Dr Gideon Polya is a 5-decade career biochemist, an academic, writer, artist, and human rights and climate change activist. Associated with the Australian Climate Emergency Network and the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, he is the Convenor of 300.org that, informed by the latest science, holds that we must return the world's atmospheric CO2 concentration to 300 ppm for a safe and sustainable planet for all peoples and all species (see: .http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ).
Dr Gideon Polya on acute seriousness of CH4 release in the Arctic (2013) “The acute seriousness of the present situation is revealed by the following dire estimations. The atmospheric consequence of 2 centuries of fossil fuel burning has been the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to a current 400 ppm. Top climate scientists and biologists argue that for a safe and sustainable planet there must be a return of atmospheric CO2 concentration to about 300 ppm CO2. The major means of doing this are through cessation of greenhouse gas pollution, re-afforestation and conversion of agricultural and forestry cellulosic biomass waste to biochar (charcoal, carbon) through anaerobic pyrolysis (heating at 500-700C in the absence of oxygen). The atmosphere contains about 700 billion tonnes of CO2 and hence reducing the CO2 from 400 ppm to 300 ppm means removing one quarter of the atmospheric CO2 i.e. removal of 175 billion tonnes CO2. The cost of removal of 175 billion tonnes CO2 as biochar has been estimated at $13 trillion to $53 trillion (US dollars) or 15-62% of the current world annual GDP of $85 trillion [8]. There is no indication (except from some warming-threatened island states and some prescient countries e.g. Denmark , Germany , Scotland , and China ) that the world is prepared to take serious action. [1].
[1]. Gideon Polya, “100 ideas for climate change activists trying to save the Biosphere And Humanity”, Countercurrents, 10 August 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya100813.htm .