Goin' Up To The Scrubber In The Sky

Imagine all the deep-blue sky, free of CO2. It isn't hard to do. It's easy if you try. The clean blue sky, it's where I'm gonna go when I die.

Sir Richard Branson, music industry icon, billionaire tycoon, owner of an airline -- an ambitious man who has had big oil interests -- has called attention to his deep and generous concern. He wants a cleaner, healthier biosphere. He wants a cooler planet, one with thicker and broader ice caps; with shallower oceans. He wants longer, colder, more difficult winters. And he is willing to give away $25 million to the first person who can keep winter icy-hard.

The AP (and everyone else) reported this weekend that Sir Branson, of Virgin Atlantic Airlines (and Virgin everything else), hopes that his largesse shall spur on competition for a sort of atmospheric scrubber, or a sort of sponge, or a sort of respirator, that will remove harmful levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One can't hardly be more impressed with such a noble call: Sir Branson has tapped into the deep reserves of scientific genius in the hopes of finding a cure for our self-inflicted malady.

That, I believe, is the big global warming story of the day.

But the real story is this, no?

Here we have a man who is heavily invested in the airline industry calling for someone -- anyone -- to bring forward some device or method that expurgates harmful levels of CO2 from the atmosphere. Now, let us imagine that I, of all people, have the answer to Sir Branson's challenge, and that I win his $25 million award; imagine that CO2 gases are indeed reduced, and the earth's atmosphere begins to cool to "normal" temperatures. What would happen?

What would happen is that people would not reduce their use of oil at all; rather, they would increase it. Find the certain cure for cancer and everyone starts smoking. In other words, Sir Branson's challenge is billowing with self-interest. He wants to destroy the effects of carbon-based fuel consumption in order to protect the use of carbon fuels. And even if that is NOT his motive, it will clearly be the motive for other people in similar industries. (Just forget about the political need to free the West of its dependence on Mid-East oil.) It hardly matters that Mr. Branson has also promised to invest in green fuels technologies (in his own Virgin Fuels), since that investment is also pure self-interest: he expects a return, and to cash in on popular anxieties.

Sir Branson's challenge certainly tickles the ears, but it is oozing with problems.

Or so it could be argued.

We could always just have people stop exhaling CO2 for half of each day. I mean, six billion CO2 pumps can't be one whit good. Or we could just put gels of algae over every mouth and every exhaust pipe on the planet, or fill the virgin atlantic with those great little creatures. That's it!

Peace.

BG

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All rights reserved.