ACTING ON CO2
02 April 2007 - Association of British Drivers

The Association of British Drivers today unveils two simple solutions to political concerns about CO2 emissions and atmospheric levels.

Claimed solutions from politicians involve introducing new taxes, increasing some existing ones, and imposing travel restrictions. This has proved baffling to members of the public, who fail to see how giving yet more money to Gordon Brown or his successors can possibly affect the environment.

The ABD today reveals altogether simpler proposals involving not taxation but the use of proven scientific approaches that we are confident will carry public approval.

The first proposal concerns the use of highly sophisticated devices that would be capable of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it into harmless and even useful substances, such as oxygen. Any other by-products would be bio-degradable.

To be aesthetically pleasing, the devices would be relatively small in size and so to be effective would need to operate in very large numbers. To achieve this, the machines would not only be capable of increasing their conversion capacity over time, but would actually be capable of producing copies of themselves so that they could in time spread across the entire surface of the planet to increase the overall efficiency of the process.

In a revolutionary move, waste material from the conversion process would be recycled as raw material to expand the size and thus the capacity of the machine. To be as environmentally friendly as possible, these devices would be entirely solar powered, and would require virtually no maintenance.

The second approach involves the construction of massive storage facilities capable of absorbing and storing large amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In order for the process to work well the combined capacity of these facilities must be greater than that of the atmosphere, so a very large surface area across the entire planet would need to be utilized. To address the predictable concerns of environmentalists over this, such storage facilities would need to satisfy visual amenity criteria and nimbyism, naturally.

To have maximum flexibility these removal and storage processes would be reversible. For example, a rise in temperature from natural causes would be sufficient to cause carbon dioxide to degas from these reservoirs. To comply with health and safety regulations the transfer of carbon dioxide to and from these facilities would occur safely over periods of time.

The ABD recently held a competition to devise names for these two solutions, and in spite of some nonsensical stuff submitted by Toad McGrew, we are today delighted to announce that there were sensible entries and that the results are now available:

* The carbon dioxide conversion machines will be called ''Terraforming Recyclers Enabling Environmental Solutions'', or ''TREES'' for short.

* The carbon dioxide storage facilities will be called ''Open Carbon Extraction And Neutralisation Systems'', or ''OCEANS'' for short.

ABD Environment Spokesman Ben Adams comments ''We believe these devices are highly effective and will continue to be so.''

ABD Chairman Brian Gregory added: ''I am sure that Gordon Brown will be delighted that these simple and politically-acceptable solutions mean that he will not have to go to the bother of introducing new ecotaxes after all. Close to £40 billion each year is plenty.''

Sir Richard Branson: Please make the cheque payable to ''The Association of British Drivers''.

www.abd.org.uk

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