting on Global Warming/Climate Change, a 3 minute YouTube clip & the full 1hr show (last 10 minutes is Lackner's segment) from Google (medium res) & Veoh (high res): YouTube, Google Video, Veoh Networks

Background Links:

Info

• CO₂ added to Atmosphere: Since Industrial Revolution; Since 2004 Annually

• CO₂ Sequestration (Statoilhydro Sleipner): Facility, Storage, Animation

• “Ocean Overturn” (seafloor CO₂/methane release, as similarly occurs in lakes): BBC “Killer Lakes” Overturn video

• Space Elevator: Description, Details

• X-Prize: Virgin Earth Challenge, Elevator 2010 Space Elevator Challenge, Google Project 10¹⁰⁰

• Global Warming (Al Gore): 10-Year Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis

• “End Global Warming & Climate Change Now” proposal (version submitted to President Barack Obama's Open Government Change.gov s’ "Citizen's Briefing Book": “End Global Warming & Climate Change Now” on "Citizen's Briefing Book"

Contacts & Organizations

• Klaus S. Lackner, Prof. of Geophysics, Dept. of Earth & Environmental Engineering, Columbia University & Co-Founder / Chairman, Global Research Technologies (GRT), for artificial tree tech: Columbia, GRT

• Tore A. Torp, VP Research, Statoil Research Centre, Statoilhydro Sacs Project Mngr, to consult on CO₂ Sequestration: UN IPPC, Contact

• Dr. Bradley Edwards, President, Black Line Ascension, to consult on Space Elevator modification proposal: Website

• Al Gore, Chairman, The Alliance for Climate Protection, to help develop strategic program “Marshall Plan”: Website

• Kaiser Engineers, About (A lengthy but inspirational account of how Henry J. Kaiser developed his beliefs ("A Problem Is An Opportunity In Work Clothes"), project philosophy ("Do it faster, cheaper, and better"), and assembled the resources to handle massive engineering projects, some the largest in history, which resources came to the fore and were fully engaged with the arrival of World War II, Kaiser being the largest of the home front generals of industry, mustering “the equivalent of 20 military divisions, 300,000 workers, engaged in a war effort manufacturing munitions, planes, and ships…In July 1943, they launched a Liberty ship built in an unheard of 29 days.” In the early decades of my growing up, my folks were a Kaiser engineering family, starting with our move from California to work on the Kaiser Tata Steel Mill Expansion project in Jamshedpur, India, where we lived from 1956-1959: About Kaiser Engineers

Updates

Large footprint tree (90 Kiloton/Year)

• "Synthetic Tree Soaks Up Carbon 1000x Faster Than the Real Thing...Klaus Lackner, a professor at Columbia University who is developing the tree, met with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu...to talk about the concept...Each synthetic tree could collect about 90,000 tons of carbon per year." -- Popular Science, 06.24.2009: Article

Small footprint tree (1 Ton/Day)

• "Scrubbing CO2 With Synthetic Trees...The technology...exists now, Mr. Lackner said, suggesting that the first synthetic trees could be up and collecting within two years." -- NY Times, 07.01.2009: Article

United Nation's Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen

• Google: Climate change in Google Earth