Part of the problem is the way we are accounting for methane in the Co2 “equal” system. In practical terms, it weighs more than double what it’s recognised. We need to update the GWP of methane to reflect reality. Then we need to get s*h*i*t* scared and make some really effective climate policy aimed at diet (it’s only healthier to eat less animal products anyway so it will be like patting two birds with one hand).

At the very least this solution should be presented in your list and the lists of others. Realistically, everyone should be informed that the best thing they can do to ensure the continuation of humanity on earth would be to eat a plant-based diet.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/060413.diet.shtml

Talk to an industrial hemp expert. Someone who can explain how we can get 500 gallons of fuel from and acre of land and that we can get all of our transportation and heating and cooling energy from industrial hemp within the next three years if crises management techniques are employed.

We don’t have to sacrifice land used for food crops. We in the U.S., can use land in the Soil Bank, we can also use some of the 500 million uncultivated acres in America, and do so with no pesticides or herbicides or chemical fertilizers, and we can grow hemp… harvest after harvest on the same land. Rotation not needed. And, in warmer climates get three to four harvests per year.

We could eliminate all the raping of our forests and their ecological systems because hemp was the world’s first paper. We shut down hundreds of coal fired plants, eliminate the desacration of mountain tops, prevent the fools’ errand of pumping CO2 underground, and eliminate the constant seepage of CO2 and NO into the atmosphere from pipelines and drilling sites.

Moreover, the buildup of methane hydrates would be eliminated and less methane (20-30 times more powerful than CO2 as a warming agent) would seep into the atmosphere as oil drilling ceased.

Ya, get someone who really knows how in the next year we could plant 140-150 million acres to industrial hemp and solve so many of our ecological, environmental, energy and economic problems. Look at the jobs that would create.

Here is a slide show clarifying many misconceptions about forests, logging, and carbon:
http://www.slideshare.net/ dougoh/ forest-carbon-climate-myths-presentation/
(For full effect click “full” in the lower right.)

Here is a more detailed foot-noted report on forests, carbon and climate change:
http://tinyurl.com/2n96m5

Women’s access to reproductive health care and non-coercive family planning. One could write a book and many, such as Robert Engleman of Worldwatch Institute, already have.

Suffice it to say that as women’s health goes, so goes the health of the planet. All of our solutions won’t add up to much if there are too many of us. Overpopulation only exacerbates everything else.

Historically women have limited fertility when the option is available, so this is not exactly based on changing behavior. Modern birth control is based on modern medical technology.

I just stumbled on your blog after reading Friedman’s article in the NYT.
One thing I’m looking for are suggestions how an individual can help prevent carbon emissions. Simple suggestions about what to do in daily life.

I’m sure there are a ton of such lists out there but it would be nice to have some suggestions from an expert like you.

great list of resources
Off recent i came across a road tour, dedicated to climate change and creating awareness. I guess these links should interest you.
http://www.indiaclimatesolutions.com/blog

We’re stuck with pulverized coal plants for the near term, and it is in the near term (before 2050) that solutions must be found and massively deployed worldwide to reduce CO2 emissions. Simple and high volume (i.e. non-chemical and non-compression) post-combustion carbon capture and dissociation or mineralization should therefore be the top priority. Biofuels, IGCC, hydrogen cars, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc. may make some contribution some day, but they can’t be the near term solution for the world’s energy demand, and dollars spent on them are not going to the top priority. Here is one idea, for mechanical carbon capture by a novel gas centrifuge: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090013867

Conservation is a great goal, and an immediate necessity, but few Americans are aware and austere enough to cut back, and the rest are easily persuaded by the deniers that no conservation is necessary. So don’t count on public education and conservation to save us.

Outside the US, in China and India, pulverized coal is what keeps the lights on, and expecting them to give up modern living to save the polar bears is not realistic, especially when they see the opulent and wasteful Americans doing nothing.

CFCs and HCFCs are at least 12% of the ’stock’ of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and there is much that can be done to reclaim emissions of these gases before they are released from the installed bank of existing equipment.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are around 2% of the annual ‘flow’ of emissions, and are forecast to grow very rapidly in the abscence of concerted efforts to prevent them replacing the ozone depleting CFCs and HCFCs by using natural refrigerants such as ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons instead. These genuinely climate friendly solutions are well proven, widely available in some markets (such as Europe), and in need of rapid expansion throughout the world. SF6, PFCs and NF3 are also gases that have no place in a safe climate, and require much greater attention.

There are efforts to seek much greater action on PIGGS from the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols that are well documented at http://www.eia-international.org/ campaigns/ global_environment/ reports/

I would be very grateful for any comments on the importance of addressing these issues by taking on the largely US based fluorochemical industry.