Geoengineering is the only way to reduce atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm
One of the most interesting organizations mobilizing to build public support for measures against Global Warming is called 350.org. Founded by Bill McKibben, the author of the important book "The End of Nature", 350.org takes its inspiration from scientific studies by Dr. James Hansen that show that dangerous levels of global warming can be avoided if atmospheric CO2 can be kept below 350 ppm. Unfortunately, as shown in the diagram above, atmospheric CO2 is currently just going over 400 ppm. And even more unfortunately, unlike the diagram above, CO2 is on track to continue rising to 500 or even 600 ppm---levels last seen on earth millions of years ago when the planet was too warm for ice sheets and sea level was 100 feet higher than now.
350.org got started in 2008, and since then has focused on organizing "days of action" where people can come together in mass demonstrations in support of stopping climate change and reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 350 ppm. There have been a series of mass demonstrations including the International Day of Climate Action in 2009, the Global Work Party in 2010, Moving Planet in 2011, Climate Impacts Day in 2012, and the People's Climate March held in New York City in 2014, the largest anti-Global Warming mass demonstration in history. In the short term 350.org works on campaigns to fight coal fired electrical plants, stop the construction of oil pipelines, and to reduce the use of fossil fuels and concomitant release of CO2 into the atmosphere but their stated goal is the reduction of atmospheric CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 ppm.
Curiously, for an organization based on scientific concepts derived from the work of Dr. James Hansen, 350.org seems oblivious to the fact that none of their activities will return the earth's atmosphere to 350 ppm CO2. Many scientific studies show that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is ca. 800-1000 years. This means that the current level of over 400 ppm will continue for hundreds of years into the future, and if new CO2 continues to be added to the atmosphere so CO2 levels rise to 500 or 600 ppm, then those higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will be present for the next 800-1000 years.
I completely agree with Dr. James Hansen and 350.org that it is highly desirable to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 350 ppm. But how can this goal be achieved? It seems obvious to me that that only way to stop CO2 from increasing in the atmosphere, and the only way to reduce atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm, is to develop and apply an appropriate geoengineering method. And yet many climate activists oppose geoengineering just as strongly as they oppose ongoing global warming. This is an unfortunate thing, because the only way to reduce atmosphere CO2 is geonginering. There is no other way to do it.
I therefore encourage the people at 350.org and other climate change groups to consider supporting development of ways to geoengineer earth's climate. It may seem improbable to some that geoengineering can reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, but that is precisely the goal of my own CO2 Antarctic Pumpdown geoengineering proposal as well as several other geoengineering ideas. If geoengineering isn't attempted, then CO2 will build up in the atmosphere for hundreds of years---creating an impossible situation. And, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character Sherlock Holmes once said:
'How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?'
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