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Newsletter - October 2009 | |
 Virgin Earth Challenge |
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Graham carrying out 'research' |
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No doubt many proposals involve 'hard' hi-tech engineering, but the Cannons' ideas are to harness natural processes to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The idea comes from what happened hundreds of millions of years ago, carbon dioxide levels were much higher than today and this was removed as organisms created carbon-rich bodies, such as trees, which were buried (and therefore not released back into the atmosphere) creating coal, oil and other fossil fuels; the burning of which has given rise to the current problems. Carbon was also removed from the air by organisms to form their skeletons, in particular sea creatures such as shellfish, coral and plankton. The massive Yorkshire Dales limestones and the white chalk cliffs of the south coast are all carbon deposits laid down in past millenia, mainly precipitated by sea organisms. Unlike fossil fuels, these rocks are stable and form a permanent carbon sink that will not be released. So our recommendation is a simple one - encourage the growth of crustaceans. On the Atlantic coast of France, there is extensive shellfish culture. This could be expanded to other parts of the world, and perhaps these shellfish industries could be given grants and encouragement (the negative carbon food option). Coral reef growth could be encouraged, for example off the artificial shallow islands 'The Palm' and 'The World' in the Arabian Gulf. So remember, every time you eat a plate of mussels, the pile of waste shells represents carbon permanently removed from the atmosphere - and they taste so good.
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Virgin is sponsoring a world-wide competition to search for technologies that can be used to halt and preferably reverse climate change. Worms Eye's MD, Graham Cannon, and his son Freddie (a student at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales) have made a joint submission to this challenge.