[ExI] Carbon

[Keith Henson]

Twenty two years ago I wrote:

". . . the real carbon dioxide crisis will be when there is too little
from people taking carbon (the strongest engineering material) out of
the air to build houses, roads, tunnels through the mantle, industrial
works, and spacecraft in large numbers."

Carbon is for many purposes the best engineering material.  Think of
the compressive strength of diamond and the tensile strength of
nanotubes.

It is freely available to mine from the air and takes (in this
context) modest energy to convert it to elemental form.

Post or even slightly pre singularity I don't see how we can avoid a
crash in the CO2 content of the air.  As I put it:

"Some civic minded types (the Autaban Society? Serria Club?) might
burn coal fields to bring the level back up so plant productivity
wouldn't be seriously hurt."

People who are worried about the climate of the year 2100 don't seem
to be aware of the larger picture.  Extropians should be.

Keith