Could US Scientist's 'CO2 Catcher' Help To Slow Warming?

by David Adam - May 31 2008 - The Guardian (London)

It has long been the holy grail for those who believe that technology can save us from catastrophic climate change: a device that can "suck" carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, reducing the warming effect of the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas produced each year.

Now a group of US scientists say they have made a breakthrough towards creating such a machine. Led by Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University in New York, they plan to build and demonstrate a prototype within two years that could economically capture a tonne of CO2 a day from the air, about the same per passenger as a flight from London to New York.

I don't know whether to cry or laugh.

First please note that global warming has ended for the last decade and temps have stopped rising even though CO2 has continued to increase.

Second, Any plant will remove CO2 from the air. The more CO2 that is in the air, the better plants do. The increase in CO2 is helping farmers. Removing CO2 will harm plants and farmers. Plant conversion of CO2 is part of the natural balance that keeps the earth stable.

So why does this mania to stop global warming continue?

A perfect example of the beneficial effects of warming is the people in Greenland who are delighted that (just as during the last warm age here on Earth) they are able to grow crops again.

I repeatedly tell people to look at the renaissance period and explain to me why they are so sure that warming is bad. It was great for mankind then. Why are the chicken little idiots able to convince people that this time it will be a catastrophe?

We have the incredible situation that people who aren't sure that CO2 is warming the planet or not are working diligently to reduce it "just in case". What if they screw up the climate and send us into an ice age? How do we deal with that? If that happens can we kill the idiots who caused the ice age?