[extropy-chat] Save the World

[Keith Henson]

At 08:47 AM 2/12/2007 +1030, you wrote:

snip
>As to "scrubbing greenhouse gaess out of the atmosphere",
>that's a red herring. They're are already being rather efficiently
>scrubbed, what is needed is reducing our emissions.


I have said for 20 years that the real carbon dioxide crisis will come from 
*to little* of it in the atmosphere.  The reason is that diamond or carbon 
nanotubes are the best engineering material for a lot of uses.  "Come the 
revolution" (the nanotech revolution) carbon will rapidly be mined out of 
the air to build structures large and small.  Want a vacuum tunnel from NYC 
to LA?  Plant a line of engineered trees that suck carbon out of the air 
and excrete diamond deep underground for the tube shell.

Given more energy than sunlight to power the process, it could go really fast.

Keith Henson